How to get started?

Doing street photography doesn't consist of taking photos of literally everything you see in the streets. Communicating a message and telling a story through your photos is what street photography means. Photographers should hunt for the decisive moment and capture it.

1, Choosing the camera

Missing that decisive moment is the biggest mistake one could ever make. In order to capture unique moments, a proper photography equipment is a must. Although it's said that it's not the camera that counts, but the photographer; however, the limitations of cheapo point-and-shoot cameras can indeed set you back from getting the best out of your own imagination and creativity. One of the most well-known disadvantages of point-and-shoot cameras is their slow autofocus system that may let you down in many situations. Consequently, choosing a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) would actually be a much more viable idea if you decide to do street photography, since DSLR cameras have extremely fast autofocus system that won't disappoint you for sure. Let's not mention now rangefinder cameras that are meant to be used for specifically for this purpose, for street use. They usually have price tags of $4k-5k, which is quite expensive for most people.

Another tremendous difference between compact cameras and dslrs is that image sensors in compacts are pretty tiny and this small size highly reduces their overall image quality and low-light noise performance making these small cameras quite unusable in most situations after dark.

2, Deciding on what lens to get

Once you got the camera, choosing the suitable lens is the next step. It is good to know that fix focal length lenses perform way better in most situations than their zoom counterparts, since fix (a.k.a. normal lens) have fewer lens elements inside the lens barrel, thus reducing the chance to get flare, chromatic abberation, and other failures concerning image quality.

What's more, fix lens have better sharpness, contrast, colour rendering, and bigger aperture which enables you to reach shallower depth of field and get the most out of your night photos. Another great advantage of using a fix lens is that it stimulates your creativity and makes you think about how to frame a photo and how to compose it.

The most popular focal lengths that are suitable for street photography are as follows: 35mm, 50mm, 85mm. These are usually great low-light performers and portrait lens with minimal amount of distortion.

3, How to carry around all these stuff?

Well, avoid being vivid and noticeable in order to be part of the moment you're to capture. Obviously, choosing a pink or magenta bag for your stuff and a fancy strassed camera strap for your camera is the worst idea to come up with when considering getting involved in street photography. A black camera bag that doesn't look like a camera bag would certainly do. Be sure that it protects your gear properly and has plenty of space inside.

These are the first 3 steps towards street photography. Bearing all these things in mind might be a great help for you all before becoming a huge enthusiast in this field of art. In my next post, I'll explain all the technical terms that appeared in this entry.