Why many Mpix camera is better for street genre

Hey, let's face it: the new and monstrous Canon EOS 1 Dx Mk III is not so good for street as the Sony A7 Mk IV.

Why? Canon has so much mojo and so many die-hard admirers! Stop.

Let's face it: nowadays it is very easy to freeze the acrion by using high shutter speed. Most cameras can do it. Many cameras have clean ISO up to 1600 which is enough. With Sony's huge resolving power you can crop your shot heavily and still have enough quality so that your cropped shot be introduced at a photo exhibition or in a book. You may shoot with 35 mm lens but cropping it (while editing), you can get strong "digital zooming" as if you used 85 mm lens and have super clean and detailed image enough for A2 size printing!

Sony is much smaller, eye recognition and has 5-axis stabilization too. Good bonuses.

Hey, let's face it: the new and monstrous Canon EOS 1 Dx Mk III is not so good for street as the Sony A7 Mk IV.

Why? Canon has so much mojo and so many die-hard admirers! Stop.

Let's face it: nowadays it is very easy to freeze the acrion by using high shutter speed. Most cameras can do it. Many cameras have clean ISO up to 1600 which is enough. With Sony's huge resolving power you can crop your shot heavily and still have enough quality so that your cropped shot be introduced at a photo exhibition or in a book. You may shoot with 35 mm lens but cropping it (while editing), you can get strong "digital zooming" as if you used 85 mm lens and have super clean and detailed image enough for A2 size printing!

Sony is much smaller, eye recognition and has 5-axis stabilization too. Good bonuses.

Sounds like a Sony ad to me. How come this isn't spam?

Sounds like a Sony ad to me. How come this isn't spam?

No, this is not a spam. Just my ruminating. I even don't have a Sony and I am constantly publishing here since 2005.

I can name Canon EOS 5D R and Nikon D850 or even Fujifilm GFX 50R here, but as I noted, Sony is better for street. For many reasons. I do some street also, so these conclusions came out of my personal practice and experience.

Inexpensive, unobtrusive, silent, small, are all attributes of a good street camera. And, on the internet, 12mp looks just as good as 48mp. Save you money.

Save you money.

Hmmm.... Reasonable. Yes.

I confess that a Canon 1Diii would not be my first choice for street photography (or anything else), nor any similar camera the size of a breakfast plate with low resolution. However the art of being innocuous is related more to efficiency and avoiding "occuous" behavior. If you stalk people, lurk around corners or thrust a camera in their face, make sure you carry ID and medical insurance. If you act with confidence, and not obviously single out individuals (or children!!!), you become nearly invisible.

I wouldn’t take a giant SLR for street. I’d take some mirrorless camera. MP doesn’t matter. All the cameras now have plenty.

Why would anyone consider a fairly specialized camera like the EOS 1 for casual "street" work in the first place?

 

The surprising conclusion that a shovel is better for digging a small ditch than a "steam shovel" (as they used to be called) is widely understood.

 

I even don't have a Sony and I am constantly publishing here since 2005.

 

I think the implications of this admission are manifest.

Canon is fine.

Pocket sized.

Plenty MPs

 

“Backhoe”

“Trackhoe”

You’re dating yourself, Old Fart.

Let's face it, the Canon is not designed for street photographers. It is a professional camera aimed at those who have a commercial job to do. Very few professionals shoot street unless it is in their spare time.

so these conclusions came out of my personal practice and experience.

You don't have those cameras to begin with, what kind of personal practice and experience you can talk about?

On the other hand, when people see a massive DSLR and lens, they may associate that with 'journalist/reporter/professional' and pretty much ignore it after a second or two.

 

So the Canon 1D / Nikon D5 user might actually get less hassle on the street, especially if they look the part and have a partner with a notepad or tape recorder.

You don't have those cameras to begin with, what kind of personal practice and experience you can talk about?

Wrong.

