What's best for street photography? A 21 or a 28mm?

In my experience in fairly narrow streets and alleyways in Saigon: a 21mm lens will make you work very hard; a 28 less so. You could also go for an in-betweeny: the excellent, cheapish, tiny, and lightweight Voigtlander Color-Skopar 4/25. Cheers, OtL
 
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The 21mm is kinda unusual for street photography. The advantage is that you get immense depth of field and you can hip shoot all day long. The downside is that it's very difficult to organize what you get in the frame. And then, you have to get close, real close. Have a look at work that was made with this focal length, see if that's what you want. Raymond Depardon and Mark Cohen used it, and even they not always. Bruce Gilden uses a 24mm but the flavour is the same. Jeanloup Siff was a master of the focal length but he was doing fashion, not street, so he had time to organise his shots.

The 28mm is still challenging but nowhere near as challenging as the 21mm. There are many more examples of street photographers using one than the 21mm. I'd say this is the one to try first.
 
What's best for street photography? A 21mm or a 28mm?

Good question.

I shoot a lot of street. In my humble opinion 21mm is far too wide for street unless you're combining an architectural or nature background with your main subject, or you're so close to your main subject (like less than 1 foot away) that you can get away with the whole wide angle thing. It can be done but I think it's difficult.

28mm is far more manageable than 21mm and (again in my opinion) more pleasing to the eye of the beholder. Main subject isn't lost in the background and there's plenty of peripheral stuff to add to the story.

In all of my years of doing street photography I think the best focal length is 35mm. Mainly I think this because I like peoples faces as the main subject.

Alas… whatever works, it doesn't matter, any focal length is fine as long as you're telling a story with your images.

All the best,
Mike
 
I usually respond to these kind of questions with a question for the questioner: how do you see the world?

The best choice for you is the one that will let you realize that vision. I find a 28 less challenging to use than a 21, but that doesn't mean you will find the same thing. For instance, Lee Freidlander reportedly used a 35 and a 28, mostly. Do you see like him? Or are his pictures suggestive of what you want your pictures to look like? Gary Winogrand used mostly a 35, I hear. Henri Cartier-Bresson is famous for using mostly a 50, although I think he used a 35 too when he was feeling it.

I recently was out with a C/V 15 and a Nikon 26mm pancake lens. I got evocative image from both, but used a 28 on the same day to get some real keepers.

If your question was not about buying a lens, but one seeking a principled answer, like "28 is always better, because the Photo gods have decreed it so," then I can be of no help. It's like going to a painter and asking, "what's a better color, red or blue?" The answer is so equivocal ("it depends") that really its the question that's the problem.
 
telenous said:
The 21mm is kinda unusual for street photography. The advantage is that you get immense depth of field and you can hip shoot all day long. The downside is that it's very difficult to organize what you get in the frame. And then, you have to get close, real close. Have a look at work that was made with this focal length, see if that's what you want. Raymond Depardon and Mark Cohen used it, and even they not always. Bruce Gilden uses a 24mm but the flavour is the same. Jeanloup Siff was a master of the focal length but he was doing fashion, not street, so he had time to organise his shots.

The 28mm is still challenging but nowhere near as challenging as the 21mm. There are many more examples of street photographers using one than the 21mm. I'd say this is the one to try first.
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I think the 21 works. As with any lens you get the feel for what it can do:
Tokyo / MP/21mm/Tri-X
40669418012_8f8fb7dbf9_c.jpg
 
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Yokosuka_Mike said:
What's best for street photography? A 21mm or a 28mm?

Good question.

I shoot a lot of street. In my humble opinion 21mm is far too wide for street unless you're combining an architectural or nature background with your main subject, or you're so close to your main subject (like less than 1 foot away) that you can get away with the whole wide angle thing. It can be done but I think it's difficult.

28mm is far more manageable than 21mm and (again in my opinion) more pleasing to the eye of the beholder. Main subject isn't lost in the background and there's plenty of peripheral stuff to add to the story.

In all of my years of doing street photography I think the best focal length is 35mm. Mainly I think this because I like peoples faces as the main subject.

Alas… whatever works, it doesn't matter, any focal length is fine as long as you're telling a story with your images.

All the best,
Mike
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"Mainly I think this because I like peoples faces as the main subject."....Mike there you've made a choice & a preference...which is the way you see the world. We all define our own borders, or draw outside the lines
(portrait with Leica M4/21mm/FP4+)
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it depends from the context, but usually I prefer a 35mm due to the distance I keep from the subject.
with a 35mm focal lenght and a fast lens you can also separate the subject if needed. More difficult with a 28, very difficult with 21
 
A 28 is far more typical but that doesn't make it better.

Sieff was mentioned earlier. Of all the genuinely interesting photographs I've seen made with a 21mm, he owns a disproportionate amount. But the way he works, I don't think is very doable for "street photography", which is pretty candid/fast paced I guess? If you can, I recommend asking Magnum if their applications are open. Street portraiture absolutely though. Does get into what is "street" and that's a conversation for other folks. The 21mm has such an obvious signature even before you get to the specific lens in question, you have to go with the current of such a tool. You cannot impose your will on it, anymore than you can make a chisel cut like a knife. If you learn the focal length you can make good work.

But, and I don't mean to impugn anyone in particular or imply I'm some master of the art of anything, but the vast majority of 21mm photographs I see are not to my taste at all. I personally feel that many users of 21mm lenses have not developed the skills necessary to make good work with such an extreme tool because they try to use it the same way they would a 24 or even a 28. Maybe they like what they're doing, and I won't begrudge them that. And I'm not the arbiter of what is or isn't good. But that's my read.

A 28 is natural enough that you can focus on framing/composition without too much regard to what the lens is going to do to the elements within the frame. You typically want to avoid putting stuff all the way out in the corners, or maybe even the edges depending on your taste but that's a minor concern. With a 21mm, again only in my opinion, you need to understand what the lens wants to do, and then go with that current, or you may find yourself dissatisfied with your photographs. Again, returning to Sieff, he doesn't just throw a person in the image and it works because he's Jean-Loup Sieff. He is using the perspective distortion as an effect and he is one of the best to ever do that.
 
As an addendum you might find a photographer who uses both for the type of photography you like, and see which you think is better to your own taste. It's usually pretty obvious which is which.

Daido Moriyama made heavy use of both. Friedlander used an SWC sometimes right? Removes a variable in your search.
 
Out to Lunch said:
In my experience in fairly narrow streets and alleyways in Saigon: a 21mm lens will make you work very hard; a 28 less so. You could also go for an in-betweeny: the excellent, cheapish, tiny, and lightweight Voigtlander Color-Skopar 4/25. Cheers, OtL
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I haven't been to Saigon, but in France, where some streets are also very narrow, I have also found the 25mm Color-Skopar 4/25 to be quite wide enough. Having to keep track of what extraneous stuff may be getting included with an overly wide lens slows me down. In less extreme situations my 35mm lens seems best suited. I like my 35mm Summicron or Summaron on a .58 finder for being able to see what's coming outside the finder frameline. When the street is narrow, my 28mm Summicron is usually about right.
 
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