
The city is living and breathing and you must notice that fact.

With the help of a talented photographer you can capture a city’s beauty in a picture and acknowledge its magnificent beauty.

Street photographers are on the mission to turn culture, life, and humanity into candid masterpieces, and it is exactly the challenge of converting ordinary moments into art that distinguish the best among them.

Not that many talented artists specialize in street photography, as the technique is far more complex than pointing the camera towards a beautiful mountain landscape. Basically, it comes down to extracting a special moment from a scene nature didn’t exactly shed its best light on.

As fun and admirable as urban photography sounds, it tends to be rather clunky and intimidating for people who haven’t done it so far. Learning it and applying it in practice, nevertheless, is the most rewarding photography experience you could possibly get.

Urban photography tips that can be very useful to beginners

Best street photography is still reserved for a handful of well-known artists, and the reason for that is its casual, unplanned nature.

Everything around you can be considered as inspirational content, but it is up to you to decide which the scene worth of capturing is.

Urban photographers are challenged to come up with their own visual language and ability to depict interesting moments, and use the spontaneous, quick instant to turn them into works of art.

Unlike most photography styles, urban photography is based almost entirely on practice, and requires a lot of time and a sharp eye for detail.

What is even more important is to love the experience of being an urban photographer, and enjoy the hours you’re investing into developing a successful career.

Street photographers, however, are not strictly looking through the prism of their audience and what they expect to see, but pay attention to things that are interesting to them, and share that story with them.

As urban photography is still considered to be a niche genre, there is enough room to experiment and to offer something the audience is not used to see.

The best part is that urban photography gives you the freedom to present life as you see it, be it weird, ugly, busy, scary, or extremely personal. Let your creativity guide you, and invest at least a part of yourself and what you like – the more individualized your work feels, the more viewers will appreciate it.

Street photography tips: How to capture the ideal scene?

Henry Cartier-Bresson is the man we should give credit to for introducing ‘the decisive moment’ phrase. He is among the first and most experienced urban photographer who advises practitioners to give their work some time, wait for things to come together in a perfect setting, and hit their shutter. According to him, and popular company experts (Kodak, for instance), the secret of quality urban photography is solid timing.

But how can you recognize the decisive moment without experience? The concept is in fact a misleading one, as a single glance on the street will give you at least ten ideas of what would be a good scene to capture.

There is nothing to worry, though – professionals deal with the same issue, and usually take up to 30 photographs of the same scene until they get the ideal one, or better yet – the one that has the most potential for editing.


As for people, the decisive moment usually refers to the feelings visible through their facial expressions, hand gestures, movements, and distinctive actions.

Which is the best lens for street photography?

Another good side of street photography is that ‘capturing the moment’ is more than feasible with compact cameras, go pros, and even solid camera phones.

Nevertheless, those looking to become professional street photographers should consider interchangeable lens systems, and use prime lenses with different focal lengths to maximize the potential of their work.

Choosing reliable equipment is the most important part of creating a masterpiece, as it affects the looks of the final product more than you can imagine.

Why should you choose prime lenses?

Prime lenses are the choice of almost all professional urban photographers, as they give them the flexibility to move and create their own frame and composition. The focal is fixed, and zooming is not an option, but street photographers see this as an advantage rather than a limitation.

Fixed prime lenses are lighter and smaller than zooming-enabled lenses, which makes them less bulky and easier to carry around.

They also tend to be optically superior and much sharper, as their design is freed of all unnecessary clutter usually present on their professional counterparts. There will be no elements to move, no glass layouts to take on and off, and therefore no degradation that would stop natural light from reaching the sensor.

It is because of this that prime lenses have wider aperture (f0.95 in the best scenario) compared to zooming lenses where the typical aperture is f.2.8. As a result, the depth of the field is shallower, and the photographer can instantly focus on the isolated object without worrying about the rest of the portrait.

Another advantage to consider is the fact that prime lenses don’t require photographers to crank up the ISO each time they’re trying to capture a low light image, and final products rarely end up with lowered quality or the frustrated motion blur.

Another key benefit is the possibility to shoot handheld in low light without having to crank up the ISO resulting in lower image quality or slow down the shutter too dramatically resulting in unwanted motion blur.

What should you be looking for?

Are 35 or 50mm focal lengths better for street photography? The question is a disputed one and the answer will come down to what the photographer thinks is better for his work. Some well-known and reputed artists go outside this frame and use different lengths to make their pieces more conventional.

Lenses below 35mm

Lenses whose length is below 35mm are considered more cumbersome to use, and that’s particularly true for beginners and inexperienced users. As an urban photographer, you will likely focus on people and want them to assume the role of focal points, and this will be difficult to achieve with lengths shorter than 35mm. According to some photographers, 24mm work the best for people photography, so you may as well explore this option if distance is not an issue.

For instance, you can consider the work of Willem Jonkers known for fisheye street photography, as his results may not be the most realistic representation of urban life, but prove that this can be an interesting way to represent it.

35mm lenses

35mm lenses are street photographers’ favorite focal lengths.

Even if they’re not as flattering and sharp as 50mm ones, they can work for close portraits (at least where the photographer knows how to adjust the settings). If you wish to keep a certain distance from your subject, these may not be the ideal samples for you.

Many popular photographers, nevertheless, relied exactly on 35mm lengths to create unique urban photographs.

These are the brands they usually choose:

Voigtlander Nokton 17.5mm (35mm FF equivalent) f.95 for Micro Four Thirds

zuiko 17mm (35mm FF equivalent) f1.8 for Micro Four Thirds

35mm f1.4 Distagon FE for Sony A7 mirrorless such as the A7RII.

50mm (known also as the ‘nifty’ fifty)

Most photography experts will agree that 50mm lenses work the best for urban photography. This is because they are versatile, and therefore work with any focal, and you can’t go wrong buying them (there will hardly be a need to change them). The distortion present with 35mm lenses or shorter ones will simply disappear, which is why we recommend these to beginners.

These are the leading brands on the market:

The Pana Leica 25mm (50mm FF equivalent)

Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 (works with a Leica M Mount, but with the right adapter you can use it on your Sony A7RII).

Ending thoughts on street photography

Images and photography tactics are very different from each other, and so are the reasons for it. What distinguishes high quality from low quality photographs is not the situation presented on them, but the obvious technical mistakes the artist could have easily avoided.

The most important thing, however, is to love what you’re doing, and to enjoy while doing it. Turn urban photography into an off-killer hobby, be brave, and improvise as much as you can. Once you’re really into it, inspiration will come automatically.

In case you were asking you were wondering, various techniques like HDR, black and white or infrared were used on some of these shots. That combined with the photographers’ skills created the results that you see here.

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