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First Lens selection

  • Thorsten
    Member

    Expresbro wrote:

    Well one of the things that got me interested in pursuing a knowledge of photography was to learn how to take candid street shots and documentary shots..so I think I am going to need a certain amount of telephoto power for that.

    The best street photographers used (and still use) fixed length lenses – 35mm or 50mm and possibly as wide as 28mm (usually on a Leica rangefinder). Why? Because it got them in close to the action and they didn’t have to be overly concerned about focussing. Set the aperture at f/8.0 and the focus at about 3m and your set to go (hence the phrase “f/8.0 and be there”). All they had to do was raise the camera to the eye and take the shot and before anyone could blink, the camera was down at their side again, nobody having noticed that they’d taken a shot. If you use a telephoto lens on the other hand, you may as well be wearing a high-vis jacket!

    And now for another Luminous-Landscape link – Documentary and Street Photography

    earthairfire
    Participant

    Should maybe clarify what I meant…

    DOF APPEARS to be shallower with a telephoto lens, due to the foreshortening effect that telephoto lenses have.

    The background doesn’t become more blurred, but it looks closer, hence looking more out of focus…

    Hope this clarifies it. Didn’t wanna overcomplicate my first post, – apologies if what I said was misleading!

    Tim

    Expresbro
    Participant

    Thorsten wrote:

    The best street photographers used (and still use) fixed length lenses – 35mm or 50mm and possibly as wide as 28mm (usually on a Leica rangefinder).

    Right Thorsten. So something like the much praised..and reasonably priced.. Nikkor 50mm f1.8 Prime lens would be ideal for street shots then?

    Robbie
    8)

    Expresbro
    Participant

    Thorsten wrote:

    And now for another Luminous-Landscape link – Documentary and Street Photography

    That’s a great article…thanks… :D

    nolonger
    Participant

    Expresbro wrote:

    Thorsten wrote:

    The best street photographers used (and still use) fixed length lenses – 35mm or 50mm and possibly as wide as 28mm (usually on a Leica rangefinder).

    Right Thorsten. So something like the much praised..and reasonably priced.. Nikkor 50mm f1.8 Prime lens would be ideal for street shots then?

    Robbie
    8)

    Bear in mind that the 50mm f/1.8, on a Nikon DSLR, is actually more like a 75mm in oldschool terms… so to get something similar to those old 50mm shots, you’d need more like a 35mm lens. And somewhere in the low-mid 20’s to get 35mm equivalence.

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