So I was down in London a couple of weeks ago and I decided to take with me in my A seven C and
a newly bought used Sony 50 mil 1.8 lens.
I bought lens from MPD dot com in well used condition.
I think this one was actually not in working order, and I only found out halfway
through taking photos in London.
As I took this photo, the autofocus stopped working.
I turned on the camera and it thought it was a manual focus lens, and I was like, Oh, well and I took it
off and on again, took the battery out the camera.
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But it would work, but literally every one in three times it just stopped working, So I ended up
saying to m p be like, Hey, this line is actually faulty.
I sent it back, and they are currently sending me a replacement for it.
I did really enjoy shooting with his 50 mil.
So today I want to go through some of the photos I took while I was in London and
just sort of give my thoughts on how I enjoyed using this focal length
in the street photography context.
We need a picture in picture.
Yeah, we're doing a picture.
Ah, look is in picture and picture.
Amazing.
So this first one, just like a couple that was literally over the road from King's Cross.
And there anything that I liked about, this was just the guy's bag.
Like if you just noticed a little pug bag that was literally he just stood in front of me.
And I was like, I want this.
I also kind of like, You can sort of see his stuff that red with his bag.
I just kind of like that with, like, the palette of his blazer in his pants.
That's pretty much the only reason why I took this photo is the back of the head shot.
So sorry Paul, I know you're going to come in on this.
So it is a back of the head shot.
I didn't want to go and be, like, right in the face yet.
I'm gonna have a video on doing that very soon in terms of taking people's photographs,
their faces, how to do it.
Ways I'm trying out, I guess.
Um, but yeah, they're opposite cost to this next shot this guy actually spoke to.
I went and said to him, I was like, Oh, do you mind the first effort of union dog in this
scene?
But I actually asked him before I found the composition.
Of course, I was on a 50 50.
Is mad tight for trying to do this composition.
Really?
Sort of like a 24 or 35.
But I spoke to him and his dog ended up not being a big fan of me.
Even though dogs tend to be like some kind of a dog was bred normally, Uh, this one
clearly doesn't like my vibe.
Spoke to him.
He was cool.
And then yeah, I just got a photo of him.
His dog with the background.
But honestly, the thing I had in my head and like asking him for the
photo and then taking it, not mad hyped on it.
Still, I really like this photo in terms of the optics, Shall we say
so from the 50 mil?
I mean, this is exactly what this does exactly what you want a 50 mile to do in terms of
compression, but it's just not the right set up for trying to get, like a large
scene in the vertical composition.
This lady was my favourite.
This was the first, uh, that that I got that really kicked off my day
for me.
I think because we had the pairing of this lady's face, I did take a few of this
photo, but with different people.
But she was just the best one in terms of like her animal print.
And then also, you have this guy on the top left like his like, half face poking
through, which I just thought was quite satisfying.
But I didn't notice that until I got it onto my laptop.
And that kind of added to like the nice, surprising factor of street photography for
makers like you get a shot your time to be looking at the Focus point or the
your main point of reference in the photo.
But that was a nice, nice surprise for me when I got this photo
actually open and below the lady like I was dealing with the highlights on her face and
stuff.
And I was like, You know what?
Just like get like four had a bit bright for me.
But it works.
It works.
And like she's sharp enough, she's sharp enough and like her shoe down here
is like, surprisingly sharp and really reflective.
You might notice that the highlights a bit strange in these photos.
It is because I was using a cane F concept one quarter black
diffusion just to give my photos a
softness that I can't control.
I said this in a recent video of my Samsung 24 mil.
It's the same philtre.
They both use the same philtre thread.
It is much more a case of I want to not have control over the optical
performance a little bit similar to what I mentioned with film.
Sometimes I feel like digital is like you get too much of a clean slate to then
work on in post.
I find that often.
I don't want that.
I actually want to have less control.
This was just a nice, reflective shot.
I like kind of the green hue of the glass and then this last walked through it.
Um, I do like her palette in general, as an outfit, we
just received another package from MPB.
Wow.
Something This video?
Yeah, I pretty much I liked the outfit of this girl walking through.
You do get a reflection.
You did get a reflection of the building there as well, but because that's quite small in the
composition.
I didn't crop this.
It does feel kind of like a moot photo, but I kind of liked what was
happening in the centre of the frame.
So if I was, like, closer, like this in a crop, I
kind of like what's happening there.
But at the moment, I'm trying not to crop any of my photos.
So if you have noticed any sort of dodgy crops or lack of crops or lack
of compelling framing at the moment, that is kind of a decision I'm taking just trying to train
myself from while I'm shooting to think.
Oh, it's fine.
I can crop it like I do.
Try not to fix in post with video.
