Ahoj, this is Zdenka. I'm not exactly in nature today although I'm in a very
scenic beautiful little town called Port Perry in Ontario Canada. It is
time to come up with another creative camera challenge. This time I have tons
of tips when it comes to street photography.
Before I get to all the tips
when it comes to street photography, let's look at the submissions from last month
and last month's theme was spring. Thank you very much for all the submissions.
I received lots and they were beautiful. It is so awesome to see that you usually grabed
the camera and you walked outside to take some photos. It is so lovely to see.
So let's look together at some of the best photos. Since I don't know how to
pronounce most of the names I am just going to list the names with each photo.
First one here, we have isolated flowers on black background. Second photo here is
two little white flowers. This is a clear message of flowers growing in the spring.
Third photo here is a long exposure photography of a river. It almost looks
like the photographer was in the middle of the river when it took this shot.
Another favorite photo of mine is flying goose. Beautifully caught in the right
moment. It shows the wings really nicely. Another very strong message about spring
season. Colliding snow on the grass. Perfect spring photo capturing changing
seasons. Another great photo here, little flower from UK Scotland. Very bold,
clearly showing spring flower. Nicely done. Let's move on to another
interesting photo of a very green spring-like photo of a river and grown fresh nature.
And last photo here is a landscape waking up with fog on the ground.
Beautiful photo. It just makes me want to be there. Beautiful, thanks again. Now it's
time to dive in into street photography.
Let's begin with explaining what street photography really is. It is a candid
authentic style of photography usually involving people or animals or both but
it doesn't have to. It can be also photos of object, building, streets or
public places. The key is to capture life on the street in general. It is similar
to photojournalism, except photojournalism is more about capturing
important events rather than strangers and streets. And also street
photographers rather stay unnoticed, kind of low-key to get the candid shots.
Now that we got this out of the way, let's get to all the tips.
Tip number 1. Start local. You know interesting places and you know probably
which area is safe. That's why I chose Port Perry and not my hometown sadly
enough. Luckily it's not too far, it's only 15 minutes of drive. I'm a slow
driver. Tip number 2. I have two cameras here. One is my big DSLR and the other
one is small Canon EOS M50. Which one I'm going to choose? Well, I'm not gonna
go with the big one. Even though it is faster and I could just use faster
shutter speed, I'm going to choose small Canon EOS M50 because I will be more
unnoticed. Smartphone would be actually even the best because people are used to
smartphones. Everybody is taking selfies, so nobody will really get bothered that
you are taking shots.
What lens should you choose? Well, it is recommended for street photography to
use wide-angle lens somewhere between 24 to 50 millimeters.
I have here 15 to 45 millimeters that's all I have, so I'm going to use that. If
you're wondering why I'm not gonna use my telephoto lens. I love my telephoto
lens for candid style photography and I use it for weddings, but the people there
at the weddings, they know that I am there to take their photos so they don't
mind. Once you point that huge thing on
somebody, they will definitely notice. When I'm on the street there is no way
I'm gonna point that thing because I would kind of look creepy and I'm not a
papparazzi. Telephoto lenses also compress the background, so when you look
at the shot, you can tell it was taken from distance. If you use a wide-angle
lens you will be more drone into the story.
Before we start talking about camera setting, let's talk about something a
little bit more important. Let's talk about taking photos of strangers. Sure
you can ask them for permission, but once you ask them, they will start posing for
you and it will end up with what's called street portraits. If you find
somebody who is very interesting you might get their interesting photos but
they are not gonna be those candid moments. If you want you to do fine art
photos of people, be pleasant, smiling, friendly and confident. If somebody asks
you if you already took their photos say yes. Be very polite. Explain them what
you do. Most of the people, they'll be ok with it. They will have no problem. If
someone is not okay with it, delete the photo if they insist. Just don't go
behind their backs. Bottom line, you don't always have to take photos of person
facing you. There are a lot of different things you can do like profiles,
silhouettes, people walking away from you. You can be highly creative there. When I
want to be unnoticed as I take the photo I don't move the camera. I just kind of
keep shooting different things so most of the times I really am unnoticed. There
are a lot of different creepy kind of candid ways to do it too but it is not
my style so I'm not gonna go there.
Tip number 4. Prepare your settings. Use aperture between f/8 and eleven to
get a lot of details in a shot. When it comes to ISO use ISO 100 to 200. If you
have very bright sunny day and shutter speed should be at least equivalent to
your focal length. So if you are shooting on 50 millimeter lens you should be
using 1/50th. If you are going to shoot in a motion then I would go with
very fast shutter speeds such as 1/200th of a second.
You can manual focus or you can do autofocus. If you are going to choose
autofocus then use a single point autofocus. There is also a button on the back
of the camera which is lock focus button. Once you press it, you will
lock your focus. When you press it again, it will release it. Tip number 5. Don't
use the zoom much or don't touch the zoom at all. Concentrate more on a
composition. Especially if you are doing candid shots. You might miss important
moments when you are constantly playing with your zoom. Tip number 6. Light, shadows,
foreground and background. Pay attention to very interesting lit areas and
shadows. Look for the contrast. Also look what's in foreground and background to
find very interesting views. Tip number 7. Take lot of photos,
don't erase anything. When you get home on a computer, you start editing your
photos. If you see a photo which is kind of so so, you think it's not so great and
you convert it from color to black and white, you might be surprised. It might
suddenly pop. If some photos are kind of blurry or shaking or something like that,
who really cares at this moment. If you have a very amazing strong story. So do
you have more clarity now how it all works? Well it's your turn. You have up
till June 26th to submit your street photography photos. You can take it with
any camera from smartphone to DSLR and it can be colored, black and white,
anything you like for a chance to be featured in the next creative camera
challenge video. You can submit them either to ZD camera challenge Facebook
group and the link is in the video description below, or you can upload them
on Instagram and use #zdchallenge6 I'm truly looking forward
to seeing all the photos from all around the world. Well don't forget to hit the
thumbs up button if you liked today's video and subscribe to all future videos.
If you have any questions, comments or simply want to say hello, please do so in
a comment section below. You know I read it all and I always respond. Thanks again
and I'll see you in the next one. Cau.... Ahoj....