Improving your street photography with your Nikon Quickstart cheat sheet
Capture great moments with these tips and tricks and download your free cheat sheet
Nikon Quickstart is a series of Nikon magazine cheat sheets for beginners, in which we’re demystifying some of the techniques and tricks that will instantly improve your photography and video. Street photography is all about capturing moments of daily urban life, telling evocative stories of how we live. It means images that are natural and spontaneous and composition that shows people in the environment to tell the full story. Read on for the basics of getting it right and some suggestions on the best lenses for street work – download your free Nikon Quickstart cheat sheet as a handy reminder.
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Choose the right focal length
To create a natural-looking scene close to the human eye, choose a ‘standard’ focal length of 35-50mm.
Talk to people
Candid portraits will level up your street photography, but remember to ask permission, smile and be polite.
Level up (and down)
Capture different angles, as a busy crowd looks different at hip level than eye level. Experiment with taking images above your head height, too. Angle your monitor to check your composition.
Experiment with camera modes
Look at how changing the aperture can alter the depth of field to blur out background or try a longer shutter speed for some motion blur of traffic, for example.
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Learn to wait
You never know what’s going to happen, so be prepared to wait and watch for a moment you think is interesting.
Start local
‘Go where you know’ is good advice for beginners. Start looking at your local environment in different ways, seeing what compositions you can make.
Great lenses for street photography
A ‘standard’ focal length lens is a great choice for street photography, so you can get both people and surrounding environment details in the image, which work together to tell the story.
Pro choice
NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S
Great value prime
NIKKOR Z 40mm f/2
DX choice
NIKKOR Z DX 24mm f/1.7
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