Hey Ya'll! Happy Friday! Hope you've had a great week. Today I want to talk about compact lenses for street/travel photography. Now a little disclaimer I am not a professional street or travel photographer but I do like  to do it and have done it for a while.  Now I don't live in New York city or Chicago but have traveled to larger cities and love catching scenes of the hustling and bustling urban life. I also like to travel to different places and try to capture the essence of a town or city. Now you could use a "one and done" lens like a 24-120mm or even larger span of focal length but I have found that the big focal length lens although handy to you seems EYES like a " Large cannon" to ordinary folks on their day to day lives. A smaller compact camera and lens set up will be less intrusive and you will get better responses from people if they even notice you at all. The compact lenses aren't the biggest and baddest f/1.2 maximum aperture lenses but they are very high quality lenses at very useful focal lengths. I have a Sony A7C mirrorless camera that I use for street and travel (the "C" stands for compact) It is almost APSC Christmas Lights size but it is a full frame sensor camera. When it is paired with a "Normal" sized lens it tends to be front heavy and looks very odd. Although it works perfectly fine with these lenses the look isn't very discreet like a compact lens would be. To me in street photography "size does matter" but smaller is better not larger.  Now you can buy some cameras from Fuji, Leica and other brands that are street oriented cameras and they usually come with a fixed lens. Fuji X100 series cameras come with a 23mm (which is a 35mm equivalent in full frame) And Leica Q3 comes with a 28mm fixed lens The MetroCommuters waiting for the Metro in Washington DC. . For my taste street is best shot in 35mm or 50mm ranges of focal lengths For me I like a camera you can change the lenses on but I like them to be small. So in my street kit I have 3 compact lenses. I shoot Sony cameras but I'm sure you can find compact lenses in your brand or find them in a third party lens manufacture. These lenses can be found very inexpensive compared to normal sized lenses.

My street Zoom. I have the Sony 28-60mm f/4-5-6 kit lens. This lens is very sharp but not quite as compact as the other lenses in my kit. It is Man in Sylva NC very versatile  and if I really don't know what I'm about to get into this lens comes with me. I recently went to a festival and walking around I could zoom in or out to get the shot I wanted. Its not as good in low light as the other two lenses I'm going to mention but it really does a good job. It is the only Kit lens that I have in all of my camera gear so that should tell you how good it is.

50mm Lens. This focal length is suppose to be close to normal eye sight. I have the Sony 50mm f/2.5 G lens. It is one of the 3 compact lenses that Sony made for the new Sony A7C camera model when it came out.  They made it in a 50,40 and 24mm focal lengths.  It Light Bulb has an aperture ring on it with a click or no click switch an auto focus on and off switch and a focus hold button that you can program to be almost anything.  Like with all Sony or any manufacturers "now a days" that make lenses they are very sharp. I have had many 50mm lenses in my time as a photographer both film and digital. This is what came with your film 35mm camera when you bought one back in the day. They are sometimes called the nifty 50. I think no photographer shouldn't be without one. 

Stairs and Shadows Boston 35mm Lens. This focal lengths is one of the most popular focal lengths for street photography at slightly wider than normal eye vision. I have a Sony/Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 lens. This is one of Sony's oldest lenses but it is so good you can still buy it brand new and it isn't cheap. Carl Zeiss lenses are known as some of the best lenses ever made and Sony teamed up with them at the beginning of the mirrorless age and this was one of the first lenses they made along with a 55mm witch is still one of the best lenses for the Sony full frame cameras. Sony makes other 35mm lenses I have owned one that was f/1.8 which was Bartender waiting for Customer Boston an excellent lens and they make a f1.4 version also that I'm sure I can't afford or carry. LOL The Zeiss lens that I have is small and fast to focus and tac sharp and has that Carl Zeiss look about it . Very good contrast. 

All three of these lenses are small and easy to carry and will fit in small fanny pack or jacket pocket. These fun little lenses will make you a better photographer in my opinion because you really don't need to think about anything but composing and looking for your shot. Also traveling with these light lenses will be an ease on your back. I usually only take two of these at a time . Usually the primes but if I am carrying the Zoom I will take one of the primes for low light shots. Well that's it for this week so... Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Everyone! How has your week gone? Mine pretty well. I think I'm slowly getting out of my photography slump but very slowly. This week is about street photography. Now I'm no great street photographer but I do know a little about it. There are two main mind sets when it comes to street photography and that's what we're going to discuss today. I have been fumbling around these approaches to street photography but really didn't have the words for it until I saw a video and it really clicked in. Made sense! The lightbulb came on! You're either a Hunter or a Fisher.

