[disco_owner]

My delaminating eyeballs need all the help they can get when using the 95% of my lenses that are MF. So I cheat.

1) A cheap katzeye-clone focus screen gets me in the neighborhood, especially with well-lit contrasty subjects. The green Focus Confirmation hex tells me I'm there. And CIF (catch-in0focus) nails it for me.

2) I like wide lenses with DOF scales. I zone-focus, or hyperfocus (where the zone extends to infinity), and shoot within the zone. I pace-off or guesstimate distances to stay in the zone. That's easy at 21-24mm.

3) I like wide, tight lenses with near-infinite DOF. They're even more like a P&S than my (2) solution. The DA10-17 or Zenitar 16 fishies; the Loreo Lens-in-a-Cap 35/5.6-64 and Perspective Control 35/11-22; yeah!

If you've got 100% keepers, you're not taking enough risks.

Cheers for the Tip Rio , I'm looking at a Katzeye at the moment , I've been trying the catch-in-focus function on my K5 , a really nifty function to have. to be get the shot Nailed and infocus with 1 shot.

[keyofnight]

We have recurring threads about how-to do street photography. We see many suggestions. Some approaches: Be stealthy. Be blatant. Be distant. Be close. Be disguised. Be obnoxious. Be in a group. Be fast. But basically: Don't be afraid. If your subjects sense fear, they'll devour you. I hate that.


Such limitations haven't impeded numerous successful pros.

Stealthiness, quickness, deception, and confidence are my best friends here. Here's something I do often: I act like a tourist! I'll walk around aimlessly with my camera like I'm taking in the sights. I'll act like I'm shooting something else—a building or a sign—but the whole time I'm shooting the people. The real trick is to make it seem like they're blocking your shot: people get apologetic when they think they're in the way of someone's good holiday pictures. (;

It's funny…when I talk to people about the ethics behind strangers photographing strangers, they're always so worried about ending up in some creeper's photo library, ending up in a captioned picture about "the problem with obesity," or being photoshopped into caricature. The same people—however—understand that candid photography can look good, and they can relate to the experience of taking pictures of people and things on a trip.

[RioRico]

Stealthiness, quickness, deception, and confidence are my best friends here. Here's something I do often: I act like a tourist! I'll walk around aimlessly with my camera like I'm taking in the sights. I'll act like I'm shooting something else—a building or a sign—but the whole time I'm shooting the people. The real trick is to make it seem like they're blocking your shot: people get apologetic when they think they're in the way of someone's good holiday pictures. (;

Are times and places where is MUCH better to appear to be a clueless tourist than a competent togger. Some years ago Xeni Jardin (of Boing-Boing, Wired, NPR) filed a series of reports from Guatemala, all shot with a colorful compact P&S. Ain't no way Xeni could blend in with locals, but she did an excellent impersonation of a gringa tourista and captured otherwise-impossible images. People with weapons may have different responses to a P&S vs a big dSLR with a big lens. Good camouflage: a plastic Rebel with its kit zoom, no hood. Or maybe the K-01 with the DA40XS.

Side note: Travel, being where people don't know you, allows infinite redefinition, reinvention of the self. In Reno, nobody knows I'm intelligent.

[JimJohnson]

When I travel - knowing what I can safely leave behind.

...and shooting posed scenes that (to me at least) don't look like welcome to prison mug shots. I lack the training, experience, and truth be known, motivation. And yet inevitably somebody will put me on the spot and saying 'no' would be poor manners. Sometimes very poor manners.