Ready for the Decisive Moment | A Guide to Street Photography Gear

Street photography is a genre that many photographers practise, some as a passing hobby and others with great fervour. This type of photography is primarily about framing and timing, but it still pays to have the right gear to capture those fleeting moments. Let’s look at what goes into choosing the right equipment for your street photography.

Rangefinder cameras: The classic choice

This desire for discreetness is one reason you find many street photographers using rangefinder cameras. These cameras have extremely quiet shutters and no mirror to make additional noise. This allows the photographer to make images without the jarring slap of a DSLR mirror. Most mirrorless cameras also have quiet shutter sounds and many even include an electronic shutter mode that allows for completely silent photography (just watch out for rolling shutter effects). 

The typical viewfinder on a rangefinder camera also includes a wider field of view than the lens can see and a set of framing guidelines inside that viewfinder to approximate the field of view of the lens itself. This allows photographers to see objects both inside and outside their current frame and thereby anticipate a situation as it unfolds – perfect for candid photography. On top of that, the position of the viewfinder to the left-hand-side of the camera body allows the photographer to work with both eyes open.

Essential considerations

This is not to say that you can’t use another type of camera for street photography, however. Any camera, especially one with quiet or silent operation, will be fine for street photography. The main considerations are discreetness and portability.

Black and white street photography

Much of the candid photography we see, especially urban street photography, tends to employ black and white processing in the final result. In fact, beautiful tonality is so heavily sought after that some manufacturers produce monochrome-only cameras to get the most tonal range from a digital sensor. However, there are plenty of options if you’d like to work exclusively in black and white.

Most cameras will allow you to preview your images in black and white as you work. DSLR cameras  will capture a colour image and display a monochrome preview for you as you review images. Mirrorless cameras, however, offer a different experience. Since they employ an electronic viewfinder (EVF) or rear screen to show you a preview of the exact image you’re about to capture, this preview can also be set to a black and white mode. This means you’re actually able to see the world in black and white as you make photographs.

35mm - the ultimate street photography focal length?

So, just what makes a good street photography lens? We often hear that a 35mm lens is the ultimate lens for documentary-style photography, but why is it that so many people love it and are there other options we could choose from?

The 35mm lens offers a moderately wide field of view that allows a photographer to capture subjects within context and also include in the frame people who may not even be aware they are being photographed. The slightly wide nature of the lens also means that there is more depth of field at a given aperture/distance combination. This makes zone focusing easier than with longer focal lengths. Of course, a wider lens will also allow you to accentuate the distance between subjects or work in tighter quarters for dramatic effect, so a 28mm, 24mm, or even a 20mm may be your lens of choice for this style.

Street portrait lenses: 50-85mm

For a street portrait photography lens, you might want to look for something like a 50mm or even an 85mm, depending on how much context you want to keep in your images. A lens like this will allow you to isolate portrait subjects in the street if that’s the style you’re going for. It may also be useful for candid portrait photography, so you can get some distance between you and your subject without alerting them to your presence.

What about aperture?

Documentary and street photography don’t often make use of extremely shallow depth of field, so you don’t necessarily need to invest in fast-aperture lenses. Therefore, you may want to skip the f/1.4 lenses in favour of their slower f/1.8-f/4 brethren. You’ll save yourself a significant amount of weight, size, and money.

One style that might require faster lenses would be night street photography (especially if you’re planning to freeze action). All that being said, keeping your kit light with just the lenses you regularly use will mean you can roam the streets for long periods of time. So, keep it simple!

Manual/auto focusing

One other concern with lenses for street photography is focusing. Many photographers like to use a technique called ‘zone focusing’. This involves pre-setting your aperture and focus distance to achieve sharpness at the desired distance from the camera.

For example, you might want a relatively deep depth of field and the plane of perfect focus to be 2 metres from the camera (where you anticipate your subject to be at the time of capture). In this case, you would pre-focus the lens to 2 metres in manual focus and set your aperture to something like f/5.6 or f/8. This can be made much easier if your lens has a focus/depth of field scale. Many manual focus lenses, such as vintage lenses from Nikon and Canon, feature these scales as do some of Fujifilm’s lenses for the X system.

If you’re planning to use autofocus for your street photography, a fast-focusing lens with quiet focus motors can be beneficial so that you can react quickly to a situation and also go unnoticed. The last thing you want is for your lens to make so much noise that people around you turn to find out what is going on.

Ready for the Decisive Moment: Recommended Accessories

The spontaneous nature of street photography means street photographers can—even should—get by with little gear besides a good camera and lens. However, to ensure you’re ready for the decisive moment when it happens, you’ll need a few essential extras:

• Power and storage – A fully charged battery and fast, high-capacity memory card (plus spares of each, ideally) will ensure you can snap away to your heart’s content without the fear of missing that prize shot

• A good camera strap/clip – To keep your camera securely and comfortably looped around your neck/shoulder/wrist or hooked onto your bag/belt, without limiting movement 

• A comfortable camera bag – For quick access to gear and protection for it when not shooting, many street photographers use lightweight camera bags like shoulder/messenger bags or slings.

In summary

We’ve offered a lot of information and suggestions here, so let’s wrap it up with a summary of what we’ve discussed. 

• Important factors to note when choosing a camera body for street photography include camera discreetness, size, weight, and viewfinder type.

• When looking at lenses for this type of photography, considering how you like to convey meaning or how much context you like to work with is important. Just like with the camera body, you’ll also want to make sure your lens is quiet and unobtrusive. Fast lenses don’t usually matter too much for street photography, so look at the cheaper, smaller options. 

• Being ready to photograph spontaneous action requires a few key accessories. These should promote ease and speed of movement and enable you to keep shooting for as long as desired.