My Street Journey - The Good, The Bad & The Recycle Bin

LeeRatters

LeeRatters

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Lee
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EDIT - I've changed the title of this thread. I thought it would be good/better (?) to just have an on-going thread to add my photos too as I visit more places, shoot more street & hopefully improve over time........

Thanks for watching :)

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A few from last weekend. Where I somehow got the urge to shoot some street people whilst wandering around Weston. First time in many, many years I've attempted anything like this so go easy!!

I shot on the X100f, zone focus at too small an aperture & 1/250th which resulted in a few blurry images.

The following day in Bath I shot at 1/500th at still too small an aperture which resulted in super high ISO for a cloudy day..... At least I learnt things both days..... :)


*** by Lee, on Flickr


*** by Lee, on Flickr


*** by Lee, on Flickr


*** by Lee, on Flickr


*** by Lee, on Flickr

CC, pointers & advice accepted!! I think :)
 
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I've had my Helios 44-2 pretty much glued to my Fuji X-T30ii for a few weeks now as it's great for B&W and can be magical for colour shots.

These photos of yours are better than some of the ones I get, and they all appear acceptably sharp on my 2K Samsung monitor. Zone focus for street photography works best at f/8 or f/11 for me, but if you shoot in auto-ISO, you might want to choose the sweet spot for your particular lens, where the sharpness is the same all the way out to the corners. Once I've chosen my f-stop I look at the distance range and focus at the halfway point, and with the ISO and speed set to auto I'll only choose subjects that will be within that focus range, then wait for some interesting behaviour. For static subjects I'll use focus peaking and the viewfinder to refocus before hitting the shutter button. For moving subjects, I'll wait until they're just about at the hyperfocal distance before shooting; this means that I might not get whatever behaviour I want, but it should be acceptably sharp.

From what I've read in the Fuji thread, this seems to be more or less how you're doing it already.
 
garryknight said:
I've had my Helios 44-2 pretty much glued to my Fuji X-T30ii for a few weeks now as it's great for B&W and can be magical for colour shots.

These photos of yours are better than some of the ones I get, and they all appear acceptably sharp on my 2K Samsung monitor. Zone focus for street photography works best at f/8 or f/11 for me, but if you shoot in auto-ISO, you might want to choose the sweet spot for your particular lens, where the sharpness is the same all the way out to the corners. Once I've chosen my f-stop I look at the distance range and focus at the halfway point, and with the ISO and speed set to auto I'll only choose subjects that will be within that focus range, then wait for some interesting behaviour. For static subjects I'll use focus peaking and the viewfinder to refocus before hitting the shutter button. For moving subjects, I'll wait until they're just about at the hyperfocal distance before shooting; this means that I might not get whatever behaviour I want, but it should be acceptably sharp.

From what I've read in the Fuji thread, this seems to be more or less how you're doing it already.
Click to expand...

Thank you Garry :)

Yes, I've learnt things about focus. I was using the focus scale in MF pretty much around the 3 metre mark, sometimes a little less. I've now got the X100f set for B&W so hopefully the peaking colour will show better - just means I need to use EVF instead of my preferred OVF for general shooting.
 
I think you’ve done well considering it’s the first time after a long time.
I’m kinda on and off street photography.
Some tips for you(and also for me :), since I fail to follow these tips).
I’m no expert, just trying to point out the things I don’t like.
>>Try different angles, and avoid necessarily having the subject in the middle of the frame.
>>Be mindful of the light. For example, first picture subject is well lit but so is the background, so it kinda gets lost in the picture. Second third and fourth, subjects are darker than the background and makes it hard for me to look at. The last is a better example. Light is our friend and enemy at the same time:banana:. I’m trying to be more mindful of the direction of the light and If the light is not as I want it, i give the shot a pass.
>>The picture needs to tell a story, or have you wondering what the hell is happening. Something to draw your attention and have you wondering. For example the man on his phone has no interest to me, unfortunately the majority of the population does this (ironically I’m on my phone typing this at the same time :whistle:).
Please do not take the above the wrong way, I’m only trying to help (at least that’s what I think I’m doing:))

It’s a good thing you’re getting close to your subjects and It looks like they didn’t notice you taking pictures,

Street photo is bloody hard, that’s why I like it (I’m secretly a masochist). I spent nearly two hours in the city yesterday, and had none, zero, worth keeping images. To avoid future disappointment I keep telling my self I’m going out for a walk, instead of having unrealistic expectations of taking multiple fascinating street pictures in one go.
 
