What's up Ya'll! Me? I'm doing great! Hope you are! This week is the start of another series. This is Street Photography Gear .  This is the first part of a 3 part series on gear for street photography and photo walks . The gear I’m going to talk about today is the Camera or Camera body to use.  In street photography and doing photo walks the size of the gear is more important than the brand name of the gear. Now street photography can be taken with almost any type of camera from your phone to the most fancy Mirrorless camera. Street photography has been around since the beginning of photography itself so lots of different cameras from film to digital has and can be used. In street photography and photo walks size is very important for a couple of reasons. The first reason is weight. When doing street photography you are usually on foot walking everywhere you go. So the size and weight of the gear is very important. You want to be as light as possible. The second reason is to be inconspicuous when you are shooting and walking around. You don’t want to be the center of attention when your walking around. You don’t want to be intimidating to the subjects you are photographing .  These are the two reasons that lightweight small gear is wanted. So there are so many types of cameras so I will break them down in a couple of categories. First one is small point and shoot.

Digital Point and shoot Cameras. Point and shoot cameras are great because they are all one piece. No lenses to mess with just the camera. I consider your mobile phone as a point and shoot but not my first choice as a street photography camera but they work great in a pinch and are wonderful if the lighting conditions are bad because of the computational photography program algorithms built into the device. Point and shoots with zooms are great also because they are very versatile with the zooms. I have a little Canon G7XII point and shoot that I love. Point and shoots with fixed focal length lenses work well too because they take all of the decision making out and you just have to frame and shoot. Some of the most popular point and shoots fall in this category . The Fujifilm X100 cameras . The Fujifilm X100 VI is the latest version of this camera and it comes with a 35 full frame equivalent lens on it. Just made for street photography. All of these cameras are small and lightweight and can fit in your pocket for concealment .

Digital Interchangeable lens Cameras. These can be either DSLR cameras or Mirrorless cameras. They can be either rangefinder shaped or traditional SLR shaped. The key here is as above smaller is better but any will work. As with all of these camera's if I haven't mentioned it before the sensor size doesn't really matter. Can be full frame , crop or Mircro 4/3rds or even smaller. Generally speaking the smaller the sensor the smaller the lens and lighter the kit and extra lenses. Any brand will do but some of the big names are Leica, Fujifilm, Nikon, Canon and Sony and let's not forget Olympus and Panasonic. All these brands and if I've missed one produce photographs that are of great quality. The main point here is to be light as possible and really be familiar with your camera and make sure you have enough batteries to keep your camera going for hours. This big advantages of these camera's is the versatility. The ability to change lenses at will from lets say a fast prime lens to a Zoom lens with many focal lengths built in. Choose your lenses carefully and don't carry too many of them. I would say two at max one on the camera and a spare. Any more than that you will be changing lenses more than taking photographs.

Film Camera's. All modern cameras have been influenced by the older film camera's. The most famous street photographers all used film and cameras carried. Leica being the king with the M series of cameras. But other manufacturers work well too. Small is still the king here. Small rangefinder like Leica, Canon, Nikon to larger like Rolleiflex medium formate twin lens cameras. Being a master at film is a must if your shooting film because film doesn't have the dynamic range of digital and care and correct metering is a must. Most if not all of these camera's are manual focusing and zone focusing system might be very handy for quick shooting. There are interchangeable lens cameras and point and shoot with fixed lenses. My main film street camera is a Canon Canonet QL17 said to be the "Poor mans Leica" . It's a rangefinder 35mm point and shoot with a fixed 40mm f/1.7 lens and a leaf shutter for silent shooting. Shooting with these camera's requires much skill but if your into film it can be quite fun.

In summary it doesn't really matter what camera you use for street but smaller is better and less is more. Being able to handle it with ease is probably more important than what camera you have. You probably already have a camera that is perfect for street photography. 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 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

What's up Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week! Me? Doing well. It's springtime and my wife has me doing chores in the yard. This week I want to talk about doing something different. Out of your comfort zone. We sometimes get trapped in one type of photography say Wildlife or Portraits or Street. Now this is good to hone your craft or your passion but I think it also hinders your growth and your imagination and you get stuck in a rut. I know it has happened to me. Sometimes new gear will snap you out of this but sometimes it's just changing the subject that you are shooting. Maybe the way you shoot. This week I want to talk about doing something completely different . Now I am mainly a stills photographer and hardly ever shoot a video even though I have a Youtube channel. LOL Most of my videos are about going somewhere a hike or camping trip. I have recently got back into biking and am having a good time exploring by bike. Not only is it good exercise but it's fun and I've started to incorporate camping into my bike riding. And one of the best ways to document my travels is by using a GoPro and video my travels. I have recently made a few videos that I will link later on in this blog. Now I am no great videographer I bearly get by. Some folks say that if they have trouble going to sleep they just look at one of my hiking video and off to sleep they go. LOL But shooting these videos is making me look at photography in a different way and I think making my photography better. 

