How to choose the lens for Nikon D850 street photography?

Thanks Wukong for the invitation.

Since it is street photography, just choose a lens that is convenient in terms of angle of view and fits the subject of the shooting.

If you like to take close-up shots, mostly humanistic and environmental portraits, 28, 35, 50 and so on will be fine. (In fact, zoom is also possible, but few people use zoom to sweep the streets. It may be due to the aperture and image quality)

I recommend Nikon’s 35f/1.4g or Sigma’s 35art. The former is more expensive. The Sigma one is very cost-effective as long as it doesn't lose focus.

If you are used to shooting from a distance and do not disturb the subject (or you are too thin-skinned to raise your camera to shoot in front of them, after all, the d850 is very big and very aggressive), the 70- 200 and even longer zooms are also available.

The mid-to-long focal length is suitable for street photography, with flexible and convenient composition and strong blurring ability. It is more suitable for taking photos with people as the theme.

The Nikon d850 is an excellent SLR camera, currently the best among full-frame sub-flagship cameras. If you use this camera for "street photography", you must first see how to use it, and then Consider lens matching.

Street photography can actually be divided into two forms. One is to randomly look for interesting, emotionally expressive, visually impactful, and artistic scenes on the street without interfering with the subject, and capture them. Live the storytelling moments and create documentary works. The other is to use the street as the background of the shooting location and use specific models as the shooting subjects to create street portrait photography.

Regarding these two ways of street photography, I personally think that the d850 is not suitable for the first one. It’s not that it can’t be taken, but the camera is a bit too big. If you do street photography without disturbing the subject, I’m afraid Too conspicuous and the photographer himself may become the center of attention on the street. Cameras suitable for the first type of street photography are often small and inconspicuous devices. In fact, image quality is not the first priority in this creative method. Capturing real moments is the most important, so small cameras are generally used, such as Use a mirrorless camera with a biscuit lens, Sony black card, Ricoh gr, or even a mobile phone to shoot. If it is the second way of street photography, which is actually shooting portraits in a street environment, the d850 is more suitable. We only select lenses for the second street photography method.

When shooting environmental portraits on the street, we do not pursue extreme background blur, nor do we focus on shooting close-ups with very small scenes. Generally, we need to highlight the subject of the portrait itself and explain the environment to a certain extent. The combination of the environmental atmosphere and the portrait subject itself creates a unique street atmosphere. For such subject shooting, I personally tend to choose a lens with the following characteristics:

1. The focal length cannot be too long. Although a long focal length is good for blurring the background, it is likely to be over-blurred, which completely eliminates the environmental factors of the street, which is not conducive to the expression of street photography. I personally think that 28mm, 35mm, and 50mm are the best lenses for street photography and environmental portraits. , 85mm is appropriate, and the longest focal length is 135mm. Of course, many friends are not convinced and think that 200mm and 300mm can be used for street photography. Of course, this does not mean that it cannot be done. We just highlight the "environmental atmosphere" when selecting lenses. Lenses of 85mm and below are more suitable for this theme.

2. The aperture cannot be too small. Since it is a portrait creation, the layering of the picture must be eliminated, and the expressiveness of the portrait must be highlighted. The street environment is relatively complex and is not suitable for completely clear presentation. A shallow depth of field must be used appropriately, and this degree must be just right. It cannot be completely blurred as mentioned above, nor can it be blurred at all. It is just right to clearly explain the elements of the street environment while highlighting the main character. Therefore, if the aperture is too small, on the one hand, it is not easy to achieve a shallow depth of field effect, and on the other hand, if you shoot on the streets with low light or night scenes, you will be blinded. The maximum aperture of the lens should preferably be above f/2.8.

3. It is best to have anti-shake. Street photography, even for posed shots, is very flexible and it is unlikely to use a tripod. If the lens has anti-shake performance, it will be more convenient to use.

Of course, this condition is not necessary. When the focal length is not long and the aperture is large, anti-shake is actually of little effect.

