Taking a break from the streets...

I had some major changes in my life the past year and I have not been in the mood for doing much street photography. So I have decided to take a break from both shooting the streets and this blog until I feel I have something to offer...

"Rain" (Fujifilm X100)

How to shoot – Part II – focal length

The street season has finally started here in Sweden, and with that I mean the season where you actually can shoot without risking your fingers to frostbite. I haven’t done any real street sessions yet this year, but the camera is always with me so there is always some moments to get some training.

In this post I will talk about different focal lengths for street photography. Many street shooters out there are sworn to the 35 or 50 mm focal length and could never see themselves shooting with a telephoto or a wide angle lens. I also had this narrow minded approach to street photography until recent. Just until one year ago I would not really care much for shooting with a telephoto lens. I would be within the 24-50 mm focal length (35 mm equivalent) for most of my street work. Today I would reach for anything between 21 mm to 400 mm (or even longer for some purpose) for my street photography. I don’t think the focal length defines the genre of street photography, there are just different tools and perspectives and different scenes demand different focal lengths. Although I would say most of my shots are and most probably will be between 35-135 mm, I would not hesitate to use a longer lens like a 300 mm for street portraiture.

It all comes down to what you want to say and show with the photograph. Do you want to have a wide scene with all of the information around the “subject” or do you want to isolate and get rid of distractions. It is all up to you! Only you can decide what you want to express with your photograph.

This year I have decided to experiment with different focal lengths and I will continue with my candid street photo series that I just started to investigate last year. I will try some different approaches for this task, including my Pentax K-5 with the 70/2.4 Limited lens which I really love, and it will for sure be interesting. I also have a secret project for 2014, which I will reveal later on.

To be continued…

Here are some photos from the last weeks.

How to shoot? (part I)

Street photography is a very broad term and covers a lot of ground within the realm of photography. Some are using a mobile phone to make their street photographs; others are using expensive gear like a Leica. What works for someone else, maybe doesn’t suit your kind of photography (or wallet). There are different styles of shooting, and I don’t think you can learn street photography from workshops that some street shooters out there offer. If anything, street photography is very personal and it deserves a personal style of shooting. Sure you can learn about composition and the rule of thirds, the golden ratio etc, but you most probably don’t have to spend your hard earned cash doing so. There is something called the Internet…and by a simple Google search you have access to a vast amount of knowledge. This being said, workshops are of course not only a source to learn, but also an opportunity to meet other people with the same interest in photography. So if you want to meet other street photographers a workshop would probably be a great idea, but for educational purpose I would say it is a bit overrated.

For me at least, the best way to develop my skills as a street photographer (or any kind of photography) is just to go out and shoot as much as possible. I prefer to walk the streets alone; I want to be stealthy so I dress in a way that doesn't stand out in a crowd. I prefer dark clothes and black cameras. I walk slowly and I try to not make any fast sudden movements. When I think of it, it is a bit like dancing in slow motion. The most important thing of all is to observe, really observe. I pretend I am an alien from some distant civilization that crashed on planet earth with a Fuji X100 in my hand (or the preferred camera of the day). The most ordinary things are put into a new light and you start to see things you would have missed otherwise. I am a nature person that loves to be out in the wild doing bird watching, swimming in a lake or the ocean, hiking or mountain climbing etc. So when I enter the crowded streets, it is like going to the zoo with a camera, shooting pictures of the animals. Sometimes I have a theme or a task that I am shooting for, but every street session is a practice run. Just like an athlete has to train regularly to stay in shape and get better, a street photographer has to do the same. For me right now, it’s all about training my eye, my composition, my distance determination, when to shoot and when not to shoot.

The most important thing of all is to learn the camera you are using. The best thing is probably to just use one camera and one focal length, and to get really familiar with that set up. Try to really learn every little thing about the camera, how it behaves in a certain situation and how to control the camera with muscle memory rather than your brain. Use all your brain power to analyze your visual input instead of fiddling with the camera. Here I have done it difficult for me; I use a lot of different cameras and focal lengths as I find it refreshing to use different cameras and approaches to my street photography.

To be continued…

The depth of field myth

"The larger your sensor size the shallower the depth of field (DOF)"

This is not true! I see this all over the Internet and even some professional photographers don’t get this.

The three things that is important for DOF is:

1. Aperture (larger aperture gives shallower DOF)

2. Focal length (longer focal lengths gives shallower DOF)

3. Distance to subject (shorter distance to subject gives shallower DOF)

So it is the focal length that changes the DOF when comparing different sensor sizes. A camera with a small sensor must have a shorter focal length to achieve the same field of view as a camera with a larger sensor, given everything else is unchanged.

Another statements that I have come across on the Internet is:

"a Micro 4/3 sensor isn't big enough for me" 

There are several lenses (Voigtländer f/0.95) for MFT that will give you the same, or even better DOF than for APS-C cameras. So I would regard MFT and APS-C as very similar in the possibility to get shallow DOF.

I would say that it is a benefit to use shorter lenses (along with smaller sensors) for street shooting in most situations, because it will give you the opportunity to use large aperture optics and still get enough DOF for your frame. This will let you shoot with a lower ISO value, which in turn will give you better dynamic range and colours. 

I do some shooting for sport events (especially rowing) where you are located on land and shoot the boats with a 400mm lens. I use APS-C sensor cameras and they give the same DOF as my fellow photographers standing beside me with full frame sensors using the same 400mm optics. The only difference is, I will have a 1.6x crop advantage, and hence come closer to my subjects. This means that I will crop the photo in the camera instead of later using photo editing software.

So when you hear someone saying that a larger sensor gives you shallower depth of field, please let them know the truth!