I'm trying to carry that over with as well.
Next, we just have a gig venue.
I mean, it's not a good venue.
It's a bowling alley.
But a friend of mine, literally.
My housemate played a gig at Bloom's relations last year.
I just walked past it and thought I'd get out of it.
This tax, he happened to be there in the foreground.
You do get this guy in the back of the tax.
You can't really see him.
It's not a great scene in general, like the bin and everything again.
I'm not into, like editing for those too much in terms of removing stuff.
So yeah, but also, you can see here the diffusion, just
how be given effect.
The diffusion is having, and we're getting quite a lot of chromatic aberration in terms
of purples and pinks coming through all this.
Taxi.
Next we have this VW Beetle which has been used as a wedding car, which is fantastic.
I took this photo mainly the beetle, and it took an old beetle and I quite like
beetles, so it is just in the side of the road around the
corner from Bloomsbury.
You've got the nice Fitzroy hotel background like, you know, it's got those arches and stuff.
Feels a bit old timey.
But this wrote this beetle was literally the only car in the middle of the crossroads at the time.
And it happened to be a wedding car again.
If you were to crop in on this, maintaining some level of
inequality and not coming in too far, you can make out the bride
in the back window.
Uh, it's actually a soft top deal as well, and they didn't have the top down and it was okay.
It was an all right weather day.
They probably should have had the top down.
That was just quite nice.
I just liked it.
I was like, Yeah, sound.
I'm not a car photographer, but I like that car here.
I was playing with a reflection.
To be honest, I hate us.
I don't like this photo.
Um, I think I was just looking for a reflection, but you can see how dirty the
glasses the light in this situation is not perfect for reflection.
The only thing in focus.
Really?
Is that guys cast a coffee cup?
Yeah, Let's forget about that.
Well, this was great.
The audio of this scene was fantastic.
So, like, all that we're seeing right now is a VW fox.
That car is called the Volkswagen A Volkswagen Fox.
And for some reason, it was overheating.
And the woman driving it didn't seem to understand why it was overheating.
And DPD driver who literally went over them with your cars over here in the steam, coming out
blah.
And then suddenly the whole street was just like looking at it.
It was just one of those funny things where, like, Centre of London, not a place you want anything to go wrong
with the car, let alone overheating in the 2000 and seven VW fox.
So this was just quite funny for me.
I don't know.
I just was, like, cool again.
You'll notice from the crop.
Wasn't mad.
Close at the moment.
I'm still not like mad.
Keen to get up in someone's face especially like this one was probably stressed.
I didn't want to run and be like, yeah, and gets a better shot.
This cool, nice one.
I hope your cars, all right?
I didn't Didn't want to be like that.
Yeah, I like this in general.
There's just This is kind of my jam, like, just weird ship that happens.
So that was fun.
This I think I was looking for a shadow.
And this is the best one that I got.
And to be honest, it's not nice, is it?
This was just a street shot again.
Totally believable.
This was the moment that the 50 mil lens decided to break in terms of our focus.
This shot is in focus because I'm annual focused.
It just because I wanted this nice reflection with the other reflections happening in the
windows.
I love this sort of architecture, like this sort of building.
Where is glass panels and this sort of like, metal semi reflective thing going on.
Then the bottom right, which I noticed in post, was the
more period peace building that is just opposite on the corner of the road.
Yeah, I just like having that statue That's our coming in in the middle of the
window.
Something about this for me does something.
I don't know what it is, but I quite like it But again, this was when the lens started
to glitch out.
So I was a little bit concerned about how the rest of my day was going to go in terms of taking photos.
This was literally over the road from there.
Just a dude outside of an escape room.
This turns out to be an escape.
An escape room.
This toxic oh, serum dispensary is actually an escape room in London.
This guy just walking outside.
I just was like, cool looking shop fronts.
Alright looking dude, get a shot.
It's not much this I actually really, really liked,
But I know what I would try and do differently next time.
I would definitely try and go head on on this
shot right now.
Obviously I'm at like a kind of 45 I guess like a
20 20 to 30 degree angle of this has a long
ideally, I would be zero front on this dude out
front with the leather jacket, brown of the jacket and the bleached tips is a
vibe.
Anyway, in my opinion, and then also we've got in the
window this dude and a lovely yellow shirt getting his hair cut
and something about that.
It's just really nice.
You have that reflection over the road like this.
Sort of like tie dye canopy.
I guess it's a good thing I'm not bothered about that.
But the orange, the branding with that guy's yellow
shirt and just this dude out front like his bleach and his brown stand out from the shop front,
too.
There's something really nice there.
It's just not all the way where I would like it to be.
But I was.
I was actually happy looking back at this photo in terms of what I've noticed and what I liked about it.
