6 Tips How to Master Shooting Street Photography with a DSLR
Seoul, 2009
When I asked a while back on my Facebook fan page, I found out that the majority of the community shoots street photography with a DSLR, so I thought it would be a great idea to write an article on how to most effectively use your DSLR for street photography. Keep reading to read some more tips.
1. Prefocus + set a high F-stop
Hollywood, 2011
Rather, a better technique is to set your camera to manual focusing and prefocus your lens to a certain distance and set a high F-stop number such as f/8, f/11, or f/16. What this allows you to do is to figure out how far you typically are when shooting your subjects, and have a high likelihood of capturing them in focus because of your deep depth of field. This technique often works best if your lens has a focusing distance scale on it, so you can determine what distance is best optimal for you (I prefer 1.2 meters). You still shouldn’t have a problem doing this if your lens doesn’t have a focusing scale. Simply find a test subject to focus on, and set your prefocus before you go out and shoot.
2. Don’t be afraid to bump up your ISO
One of the beauties of shooting with a DSLR is the great high-ISO noise performance. Therefore use this to your advantage and don’t be afraid to raise your ISO. If you want to shoot with a large aperture of f/8 or up, you need a shutter speed of at least 320ths/second which often requires a ISO of 400 or up. There are times when I shoot with ISO 1600 even in the shade during the day, so I can ensure that my images aren’t out-of-focus or blurry.
3. Determine your ideal shooting mode
Santa Monica, 2011
If you don’t want to worry too much about the technical details, I always advocate people to shoot in P (program) mode and just use autofocus. If you don’t like to worry about all the settings when going out and shooting, P mode often does a damn good job of determining what you want.
4. Shoot with a wide-angle prime lens
Hollywood, 2011
The benefit of this is that it will help keep your DSLR smaller and less intimidating, while giving you the opportunity to get better shots. Having a wide-angle prime lens helps you get closer to the action, which often makes your images more interesting. Not only that, but by not worrying about focusing, you save precious time which can be used to capture the decisive moment.
5. Use the right strap
Me with the Custom SLR Glidestrap
6. Cover up your logos
My Canon 5D Taped Up
If somebody pointed a large SLR with the letters in huge white letters “Canon” to my face, I would automatically be suspicious of what they are doing as they look like a pro. If the camera doesn’t have any logos or lettering on it and it was pointed to me, I would probably dismiss it as a film camera and think the photographer taking a photo of me would be more of a hobbyist.
So to those who are out shooting street photography with a DSLR, what other tips would you add to this list? Leave a comment below and let us know your 2 cents!
