W/NW The Streets of Yokohama!

The Streets of Yokohama​
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Sony A7III camera
Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 28mm f1.5 Type II black paint lens
March 2024 - Yokohama, Japan​
 
Benjamin Marks said:
Mike: Have you ever described your street technique in general? I am impressed by how "up close and personal" your images are.
Click to expand...

Benjamin, I have described the process a few times before, but hey, what’s one more time!

Firstly, despite what it may look like in the pictures I do not intrude on people. I’m very stealthy and most people have no idea that I took their picture. The last thing I want to do is bother somebody while they’re out enjoying themself.

Secondly, you need a crowd of people. A crowded sidewalk, street, park or event is really a necessity. If you have a crowd to mingle in, the rest is fairly easy.

My technique (if you want to call it that) is to use scale focus (pre-set manual focus) on the lens. Find the sweet spot on your lens, for me it’s usually a distance between 1 and 1.5 meters. Familiarity with the lens and some practice will sort this out. Then I set my f-stop to f2 or f2.8 and set the ISO to whatever it takes to give me a shutter speed of 1000 to 2000th of a second. After that you walk through the crowd and when you see a subject that looks interesting you walk by with your camera close in and about chest high and take the picture. A quiet shutter is essential. I get my best results with a 35mm lens. Wider than 35mm is okay, 50mm is doable but over 50mm is (for me) difficult. With some practice one can get pretty good at this.

After you take the picture, keep moving. If the person you just photographed looks like they think you just took their picture, look past them as if you're interested in something further down the street and keep moving. If you are approaching someone that already looks suspicious of you… abort! Do not attempt to take their picture. And, keep moving.

Additionally, Japan is a camera friendly country. It is not unusual to see people walking around taking pictures with a camera or their phone. Other countries might not be as friendly.

Benjamin, I hope this explains things clearly for you.

All the best,
Mike
 
Last edited:
The streets of Yokohama
Image was cropped a little bit to eliminate some distractions :)​
U69954.1710279872.0.jpg

Sony A7III camera
Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 28mm f1.5 Type II black paint lens
March 2024 - Yokohama, Japan​
 
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