Street Photography Magazine

Street Photography | Equipment and Preparation

A city shoot can easily see you spending

several hours on your feet, so it is important to

use equipment that isn’t too heavy.

You need to know your camera’s switches

and functions well so that you can react

quickly to any situation that crosses your path.

If you have to spend too much time making

the right setting, your subject will be long

gone!

Types of Camera

Due to their light weight and quiet operation,

Leicas have always been lauded as ‘the’ street

photographer’s camera. Leica lenses, too, are

of excellent quality and are very compact.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank are just

two of the famous names who used Leica gear

to capture their best shots. High prices and

sometimes complex handling are the

downside of the Leica experience and make

these cameras less suitable for beginners.

Cheaper compact cameras are small and

easy to carry, but often suffer from a degree of

shutter lag that makes them unsuitable for

spontaneous shooting. Compacts also have

much smaller image sensors, which gives

them greater depth of field, even when you

are shooting at wider apertures. If you like

using wide-aperture effects, remember that

the sensors in Micro Four Thirds (MFT)

mirrorless system cameras such as the

Panasonic LUMIX and Olympus PEN models

are significantly smaller than those found in

most DSLRs. The Sony NEX range and the

Fujifilm X100 have APS-C sensors that lie

between the MFT and full-frame sizes. If you

use a DSLR, always carry a spare battery and

make sure that everything is set up so that only

minimal adjustments will be required while

shooting. The smaller the camera you use, the

less conspicuous your activity will be.

Choosing a Lens

Fixed focal length lenses with large maximum

apertures are perfect for most street situations.

Wide apertures make it possible to shoot using

short exposure times, even if there is little

ambient light available – for instance, at dusk

or in bad weather. If you want to use motion

blur creatively, you can always stop down the

aperture to increase your exposure time. Using

a fixed focal length lens is a great way to train

your eye and practice framing. If you only have

a zoom lens, simply set it to a preset focal

length and leave it there while you shoot.

50mm lenses are well-loved all-rounders that

double as great short telephotos when used

with non-full-frame cameras. Medium

wide-angles with equivalent focal lengths

between 28 and 35 mm are perfect for

capturing the surroundings of a subject as

context

Less is More

You won’t need a tripod or an accessory flash

for daytime shoots. The less gear you have to

carry, the more likely you are to take your

camera with you on an outing and the easier

you will find it to work. For ‘pure’ street

photography, doing without a tripod

altogether gives you maximum freedom of

movement. If you still find yourself needing to

use longer exposure times, you can always

open up your aperture and/or increase your

ISO value. In emergencies, a little camera shake

doesn’t necessarily detract from the overall

effectiveness of an image.

Right-angle Viewfinders

A right-angle viewfinder is a really useful

accessory if your camera doesn’t have a tiltable

monitor, and enables you to frame low or

ground level shots without having to lie down.

It is also helps to make your use of the camera

less conspicuous. Even in urban situations, I

often recommend that my students place their

cameras on the ground for certain types of

shots, making an angle finder much more than

just a landscape photographer’s accessory.

Preparing for a Shoot

If you have a relatively light

camera, a Gorillapod is a great

accessory for taking night shots

or shooting from unusual angles

ISO 200 | 56mm focal length |

f2.8 | 1/3200 s

Full-frame Leica cameras are

compact and extremely quiet

due to the lack of a reflex mirror

in the rangefinder design

ISO 200 | 50mm focal length |

f3.2 | 1/60 s