Hunters. Hunters are searching for subjects, hunting them down. Maybe they see an interesting looking person and follows them around. Or maybe they just wander around waiting to find the perfect light and scene maybe a bicycle laying against an ivy covered wall with the perfect shadow on it that they just happened to come up upon. Hunters are constantly moving walking and snapping away. I often use this approach when I'm doing a photo walk of a small town that I haven't been to before. I walk the streets just looking "hunting" for something to take a photo of. Some days are good ones and some aren't very productive but I'm on the move my eyes are going here and there searching for that cool shot whether it's people or still life. No doubt about it i'm going to get my steps in and see a lot of the town even though I might not get that perfect banger shot. Getting street portraits of people is defiantly a hunter type of street photography. You find an interesting person go to them and get a portrait. Most of us aren't comfortable doing this but the hunter will Man Waiting for T Boston have no problem stalking down its prey.

Fisher's. Fishers are much slower and methodical in their approach. They usually pick out a back ground scene with all of the interesting details in it and then wait for someone interesting to come and walk through. Much like a landscape photographer who finds the right composition and then waits for the perfect light or formation of clouds to come by before taking the shot. I have done a few shots like this one that I can remember was in Washington DC where I found a puddle of water by a intersection and set my camera up so I would get the reflection and waited for a bus or traffic to come by and do a longer exposure so I would get the light trails from the bus. I worked out greatly. Fishers tend to do more research on locations than hunters do so they know what backdrop they want to get and they go there and wait for the perfect subject to wander into their frame. The kind of photo with a great background and someone walks through it. Kind of like going to a pond throwing your line out and waiting for that bobber to go under water before setting the hook.

Both approaches work well for street photography. I kind of use them both. When I'm doing a photo walk of a city I'm just walking around looking for that great photo. But sometimes while I'm out on a photo walk I find a great background and just sit a while and wait for that great shot to come to me when someone walks through.  So sometimes I'm both a Hunter and a Fisher. Which are you? Until Next week Get out and Shoot!

Reading Boy Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

EYES

What's up guys? Me ? Great! I know you've seen the title and no I didn't get a new camera . I haven't broken my new year's resolution but I have thought about it. LOL Next year might be an expensive year! But a new member of our club was getting a new camera and I thought about what things would I do if (and when) I get a new camera. So that is what this blog is about. Now getting a new camera is a big deal . They are expensive and a big investment and to us camera geeks it's personal also. We all love our cameras and this chunk of metal is almost like family . So just like family we should protect it and take care of it. So lets get to it what to do right after getting your new camera.

Protect it. Protecting your expensive investment is key to a happy and enjoyable relationship with your camera . One of the first things I do is get a screen protector for the LCD display. Just like your phone a screen protector really gives you ease of mind when handling your camera. I purchase used gear and I do the same thing no matter if it's new or used. I once bought a used camera from a friend and got a great deal on it but it had a big scratch on the LCD and if they had protected it that wouldn't have been there and they probably could have got more money for it than what they charged me. I am a big body cap guy if I don't have a lens on it to protect the sensor. After you get your camera I would also make sure that you add it to your insurance policy to make sure that it is insured incase of an accident. I've had to use my insurance twice with broken lenses and it saved me lots of money. You can usually add this to a home owners insurance policy if you own a house or some sort of insurance like the one with PPA (professional photographers association)  A must have for your expensive purchase.

Use it. Things that I do when I first get a camera is to get it set up to me.  With all of the menus and items that you can change this becomes daunting. I usually find a YouTube video on setting up my particular camera and they go through all of the settings of your camera. I like back button focus so I always make sure that is setup. I also get my camera set up with a strap of some sort. I'm a big peak design guy so all I have to do is put some of those buttons that they use to connect the strap on my camera. Then I can put a neck strap or a wrist strap very easily. I also get extra batteries . At least one so I can change out if I have too. I also get an external battery charger. All of these items if they don't  come with your camera you can get off of Amazon. Then it's just practice, Practice ,practice . If you have just bought the same brand of camera the setting knobs and levers  are probably in the same spot but if not practice changing setting so you can do it without looking. Nothing is more frustrating than fumbling with settings trying to get a shot.

Getting a new camera is great! But it can be an overwhelming task to learn it with all of the technical things that new camera's do. I would suggest watching some youtube videos or some sort of tutorial that you can watch over and over again until you understand how it works and what settings will work best for you. I'm sure some folks have other things that they do when they get a new camera please share. Until next week . Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link