How do you shoot candids on the street

[LomoPhotographer]

Hey TS, slowly, take your time. You will eventually get used to it.
You no need to really point at the direction of their face.
You can do discreetly, for the earlier part like now, learning.
Like pretend you are not shooting but the lens is facing their direction or so while you are standing/walking.
If not you can always point at the direction that you think they will fit into your frame, your veiwfinder, when they come into the frame you focus and ka ching!
There you go.

Practise! ;p

 

[gimumancer]

My 18-55mm lens does not allow me to zoom in at people at far distance and I don't have the courage of pointing my camera at people nearer to me for fear of offending them.

How do you take candids on people without a zoom lens?

I thought you might be interested shooting street photography in orchard from this guy, he's quite good, he shares his techniques in there (like finding isolated spots where there is sunlight shining on the ground), he started with 55-200, then 50mm now he always uses 85mm f1.4

http://www.dannyst.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannysantos/

as for your question on taking candids without zoom lens, the answer is d5000 :bsmilie: ..select silent mode, just flip the lcd, put camera waist (or chest) level, pretend you're fiddling with your camera settings and snap

 

[bruggink]

Sometimes setting a timer or using a remote control can help oso..

 

[gimumancer]

With due respects, may I suggest you take a look at this website www.in-public.com. You will see a world of difference in what others perceive as street photos.

It appears to me that street photography is a lot more than shooting with long lenses, or surreptiously from the hips at certain group of people.

actually he's quoted that website that in his links:

http://www.dannyst.com/links.html

he's kind of specializing in street portraits..

 

[Baracus]

Know what is the 'stand off' distance you need for the shot (eg. head to waist level shots,) with the focal length you are using (Eg. 2m for 28mm). Set to manual focus and prefocus to 2m on the lens. Set to a f stop that will give you good enough DOF (eg. f5.6). Single out your subject ahead (not last minute). Move-in, get into range (Eg. 2m as set on your lens), bring up camera, snap. Thats it. Often fast enough before the subject knows or can react. Usually faster than fiddling with camera auto focus.

Bingo. Except I prefocus 1m at 12mm and shoot at stomach-to-knee level. I think I showed you my technique at the Hort Park outing.

Then again, it's different approaches for different folks. I just prefer the idea of my subject being oblivious to my presence at close quarters. Unfortunately, one has to be really close to capture said subject, ending up in some lost opportunities.

 

[gimumancer]

I looked at his "street portraits" in his website. .

What did I see? His "street portraits" are ALL sneak shots of GIRLS. Some people might even consider this kind of pictures as voyeuristic or a fetish. Of course, everyone has his/her own opinion. I suppose it is reasonable to assume that people do have different viewpoints of what constitute a portrait, or a "street portrait".

sorry if his type of shots might have offended you, but yeah you are correct, most of his street shots are girls, he has one shot of a dude actually :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannysantos/3268476887/in/set-72157621023559748/

you are also correct of us having different opinions, the only qualms I have with this is publishing the shot without the subject's knowledge coz I myself wouldn't want my picture published without my knowledge..i don't agree however as some labeling this as voyeuristic coz I don't see this any different with the glamour shots we see from biillboards, magazines etc..these are normal people walking on the streets we see everyday, he's just immortalizing it by taking a very candid shot in a very creative situation/lighting..my 2 cents..

 

[wkteoh]

Hey TS, slowly, take your time. You will eventually get used to it.
You no need to really point at the direction of their face.
You can do discreetly, for the earlier part like now, learning.
Like pretend you are not shooting but the lens is facing their direction or so while you are standing/walking.
If not you can always point at the direction that you think they will fit into your frame, your veiwfinder, when they come into the frame you focus and ka ching!
There you go.

Practise! ;p

This is good advice. I like to shoot people in their natural state aka not aware that they are being photographed. It's totally different.

 

[PennyLane]

Seriously, I'm wondering what if someone who dislikes having their pictures being taken suddenly turns aggressive?
What if the next thing I know, my dslr went flying across the road. Lol.

Highly unlikely but these things do happen right?

 

[user14]

prefocusing

does prefocusing here mean turning the ring on the cam to the distance printed on it? as long as it more than the min focus distance?

