Ideal kit set-up for event street photography

[Les McLean]

I'd be interested in hearing others views on this, as (like most aspects of photography) there is no real holy grail , consequently it's often a series of compromises to arrive on a 'best fit'.

I enjoy, and have shot numerous street photography events, particularly the Whitby Goth Weekend, War Weekends around Yorkshire and street entertainers, and after a lot of trial and error, these are the bits of kit that I take that suit my style of shooting.

I have gone through a full circle, taking 2 bodies, a few lenses, including 'just in case' lenses (usually a very wide angle), two flashguns, and once even a tripod, down to taking one body and one lens.

I've finally whittled it down to one body (usually a FF), and two lenses, 85mm and 50mm and one flashgun.

I find I use the 85mm for most of my shots, it's great for head & shoulder shots and if you step back , full body shots, while the 50mm is for group shots. Both are fast primes, therefore are good at kicking the background out of focus, which is important on these occasions, as there are usually crowds, therefore inevitably fussy backgrounds.

I used to carry a 135mm around, but realised it was perhaps a bit long, keeping you too distant from your subject, and when there are 20 other togs around competing for the subjects attention, I feel you do need to be close enough to communicate with the subject(s)

I gave up on wide-angle lenses, there is just too much going on around the subjects to get a meaningful result.

I'm aware that zooms are much more convenient, and if I was using a 1.6 crop body, a 24-70mm F2.8 would be ideal, on a FF it's a bit more difficult, 24-70 is probably not quite long enough, 24-105 F4L is not fast enough, 70-200 F2.8 is good, but comes at a weight price.

So I'm probably happiest with a couple of primes.

I take one flash gun, with a diffuser attached, mounted on camera, and used for fill flash if the light is very bright.

And one lightweight rucksack, consequently, it's easy to carry around, which is important, with lots of the activity at different places.

If I was limited to one body and one lens, on a FF body it would be a fast 85mm, and on a crop body a fast 50mm lens.

 

[neoboy]

Cheers for the info, I was actually toying with an idea of photographing some events.

 

[Arkady]

I'm in two minds aboiut this: both appraoches have equal merit for different reasons.
For 95% of my work I generally use my 24-70 and 70-200 on two bodies and would be loath to change my work-pattern.
However I recently attended a photo workshop where I only used the 50 and 85, so I think it depends on what you want to get from the shoot.

If I were in complete control of the situation, I'd opt for the fast primes every time.
If in doubt I'd err on the side of caution and stick with the two zooms.

If it were a paid assignment, then caution will always win.

 

[PerfectSpeed]

2 30D's normally 24-70(soon replaced with 17-55 f/2.8) and 70-200, a nifty in my pocket for just in case.

The 70-200 see's the most action though, sometimes things change too fast for foot zooms, being a little away helps get some natural shots.

 

[Les McLean]

If it were a paid assignment, then caution will always win.

I think that's a fair point, fortunately, I don't have to worry about paid assignments, if I did, my approach would probably be different, sacrificing the speed/IQ of fast primes for good zooms would be the preferred option.

The 70-200 see's the most action though, sometimes things change too fast for foot zooms, being a little away helps get some natural shots.

I take your point, but if you use a camera with plenty of pixels to play with, and a good fast prime, then you have loads of cropping margins.
It was an anxiety when I swapped from zooms to primes, but never became an issue.

 

[PerfectSpeed]

I take your point, but if you use a camera with plenty of pixels to play with, and a good fast prime, then you have loads of cropping margins.

How does it look on a FF if you need good subject isolation to knock out a background, do the crops work?

 

[treeman]

Les, thanks for posting your preferences on this, particularly timely for me as I've got to cover a local lantern procession next weekend. As Rob has said, in terms of playing safe I would take the 24-70, however I'd decided to take two bodies using 50mm 1.4 and the 85mm 1.4, just to push myself a little and get some great shallow DOF with the lights etc.
Your post has reconfirmed my choice, it could be wrong, but I won't know until I've tried it thanks.

 

[Les McLean]

How does it look on a FF if you need good subject isolation to knock out a background, do the crops work?

Yep, if you stand back a bit, you can shoot at very narrow DOF (f1.6/8 etc) and still retain detail in the subject, while kicking the BG OOF, it took a fair bit of practice to get it sorted though (and often still miss the money shot )

 

[Les McLean]

Les, thanks for posting your preferences on this, particularly timely for me as I've got to cover a local lantern procession next weekend. As Rob has said, in terms of playing safe I would take the 24-70, however I'd decided to take two bodies using 50mm 1.4 and the 85mm 1.4, just to push myself a little and get some great shallow DOF with the lights etc.
Your post has reconfirmed my choice, it could be wrong, but I won't know until I've tried it thanks.

I think that's a sound approach, it would be interesting to get some feedback after you have tried it.

I don't think there is ever one 'correct' approach, and often horses for courses.

When I did take a pantry full of equipment, I found I was constantly confusing myself (not hard I know), particularly trying to remember what flash settings I had on each body!!!!!

And it did make me smile the other day (and on other occasions), with togs so burdened with kit, by the time they had set up their tripod, multiple flash guns, reflectors, exposure meters, picked their nose, scratched arses etc (I'm exaggerating but you know what I mean), the moment had passed, and by the time they had walked up the steps to the Abbey, they needed an oxygen cylinder

 

[magicaxeman]

I think you pretty much have it spot on Les,my choices are the same and even though stuck in all the time now, I know by experience that they wouldn't be any different if getting out on the street.

I can remember lugging a quite heavy bag around in my old canon and nikon film days, I soon learnt that picking a lens to leave on the camera and then popping a 50mm in my pocket was the way to go, and even when I started with DSLR's with the Pentax/samsung I would often have the tamron SP90 on camera and a fast 50mm in my pocket.
I never bothered with flash though, in fact I didn't own a flash gun, just a set of studio flashes, though I usually had a small pop up reflector in another pocket.

I too use mainly a 50mm and 85mm though mine are just 1.8's, in fact I only bought a zoom (tamron 17-55mm F2.8) as I needed closer focusing for self portraits, and a longer zoom for moth/insect and whatever is outside the window photographs.
I'm more than happy with those two focal lengths on my crop body.