This wasn't by any stretch of the imagination in a perfect place, but for me, it's
like I can see I'm trying to see what I like this and
overheating cars, my jam.
Next, we have a shot just down towards SoHo.
I've got this actual streets called.
Obviously got a lot of pride stuff going on, Got village there.
There's a couple of sex shops around the corner and summers obviously directly ahead.
Um, yeah, the light was just coming through quite nice.
I just felt like getting this nice street.
I do like some sort of ST establishing shots like this.
There's one later of Chinatown that I like a bit more, but yeah, for me, there's
nothing particularly happening in this shop.
I quite like it.
And also I feel like this shot is a good evidence of why I'm shooting with the
diffusion philtre because at the top of that building, just here
you can see the just the just the light from the sky fading over
buildings.
And that, to me, is like, Yeah, that's what I want I want, like,
imperfections that I can't control And it would be harder for
me to, like, fake any confidence.
Anyway, this I just liked because she has a pride tote
bag and we have a pride barrel, and that was quite fun.
I kind of wish that this place wasn't a crack in like Jerry's dot, dot UK run
place, but I liked the pride and pride, and then also you got these yellow lines on the street
as well.
There's like a very small amount of potential there, but really not
much.
This shot here, just the back of a couple going past the dude who looked a bit grumpy
in Chinatown That's it.
The next shot.
This I genuinely quite like.
It is kind of a typical Chinatown photo, but I like the shadows on the
floor.
I like the corner restaurant.
I like people just, you know, being in Chinatown.
Um, and this is the only one that I got behind the scene.
Shut off that you're seeing right now.
So this for me was a nice one.
This was I enjoyed this quite a lot.
This is my new balance shoe in the bottom.
Right corner.
Uh, and then some votes in the door just reflected.
It's a total mess of a photo, but something about it, particularly me.
So I quite like that.
Also, you'll be thinking, Why?
What's this big, bright, reflective thing?
There's a large reflective surface off of this like logo that I just used,
sort of to capture a bit of me.
And it gives me kind of film burn, look, vibe.
And I quite like that.
And that's something that I'd be interested in playing around with a bit more because of how
our focus that is in the foreground, it's sort of bleeds over just a little bit, and it
gives that sort of that sort of burnt film
look happening so otherwise you could face this.
You could You could do it like a light prison or something.
I just like on camera holding it next to it.
But this was just a good opportunity.
But I saw what I liked, so I went for it.
Taxi driver, opposite Shake Shack.
My new piece.
You can go see it at the moment.
It's just the dude taxi opposite Shake shack.
I don't really know.
What about this?
I liked I kind of like the smoothness of the London taxi.
I haven't been to that shake shack yet.
I've never been to a shake shack.
I did consider going, but I was like, I'm not going on my own.
Um and yeah, I think I just kind of wanted to stop a taxi driver.
It's not that deep Book of Mormon tickets.
Not much about this fellow.
I really like this.
I love Piccadilly Circus because I'm a capitalist.
Um, and I liked I don't know.
It's so New York.
It's so American that it just feels like the only
part of England that has such massive television billboards.
Everyone is getting a photo taken there because it's like the Times Square factor.
And I just love it.
And I just wanted a shot of someone walking through the frame with that in the background.
And this woman was the one that happened to walk through.
That was okay.
And she has this colourful scarf on the palate isn't really their light
in terms of her palate, the staff at the Heineken ad and how you and I had
it's not really an awful lot happening there, but I enjoyed it.
This dog was dressed far too well to be a dog.
Um, service dog.
Apparently, I didn't notice that afterwards, but yeah, you know,
just well dressed dog in it.
And then this couple this might be my last photo It is.
This is our last photo.
And this was where I called it quit.
It was actually the last photo that I took on the day to just this couple looking up the road,
particularly circus.
I particularly liked that street that comes down to Piccadilly Circus because it's like that
swooping bend with proper nice London architecture.
Got red bus there, got the underground stop.
We've got them together She's like a long quilted thing.
He's in your face classic that this woman in the foreground with her pink like,
smart ish kind of coat on and two birds in the air.
There's nothing about this photo over is, like, technically
brilliant or anything by any stretch of the imagination.
But something about it I like again, is the back of people.
I'm sorry, Paul, but I like it for some reason.
Yeah, that's been my show and tell, um, I hope you've enjoyed
it, and I might be doing one of these very soon For some 20 formal
photography and some other photography street photography stuff.
There's anything about this video that you liked or didn't like.
Please let me know in the comments.
I love strong opinions.
I'll be doing more of these very soon more street photography stuff on the way.
A couple of gear review things happening, but besides that, I hope you
subscribe to the channel, stick around and I'll see you in
many videos very soon.