Well you seem to have overcome your 'blurry' shot problem you spoke about in another thread. :)

I like #1 with the guy relaxing with the newspaper being photobombed by the frantic windmill toy, it's a great contrast.
#4 tells a story every married man will be familiar with - a different angle to reduce the over-exposed central background would have been better.
Agree with Marino that a street photo ideally needs to tell a story ... but not everyone can interpret/understand a story!
Keep at it ... maybe we will cross paths somewhere. :)
 
Marino said:
I think you’ve done well considering it’s the first time after a long time.
I’m kinda on and off street photography.
Some tips for you(and also for me :), since I fail to follow these tips).
I’m no expert, just trying to point out the things I don’t like.
>>Try different angles, and avoid necessarily having the subject in the middle of the frame.
>>Be mindful of the light. For example, first picture subject is well lit but so is the background, so it kinda gets lost in the picture. Second third and fourth, subjects are darker than the background and makes it hard for me to look at. The last is a better example. Light is our friend and enemy at the same time:banana:. I’m trying to be more mindful of the direction of the light and If the light is not as I want it, i give the shot a pass.
>>The picture needs to tell a story, or have you wondering what the hell is happening. Something to draw your attention and have you wondering. For example the man on his phone has no interest to me, unfortunately the majority of the population does this (ironically I’m on my phone typing this at the same time :whistle:).
Please do not take the above the wrong way, I’m only trying to help (at least that’s what I think I’m doing:))

It’s a good thing you’re getting close to your subjects and It looks like they didn’t notice you taking pictures,

Street photo is bloody hard, that’s why I like it (I’m secretly a masochist). I spent nearly two hours in the city yesterday, and had none, zero, worth keeping images. To avoid future disappointment I keep telling my self I’m going out for a walk, instead of having unrealistic expectations of taking multiple fascinating street pictures in one go.
Click to expand...

gramps said:
Well you seem to have overcome your 'blurry' shot problem you spoke about in another thread. :)

I like #1 with the guy relaxing with the newspaper being photobombed by the frantic windmill toy, it's a great contrast.
#4 tells a story every married man will be familiar with - a different angle to reduce the over-exposed central background would have been better.
Agree with Marino that a street photo ideally needs to tell a story ... but not everyone can interpret/understand a story!
Keep at it ... maybe we will cross paths somewhere. :)
Click to expand...

Thank you Both.

Yes, the ones shooting until the light aren't favourites - 1 and 5 I am happy with though and the reasons for shooting them.

The family is a group of 3, child looking the other way. The couple with the island between them. The guy waiting outside the women's...... Not great photos or reasons for shooting really, but there they are.

And central..... I do tend to shoot central and straight on in a lot of situations.... :)
 
The last one is the stand out from the set imo - the deadpan expression, the little bit of red, green and blue is very satisfying... I'm trying to work out if he's carrying a poo bag, but there's no dog (that we can see).

The others are less interesting imo - though the first has potential
 
benc98 said:
The last one is the stand out from the set imo - the deadpan expression, the little bit of red, green and blue is very satisfying... I'm trying to work out if he's carrying a poo bag, but there's no dog (that we can see).

The others are less interesting imo - though the first has potential
Click to expand...

Thank you. Agreed! :)

Also no dog. I think it was just a small carrier bag.
 
There's some very nice candid street style captures amongst this work Lee, Out of these last three pic's I particularly like the two mono presentations, me being predominantly a mono snapper I quite naturally go for these two. They both tell a story and have been posted with a good mono presentation.

"As Ben has said don't worry too much about the high ISO, street photography is all about getting the moment and certainly not about high quality. If you look back at some of the all time great street snappers (film I'm talking about) many of their pic's have quite a bit of grain in them and personally to this day I along with many other present day snappers strive to get similar styles into our work. One reason why all of my recent pic's have been snapped using either a one inch sensor Sony or an iPhone 15 Pro Max, I love the look of 35mm Tri-X pics and I honestly can't remember when I last used my Fuji gear outside of the studio"
 
benc98 said:
I really wouldn't be worrying about high iso, There's a nice intimate moment in the last one with interesting gestures / body language.
Click to expand...

G.K.Jnr. said:
There's some very nice candid street style captures amongst this work Lee, Out of these last three pic's I particularly like the two mono presentations, me being predominantly a mono snapper I quite naturally go for these two. They both tell a story and have been posted with a good mono presentation.

"As Ben has said don't worry too much about the high ISO, street photography is all about getting the moment and certainly not about high quality. If you look back at some of the all time great street snappers (film I'm talking about) many of their pic's have quite a bit of grain in them and personally to this day I along with many other present day snappers strive to get similar styles into our work. One reason why all of my recent pic's have been snapped using either a one inch sensor Sony or an iPhone 15 Pro Max, I love the look of 35mm Tri-X pics and I honestly can't remember when I last used my Fuji gear outside of the studio"
Click to expand...

Thank you both for the input and opinions.

I did say elsewhere about colour vs b&w and I have come to the conclusion it's b&w for this genre unless there is obvious colour matching or contrasts in the scene. I am shooting RAW in b&w.

I'm definitely finding it an interesting and exciting process though. Certainly more so than stood in one spot, camera on tripod, waiting for the sun to rise :)
 
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