If you (or I) do street genre or if we have done photography for many years we do intuitively know what I (we) need. Not always must we try it in person. I have not had problems with Olympus E-420 or Pentax K-50 (both with tiny pancakes) on the street. It is strange that nobody clearly understands what advantage huge Mp count camera can really give. Back in the days we had mediocre resolution of film and grain. Yes, as others said, 12 Mp is OK for online resize. The Sony's abiliy to focus on faces on the street has not been understood either by many people, but I clearly see how huge advantage of this option is for catching people's faces. If you want to exhibit your works in prints and still you want the ability to crop heavily.... you do need huge resolution.

Now I repeat myself.

[uSER=8475649]@steve_gallimore|1[/uSER]

EOS-! DX Mk iii is not bad if a photographer wear a mask of mass-media pro and shoots with 70-200 lens openly.

not obviously single out individuals (or children!!!), you become nearly invisible.

You will be less endangered, but you will never be another Robert Doisneau or Brassai. So back to equipment, with huge resolution you don't need to single out anybody but are able to have a shot of individual. Simply put, you shoot the whole beach or a grandstand (off your belly level using its tiltable screen) to get a personal shot or small group shot of extremely high quality (by cropping) later.

Out of my practice I elaborated some technique to be invisible. Or extremely friendly if I want to shoot openly. Need no advice here.

As for children (and three exclamation marks) I never show interest in them, but goofing around teens or doing stunts on their wheels, teenagers might be enteresting subjects to shoot.

Edited January 30, 2020 by ruslan

In my experience, the best street photography is done with a wide angle lens (24/28/35) and cropping isn’t necessary and is even counterproductive to good street photography.

 

(by cropping I mean significantly reducing the file size, not just removing the odd element)

I understand your opinion, it translates some kind of purist's approach. But everything evolves. As for lens choice, I find 50 mm to be ideal for the place where I live (provinvcial town with really wide streets), 24-28 is good for more crowded locations or narrow medieval streets, medinas, etc. I find long focus is also usable for street as it isolates the subject. I use 40 mm on APS sensor ( 60 mm equiv) now and often find it "too wide". With 24 mm I have to stick to my subject so close that he/she would be able to hear the click of the shutter even through the noise of the street.

with a wide angle lens (24/28/35)

BTW, Fred Herzog used longer FL a lot.

We get it. You like Sonys. What are you trying to do here, get a Canon fan to argue with you?

Ruslan, to utilize that extra resolution, you will need super sharp lenses, which from my experience tend to be super big and super heavy, so size advantage is going out of the window. Face recognition, again from my experience, work OK sometimes , but not fail proof, especially noticeable with high resolution censors and lenses.

So, money wise, if I want to do street in high resolution the way you advocating, I would go with Canon 5DsR and save enough for my trip to Venice, I love those narrow Italian streets :)

OTOH, the Nikon D300 makes a hell of a weapon if needed for self defense.

OTOH, the Nikon D300 makes a hell of a weapon if needed for self defense.

Former Zenit street shooter here.

 

Add a Tamron Adaptall2 28-80mm and you've got some serious weight.

 

(I later switched to a Zorki with collapsing lens)

I would think that many practitioners of this genre are likely now using smartphones. I would think that the current generation (this years) phones (in either Android or IOS flavors) would do quite well and the users would simply blend in with the rest of the smartphone toting / using crowd.

I would think that many practitioners of this genre are likely now using smartphones. I would think that the current generation (this years) phones (in either Android or IOS flavors) would do quite well and the users would simply blend in with the rest of the smartphone toting / using crowd.

Even the best smartphones are to slow for fast pacing environment, hard to compose in bright light and pictures doesn't look that good in print because their small sensor size requires large magnification.

Eye recognition worked here, kind of, just wrong eyes:)

A many MP camera would allow a more casual type of photography because of the huge amount of cropping that would be available. Just aiming the camera in the general direction of the subject would be good enough.

Been making photos with a phone cam for a long time now. It works fine.