What f-stop best for street photos

[kingmillo]

I'd like to hear tips from you folks for which f-stop you most commonly set for street shots. Daytime and night time please. Also the ISO speed while you are at it.

I raised a focusing matter in my previous thread, and seems like zone focusing help tremendously. So if you dont mind sharing your trick of the trade, i greatly appreciated.

And again, please dont tell me to get a DSLR.

 

[usagisakana]

Well it depends on the effect you're trying to achieve, the light, the lens you're using, etc. What kind of shooting do you do? What lens(es) do you have?

I've been using a 45mm fixed lens. If I'm getting up close to people I generally focus closely (around 1-1.5m) and set the f-stop at f-8 or so, with a shutter speed to suit the effect you want, and the light (using ND or yellow filter as another variable). If I want blurring movement, I set the f-stop to f-11 (or 16 if need be), wack on a yellow or ND filter, and then use a slow shutter speed. If you want to isolate a subject, use a higher shutter speed (or ND filter), and a relatively low f-stop (from minimum aperture to f-4 or so.
However focal length greatly affects the depth of field of the image as well.. so without that info it's hard to give a distinct answer.

 

[shimo-kitasnap]

I've generally shot most of my pictures using 400 speed film, at f8 and the lens pre-focused to 8-10 feet. For daytime, shutter speeds of 1/250 and 1/125. If it gets a little darker, say around 6pm then I open up to 1/60th or 1/30th.

For indoor shots with normal lighting, I open the aperture as wide as it will go, usually f2, and set shutter to 1/60th.

 

[sircarl]

If I'm working in streets without any direct sunshine (the norm in London), then the same as shimo-kitasnap: 35mm lens set at f/8, using HP5+, my usual film. Down to f/5.6 on cloudy days. This gives me enough "wiggle room" to pre-focus the lens accurately and shoot fast.

 

[bottley1]

Oxford Street f/8, Bond Street f/11 (on account of the increased bling)

 

[shimo-kitasnap]

ditto, HP5+ is great because you can get pretty good results when pushed to 800 or 1600 in D-76.

In fact I met an aussie while walking around Khao San road in Bangkok who was shooting HP5+ pushed to 6400 for night time with his 35mm color skopar and bessa r.

 

[kxl]

I typically use a 50mm and shoot aperture-priority set at f5.6, pre-focused at 10 feet. That gives me about 4 feet of DOF from 8.5 to 12.5 feet. I always use 400 speed film, usually HP5+ or Tri-X, although in the past couple of weeks, have been using the new Arista 400 Premium.

 

[btgc]

Some 50mm wide open (1.4-2.8, dep. on particular lens) shots are appealing to me.
It really depends what one is trying to achive - any f-stop is good. Street is not only sunny16.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

I'd like to hear tips from you folks for which f-stop you most commonly set for street shots. Daytime and night time please. Also the ISO speed while you are at it.

I raised a focusing matter in my previous thread, and seems like zone focusing help tremendously. So if you dont mind sharing your trick of the trade, i greatly appreciated.

And again, please dont tell me to get a DSLR.

.............

.........how long is a peice of string?.....so many variables - here!, and no, - don't get a DSLR, - get an Olympus XA!! 😉

 

[kingmillo]

Thank you all folks for the very useful insight. It helps my confidence a great deal. I did test shots at my kids school mainly using f4-f5.6 and because it was indoor i had to push the iso to 1250 on the M8 so i could get decent speed of 45-60. Lens prefocused at 2m. The focusing speed was much much easier. I used to force myself to shoot at max apperture (f2), to make sure I got my money worth buying faster lens. But the focusing became very difficult. I guess I had to sacrifice noise to faster focusing. Daytime is no issue I can use iso 160 set at f5.6 above. Btw i am using 28mm elmarit and 50mm cron.

 

[kingmillo]

Some 50mm wide open (1.4-2.8, dep. on particular lens) shots are appealing to me.
It really depends what one is trying to achive - any f-stop is good. Street is not only sunny16.

A lot of times I would love to open wide, for the effect and at least to get my money's worth by buying faster lens. But I find focusing is very slow, especially moving object on the street.

 

[tomasis]

28 elmarit at f8 would be easy to zone focus, indeed. If the lens has a tab, so you could learn to move the tab instinctively too according to the situation , composition.