Now I'm not saying shoot video that's just me but maybe a different type of photography one that isn't in your comfort zone. Getting out of your comfort zone is how we grow.  It doesn't have to be crazy different . Maybe you shoot Wildlife maybe you shoot some sports. You're still shooting moving objects just a different subject. If you're a portrait photographer you shoot street or wildlife where you don't have control over the situation. Maybe instead of using your regular camera you use something else. A cell phone or a point and shoot or just a prime lens. All of these things will make you a better photographer. Understanding that the basics of photography don't change just the subject and the "how too" does. The holidays is a great time to do this. Taking photo's of family and friends and maybe just using your cell phone or a point and shoot without getting too technical with lights and everything. Sometimes as photographers we tend to think too much. You know what ISO what shutter speed my aperture . When you use one of these other automatic cameras it takes away all of the thinking because they are mostly automatic. You as a photographer loose control over every aspect and have to rely on what you can control composition, available light and the such. 

Snapping out of a photography funk isn't always easy but shooting something different helps. Next year I have some photography projects and trips that will test my photography skills by doing something different. This year I started shooting film again and it has really kept me interested and excited about photography and hopefully made me a better photographer. So get outside and shoot something different!

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

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Links to recent videos can be found on my YouTube Chanel “Max Stansell Photography”

Autumn's End, First Bike Touring Trip, Neuse River Trail Ride 30.5 miles

Hey Y'all ! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Doing great. This week I want to talk about GPS. When I first started out in photography in the 1970's (yes I'm that old) there was no such thing as GPS (Global Positioning System) Now if you want to go somewhere you can't live without it. I remember driving from North Carolina to New Mexico with just a map a road atlas if you will. But now a days I can't go anywhere with out my GPS. We use GPS for all kinds of stuff. Our phones have it and when you log on somewhere the internet knows where you are because of GPS . We use maps on our phones and GPS is certainly a big thing but what about in photography? I think GPS can be very important in photography. Especially Travel Photography. We have the ability to attach a GPS coordinate to the photo we took and can tell where and when it was took. This is a fantastic thing. Now I have written about GPS before in previous blogs but I heard a Podcast from the "Digital Story" and thought I would echo some of what Derrick Story said in the podcast. By the way if you don't listen to the podcast you should. So what good is GPS in Photography?

Fire BushValley of Fire State Park Nevada. GPS in photography can be used in many ways. First of all it can be used for posterity . When were gone and one of our grandchildren are looking at a photograph of Mom and Dad and wonder where that photo is taken they can look at the GPS data and tell exactly where and when it was taken. I personally think that if you're not at home taking photo's you should have a GPS coordinate attached to your photo. Have you ever gone through your photos and found one that was pretty awesome but didn't know where it was taken? GPS would fix that. You can use it to see where you have been and what photo's you took where. It's pretty neat! But how do I get GPS on my photo's? Fall Colors House

Getting the GPS on your photo's can be done many ways. The first and easiest is if your main camera has GPS built into the camera. Not many camera's have this but some do. The next best thing is to attach a device to your camera that records the GPS and puts the data on the photo you take. Most camera companies make these but are expensive and attach to your hot shoe usually so you will have something sticking off of your camera. The next best way is with Bluetooth. All Smart phones have GPS and if your camera has bluetooth capabilities then through your camera software you can get the data from your phone via bluetooth and it will record to your photographs. Cockspur Lighthouse This is the way that I do it. And there are other ways. While your out shooting you can pull out your cell phone and take a photo then when your in post you and manually sync the photos that you took in the same area to the cell phone shot. And last but not least is the manual way by going to a map in editing software like Lightroom and manually putting a dot on the map and linking it up with photos you have imported to Lightroom. For me the bluetooth auto linking works best for me. I use Sony software for my cameras and after fiddling around the first time and syncing the camera and the app on my phone it works pretty seamlessly. But it didn't always but the app is better and it syncs pretty quick . I'm sure that the other Camera companies are pretty similar and will work seamlessly like the Sony does for me. You'll just have to do some research to find out how to get them to talk together. For me I will check at the first shoot of the day if they are not synced I can manually do it pretty quick and it will automatically do it all day. Sometimes it picks it up very fast and I don't have to do anything. But I do have to check. If I'm using 2 cameras it only syncs to one at a time so I just have to choose a camera and sync the other in post.

Using GPS on travel photography is fun and easy to do and I think everyone should be doing it. So 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 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link