 

[zac08]

does prefocusing here mean turning the ring on the cam to the distance printed on it? as long as it more than the min focus distance?

prefocusing would be more like using the camera in a rangefinder mode. Get the rough distance of the subject to your image plane and then make sure the aperture used gves you enough DOF to cover the zone you're aiming at.

 

[user14]

i see. how do i know what aperture to use to cover a person say 2m away?

 

[ZerocoolAstra]

you can calculate the depth of field based on:
- sensor size
- focal length of lens used
- aperture
- focused distance

there are online resources to help you calculate this.

 

[android17]

The best way to take candid street photograph is actually to bring a friend along, and ask ur friend to stand infront of ur subject (don hv to be close), then u pretend to take photo of ur friend but secretly take ur subject instead :bsmilie:

 

[android17]

another way is to buy a DSLR with tiltable LCD screen like the Sony Alphas.

Then u can place ur camera at ur waist / chest level, pretend to be fumbling with the controls and looking at ur camera, and take shots. Even when close, the subject usually don look away since they wont suspect u r taking photos of them.

 

[zac08]

i see. how do i know what aperture to use to cover a person say 2m away?

It depends on your lens choice (focal length, aperture used) etc...

i.e. If I were using AF-D Nikon 24mm, there is a window where you can see the focusing distance against 3 bars of different aperture, f11, f16 and f22.

If I were to choose f11 and set the distance to 2m, the distances of abt 0.9 to infinity should be in focus.

 

[gimumancer]

Are you saying that his pictures of girls photographed surreptitiously are not different from the glamour shots on billboards and magazines?

no what i meant was, admiring these kind of shots are no different than admiring those shots in the billboard and magazines and thus i do not consider them as voyeur..anyway just proves that we have totally differing views..

 

[user14]

It depends on your lens choice (focal length, aperture used) etc...

i.e. If I were using AF-D Nikon 24mm, there is a window where you can see the focusing distance against 3 bars of different aperture, f11, f16 and f22.

If I were to choose f11 and set the distance to 2m, the distances of abt 0.9 to infinity should be in focus.

oh thanks for clearing it for me.
what about the markings on the lens itself? is there any way to use those instead?

edit: dont answer that i did a quick google search =p thanks again.

 

[dannysantos]

I looked at his "street portraits" in his website. .

What did I see? His "street portraits" are ALL sneak shots of GIRLS. Some people might even consider this kind of pictures as voyeuristic or a fetish. Of course, everyone has his/her own opinion. I suppose it is reasonable to assume that people do have different viewpoints of what constitute a portrait, or a "street portrait".

I was surprised I was mentioned in this thread. Well, in my defense, I'd like to think that these are not sneak shots nor voyeuristic shots since I stand in the middle of the crowd, wait till the subject is near enough, and click. Everyone in the area pretty much knows I''m shooting people, especially the subjects (I use an 85mm, and I don't crop my shots, so they're quite near). I'm just fortunate enough that I haven't had any violent reactions so far.

On the topic of my shooting 'all girls'... well, being a photographer, I shoot what interests me. And being a heterosexual male, girls interest me. So if you put a beautiful girl in the middle of the crowd, naturally that sparks my interest But! I don't shoot boobs, or butts, or upskirts, or anything that may be perceived as sexual... I'm not a maniac

Oh, and I do shoot men too.. most just doesn't come out interesting enough for me to post online.

 

[dannysantos]

the only qualms I have with this is publishing the shot without the subject's knowledge coz I myself wouldn't want my picture published without my knowledge..

I try to make the subjects look good in the photographs. I've had the lovely experience of having 4 subjects (1 male, 3 females) who saw their photographs in my flickr stream, they actually contacted me saying that they were really happy about it You have no idea how great that feels as a photographer

 

[dannysantos]

I would suggest that you do not try to take pictures in a sneaky manner. Many ordinary people would not object to you taking their pictures, but many would get offended if they think you are sneaky with bad intentions.

I agree with this one... don't hide the fact that you're shooting people. Stand in the middle of the crowd, and just click. The worst that can happen is someone quickly turns away if they're not comfortable about being photographed.