Tip for street shooting with a 35mm lens

[Red Dawn]

Hi

here's a tip for using 35mm lenses, first credited to Gunter Osterloh's "Leica M The advanced school of photography" book (now out of print )and quoted / paraphased by someone from one of the online forums.....

as far as i know, this tip should apply to 35mm lenses on 35mm systems with 24 x 36mm sensor size.......

For the coverage of a 35mm lens, the long side of the negative is equal to the distance from the subject. This little bit of information can change your percentage of blind shooting to a more productive effort. If you can eye ball a distance, and can mentally pivot it 90 degrees, you can be very accurate with your framing, without even lifting the camera to your eye. If your lens is set for 6 feet, your negative will cover 6 feet on the long side. Shoot vertical at this setting and you can cover a full shot of a man effortlessly... no guessing. "

here's an example i tried:

u're sitting on the MRT, and facing the opposite row of seats, which is roughly 2.5m away (i measured ). if u use a 35mm lens and focused to 2.5m then the distance that is covered across the frame will be 2.5m. That way, you know the coverage of your lens without even lifting it up to your eye......it's about 3-4 seats i think...

couple this knowledge with scale focusing, you can shoot at will without looking through the viewfinder yet have a rough idea of what the final image will contain

actually, this tip applies to shooting from the hip as well. this thread inspired the talk about using the 35mm lens, zone / scale and hyper focusing and hip shooting on the streets in general....

 

[Red Dawn]

Hi

just dug out an older pic of mine taken with a 35mm lens on film...yup if u cut the fat on the right, the coverage of 2.5 metres is about 4 seats

 

[Zoomer]

So am I correct to say that at 70mm, the coverage will be around 2 seats?

What about the shutter noise?

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by Zoomer
So am I correct to say that at 70mm, the coverage will be around 2 seats?

What about the shutter noise?

no no no no......

the rule, for some scientific / optical theory i probably wouldn't understand, only applies to 35mm lenses, as in lenses with 35mm focal length!

i think u mistook "35mm lenses" as all lenses based on the 35mm system

nothing much u can do about shutter noise though...unless u change to a quieter camera......

 

[StreetShooter]

And is that with or without 1.6X FLM? :devil:

 

[tomshen]

RD, maybe OT here. Too bad, I am just back from Little India, went to SLS first, with 20mm. Sad to say, I dun know what to shoot This sounds impossible right? But honestly, I feel very helpless with a wide angle now. Didn't see anything really interesting... Sigh... Too addictive with 200mm. Any tips on this? WA subjects?

 

[SniperD]

Little India??? There's an indian temple there, open to public... WA shot of the interior would be nice ^.^

 

[ckiang]

Originally posted by tomshen
RD, maybe OT here. Too bad, I am just back from Little India, went to SLS first, with 20mm. Sad to say, I dun know what to shoot This sounds impossible right? But honestly, I feel very helpless with a wide angle now. Didn't see anything really interesting... Sigh... Too addictive with 200mm. Any tips on this? WA subjects?

Set f/5.6, go up close to subject, shoot from waist without lifting the camera. Maybe you are too used to > 200mm perspective. heh. Time to have a fresh new perspective of things around you (pun intended).

One thing I found is that, if you have no idea of what you want, not in the mood to shoot, purposely go out to shoot for the sake of shooting without any 'aim', then your pictures won't be good.

Regards
CK

 

[tomshen]

I found color doesnt' work here, after I converted some pix to BW, feel better. And now slowly i get the idea of how to do streetshooting with WA. Ok, promise next time will be better, hah

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by StreetShooter
And is that with or without 1.6X FLM? :devil:

i knew someone would ask. :devil:

no i really don't think so. ;p