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Author Topic: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?  (Read 9999 times)

BernardLanguillier

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Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« on: September 29, 2014, 09:33:54 pm »

A bit heavy, but it can be done somehow. ;)







All images shot handheld at f2.8. D810 + 400mm f2.8 E FL.

A shooting philosophy not fully aligned with the latest compact mirror less trends...  ;D

Cheers,
Bernard

« Last Edit: September 29, 2014, 09:37:08 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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stamper

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2014, 03:46:24 am »

You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2014, 04:33:22 am »

You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)

Yep, you need hips and back replacements. Arms too probably.

That's the price to pay for good bokeh! ;)

Cheers,
Bernard

RSL

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2014, 08:02:50 am »

Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.
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Chris Calohan

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2014, 08:22:23 am »

I hope you like your D810 as much as I do mine. Every day, I discover something it can do the D800 couldn't. I read comps from reputable magazines every day as to it is only marginally better than the 800 but I find it to be far past those critiques a superior platform. Add a nice piece of glass and it becomes a formidable piece of gear. Not sure though I'd walk around the streets with a 2.8 400mm and not have a Sherpa with me.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2014, 08:37:57 am »

Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.

They were shot in a street out in the city, that's good enough for me. ;)

Cheers,
Bernard

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2014, 08:45:04 am »

I hope you like your D810 as much as I do mine. Every day, I discover something it can do the D800 couldn't. I read comps from reputable magazines every day as to it is only marginally better than the 800 but I find it to be far past those critiques a superior platform. Add a nice piece of glass and it becomes a formidable piece of gear. Not sure though I'd walk around the streets with a 2.8 400mm and not have a Sherpa with me.

Yep, the D810 is an unbelievably good photographic machine!

In fact the new 400mm f2.8 "only" weights 3.8 kg. With its excellent balance (it isn't front heavy), high inertia and brilliant VR, it is really hand holdable... for short amounts of time.

Cheers,
Bernard

Iluvmycam

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2014, 09:07:47 am »

You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)

 

Op, nice photos. Esp the low noise street night shot. I only use superwides for my street work. A 50mm is like a super tele for me!

Stamper, that about sums me up to. Although I gave up 4/3 for most of my work and adopted Fuji X and Leica. The 4/3 does provide max stealth when needed and I will drag it out if I have to get the shot.* (I have 6 4/3's)

Here is an example of what Stamper eluded to...

http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/56422193364

You could never shoot this shot with your monster Nikon or any other dslr. Sure it is possible. But this was shot after shooting all day and night with the cam on my wrist. I focused on kids that day. In 2014 if your an old guy shooting stranger kids you are a pervert. No one ever knew a thing the way I shoot. it is all due to my technique, 46 years shooting and mirrorless cams.

Expand your horizons OP if you ever want to improve on the street work. Adopt mirrorless unless you want to keep hiding behind the tele blocks away.

nsfw

1 foot away

http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/87671152746

2 feet away

http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/90113821726

http://whoopwhoopartistsbook.tumblr.com/image/93154306926

3 feet away

http://familyicp.tumblr.com/image/93351476533

4 feet away

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Peephole_Bikers_Mardi_Gras_Copyright_2013_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr_MR3.jpg

6 feet away

http://familyicp.tumblr.com/image/94381154148

8 feet away

http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/41324185281

...all mirrorless OP, all 100% candids. Go try this with your monster cam OP then report back to us how you do.

Always remember, mp only go so far OP. *Use the right tool for the shoot OP, don't let ego ruin the shot.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2014, 09:33:06 am by iluvmycam »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2014, 09:29:08 am »

Some very nice images!

Cheers,
Bernard

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2014, 09:42:53 am »

Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.
As soon as I saw these, I knew the Commissar of Street was going to jump in.
It's a good think you didn't "Crop," or you'd face a double conviction.
Nice pix, Bernard, but I prefer your (peaceful) mountain scenes.

Cheers,
Eric
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Bruce Cox

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2014, 10:52:09 am »

As soon as I saw these, I knew the Commissar of Street was going to jump in.
It's a good think you didn't "Crop," or you'd face a double conviction.
Nice pix, Bernard, but I prefer your (peaceful) mountain scenes.

Cheers,
Eric


#2 is peaceful enough for me and my favorite of these.

Bruce
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Isaac

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2014, 11:04:31 am »

the Commissar of Street

Street photographs?

Quote
Photographer Osborne Yellott appears to have been the first person to deploy the term "street photography," as the title of an essay he wrote in 1900 … he then divided the genre into two strains of photographic meaning, delineating street photographs based on attention to the specifics of location from those rooted in the scene the photographer discovers there. For the first category, the "pictorial treatment of locality," he argued that "an intimate acquaintance with the locality is essential to success." For the second category, the "record of scene or incident which may possess sentiment or merely human interest," the specific location of a photograph bears little importance. … one in which urban context is key, the other stressing poetic or fortuitous happenstance.

… I will use the term "street photograph" to delineate Yellott's first category from the "street photography" of Yellott's second category, with which the genre has for too long been exclusively equated.

