I will soon be for some time in Vietnam and that is a dream street photography location.
As there will be situations (namely when going around in crowded places and/or a scooters) I will want to keep my bag light, I was planning to also bring along the CV21/3.5 and CV40/1.2, or buy and bring the nikon 28/40 ... or something else.
Any suggestion from personal experience is welcome!
I like street photography but am not necessarily very good at it. Nevertheless, for me, I’d absolutely want autofocus so that I could be quicker, more spontaneous and also more discrete. To that end, I’ve found the 28 and 40mm compacts to be quite good, and I find that the focal lengths complement each other nicely. And the newer 26mm looks very appealing, though it’s more expensive and doesn’t make a lot of sense for anyone who already owns the 28.
I've always preferred zone focusing for street photography, so I'd stick with MF.
I will assume MF means Manual Focus. Discrete Street Photography is best done without bringing the Camera up to your eye, so MF would not the most reliable way to get sharp images(though the Apollo Moonwalkers did a decent job with MF, no Viewfinders, and the Camera attached to their suit). A Pancake would not be trying to point at One's feet and if the camera can be triggered with a remote, would certainly be discrete for Street Candids
I remember Zone Focusing, easy to do with the old MF Lenses.
Once you develop your distance-estimating skills...
I used to estimate distances when I was using an Olympus Pen film camera, and with my first camera (a Finetta). It's not too difficult.
Don
I cannot believe you managed to do street with MF. I mean it is possible, it is even better thrill, but you might miss some pictures.
I have quite few issues with how the 40mm f/2 draws and close focus performance, but generally, Nikon pancakes are more than fair choice. I would try some.
I can't tell if you're joking but I mean, with all due respect, study the history of 'street.'
I mean, by today´s standards. The expectation is to get the shot, and not to pray for it. Of course it can be done with MF, but too many shots might be lost.
I never had problems getting things in focus when I was using zone focusing. And I didn't do any praying while shooting.
You are exaggerating the difficulty of manual focus. Still, I'm not suggesting AF does not help, it does, but 'street' is fast and from my experience AF does occasionally miss. As Jim has implied, zone focus can work very well though it takes some learning and practice.
With a Lumix GX9, 14-32mm kit lens zone focused, composed without the viewfinder or screen:
www.flickr.com/photos/146601120@N02/52886181407/in/photostream/
Yes, maybe it's me. Maybe it's lack of young man's patience, maybe it was inevitability for togs in past, I get it. Judging my in-brain image processing and camera handling, I could not do street photography without AF. That would be a quick end.
I did though use MF lenses, and Damyang MF 85mm just arrived. Wasn't exactly hard to make head and shoulders portrait shot with MF....
I see no problem zone focusing with manual focus lenses, sure sharpness might be lacking more often than not ... but that is part of it for me.
Thanks for all feedback. I will try the pancake also. They are considerably, lighter (both together are lighter than the cv40).
I'm with you ... AF works so well, why forgo it? Especially within a fast-moving and dynamic environment.
But perhaps it comes down to personal shooting style as much as anything. If you tend to shoot at smaller apertures with broader depth of field, then I can see MF and zone focusing working quite well. If you want to open things up a bit and focus on one person or subject, isolating it from the background, then I personally would have trouble capturing that with MF.
Anyway, for the OP, you could always get the AF 26, 28 and 40 and shoot them manually, but then you'd always have the option to switch and use AF as well.
Well i was discarding the 26, but ... i am just back from Singapore where i went fully manual with just the CV21 and CV40. This is where i discovered weather sealing is a good thing to have, 21 is too wide and 40 is often too narrow .... So now i am more inclined to get the just 26
I imagine with a sufficiently wide focal length, you could get most in focus without trying hard. That being said, I don't like manual focus so I'd go for AF lenses (for myself).