4. High resolution. The d850 can be regarded as a SLR with relatively high pixels. If the lens cannot keep up with the resolution support, it will be a hindrance and cannot fully utilize the strength of the d850. Therefore, you must choose a lens with higher resolution support. Some Old lenses can be eliminated.

Based on the above characteristics, I personally think that there are several lenses that can be considered for street photography on the d850 body:

Nikon’s 85mm f/1.4 is not A very new lens, it has been launched for almost 10 years. Its support for the high-pixel D850 is not as extreme as the new lens, but I still recommend it. The reason is that it is very suitable for portrait shooting, and it is also very suitable for portraits in street environments. Especially for shooting multi-body or full-body portraits, you can highlight the subject of the portrait while appropriately blurring the background. For street portraits, you really need a focal length of 85mm and a large aperture of f/1.4. You can control the depth of field with ease, the perspective relationship is very good, and there is basically no distortion in the picture. It takes a little patience to use this lens well. The focusing speed is not super fast. It is suitable for slow shooting, not for snapshots.

Some of the above suggestions about the Nikon d850 street photography lens represent only personal opinions and everyone is welcome to discuss them.

Street photography is a special category of photography. All photography we take on the street can be called street photography, posing or snapshots.

A friend asked, which lens should be used for street photography? Below I will only talk about the lenses I use for street photography.

I use this lens for street photography. We won’t talk about the imaging or lens quality here. It should allow us to use it with confidence.

Because this lens is telephoto, we can shoot at a relatively far place, especially when shooting some emergencies or capturing pedestrians, which can make the other party lower their guard because we are far away. , the other party may not be able to tell whether they are being filmed.

This lens has a relatively large aperture, which is also very important when shooting street photography. The blurring effect of a large aperture is still good, and it can effectively blur some unideal obstructions to achieve our goal. Photography purpose.

This lens is a zoom lens, which is more suitable for us to take snapshots. It can bring people or scenes in the distance closer.

Maybe everyone has their own lens usage habits, but I just like to use this lens for street photography. Which lens do you like to use? Welcome to communicate.

What are the key points of street photography? I think everyone’s common sense is to capture certain environmental elements and characters that are not too small at a distance that is not too far away. According to the requirements of such a picture, the lens selection can basically be determined in the standard to wide-angle area. The Nikon D850 is a full-frame SLR camera and has the same perspective as other full-frame SLR cameras, mirrorless cameras and film cameras. Therefore, the focal length of the lens chosen for shooting such subjects is consistent. That is a wide-angle lens around 35mm.

For the 35mm focal length lens, you can choose a fixed focus lens or a zoom lens covering the 35mm focal length. Fixed focus lenses have the advantages of large aperture and sharp imaging. The zoom lens not only has 35mm, but also has a more extended focal length coverage. The scope of the composition can be determined more precisely and accurately to facilitate the accuracy of the composition, and it can be done in one step without the need for later cropping. Although fixed-focus lenses have good images, large apertures, and fast speeds, because the focal length is fixed, they have to make some trade-offs in some special situations. If the picture taken by the same camera is cropped, the quality of the picture will undoubtedly drop significantly. Therefore, the original advantage has turned into a disadvantage. Therefore, when choosing a lens, you should weigh it. If the shooting environment is relatively calm and you can run back and forth to facilitate precise composition of street scenes, then choosing a fixed focus lens is undoubtedly a better choice.

If you need to grab speed and capture the moment, in this case it is generally more appropriate to use a large three-dimensional 24-70 lens.

Street photography also has different themes, you can choose according to your own needs and shooting habits. The D850 is very suitable for street photography, but the lens you choose has little to do with the body model.

Prime Minister, you have to decide what kind of street photography you want to achieve. I'm not sure about this, it's hard to choose a lens. Normally it's just a zoom head. My suggestion is not to use a SLR camera for street photography. The camera moved to the side.