Unfamiliar Streets: The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca DiCorcia
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RSL

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2014, 12:07:14 pm »

They were shot in a street out in the city, that's good enough for me. ;)

Right, Bernard, and since they were shot in a street out in the city you could call them impressionist paintings, and that might be good enough for you but it wouldn't make it true. If you're going to claim to work in a particular genre it might pay to learn something about the genre. I'd point you toward early Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank for starters -- two of the people who invented and defined street photography.

And Isaac, Yellott can "deploy" terms all he wants, but the genre we now call street photography wasn't born until after Oskar Barnak's Leica became available to people like Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson. For Kertesz that was 1928. For Cartier-Bresson it was 1931. Earlier equipment, not unlike the current 400mm f/2.8, was too bulky to use for street photography. Atget shot some people on the street with his view camera about the same time Yellott was "deploying," but the result isn't street photography. I more than suspect you already knew that.

An interesting sideline: The two articles I wrote on the subject that now reside on my main web as "essays": http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/OnStreetPhotography.html and http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhyDoStreetPhotography.html had been read by approximately thirty people a month for the past three years -- until day before yesterday. In a day and a night my web has been inundated by people from the UK reading those two articles: more than a hundred of them. The flood has slowed, but it's still going on. If anybody has any idea why that's happening, please clue me in.
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Isaac

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2014, 12:46:38 pm »

And Isaac, Yellott can "deploy" terms all he wants, but the genre we now call street photography…

The author of Unfamiliar Streets used the term "street photograph" not "street photography" for Yellott's first category.

(Although she is as free to use the broader meaning as you are free to be narrow -- In my approach, "street photography" should not be limited to those images taken in or of any street seeking the "scene or incident" of Yellott's second category.)
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RSL

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2014, 01:23:16 pm »

The problem is that you can jaw it to death, but jawing can't define street photography any more than jawing can define impressionism. You can talk about it, but you can't really describe what makes it a unique genre. To understand impressionism you have to become familiar with impressionist paintings. To understand street photography you have to become familiar with the work of the people who defined the genre. Talking about it doesn't really define it.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #15 on: September 30, 2014, 04:34:23 pm »

Russ,

Thanks for these interesting links. I guess that the 2 images below would probably fit your definition better?





Captured with the same equipment.

Now, I genuinely wonder if we can limit a category to the type of images that major photographers active in that domain such as HCB (that I am very familiar with) produced.

I think that we would all agree that landscape isn't limited to the type of images that Hansel Adams produced and that limited DoF colour images showing details of a scene also fall within "landscape", right?

What is the value of enforcing a more strict categorisation for "street photography"?

Cheers,
Bernard

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #16 on: September 30, 2014, 05:04:23 pm »

... What is the value of enforcing a more strict categorisation for "street photography"?

The more you restrict, the more power goes to the preachers who then determine what belongs and what not, who are the faithfuls and who are the infidels ;)

RSL

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #17 on: September 30, 2014, 05:45:50 pm »

Okay, Slobodan. Let's call Jackson Pollock's work "Impressionism." If nobody knows or cares about the difference then you've confused the definition of the genre to the point of meaninglessness. What you're telling us is that there are -- or should be -- no genres in the art world. Everything is just stuff.

And Bernard, I'll agree that both of your B&W's are street. The first one isn't strong because the story is mundane and not the kind of thing that gives you a jolt. The second is a little better because it contains some ambiguity. Yes, you can do street, awkwardly, with a long lens. In the first B&W above there's nothing in the foreground that shows the linear perspective distortion the lens gives the scene, so you're home free. In the second case the long lens actually helps because of the distortion. The main problem on the street, though, is the fact that a long lens on a DSLR body draws too much attention. If you want to do serious street, as Stamper suggests, try a micro four thirds with either the equivalent of a 50mm or 35mm on it. You can move among 'em unobtrusively and, as HCB suggests, "approach tenderly, gently on tiptoe."
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Isaac

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2014, 05:53:34 pm »

To understand street photography you have to become familiar with the work of the people who defined the genre.

Choose different people and you'll have a different understanding of what the genre can be.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?
« Reply #19 on: September 30, 2014, 06:08:11 pm »

Russ,

I am aware that most people do street with unobtrusive cameras with widish lenses. But considering that you don't seem to think that an interaction with the subject is needed, I would think that a long enough lens completely removing the photographer from the scene is an interesting option, isn't it? It is of courde impossible to stay un-noticed with such equipment, but it's possible to stay un-noticed from the subject, which is all that matters I would think?

I am also not sure that photographers such as HCB wouldn't have considered this since we now have incredible cameras and lenses making this possible. It was simply not even possible 5 years ago and I like to explore new(ish) avenues.

The look resulting from limited DoF may be interesting too. I love the bokeh generated by this lens accross the field of the image, with fully circular OoF highlights till the border of the image (something you cannot get with shorter tele lenses), the very limited light fall off wide open and the near perfect correction of all chromatic aberrations.

I'll for sure continue to see where this leads me. ;)

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: September 30, 2014, 06:21:53 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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