Improving your street photography with your Nikon Quickstart cheat sheet

Choose the right focal length

To create a natural-looking scene close to the human eye, choose a ‘standard’ focal length of 35-50mm.

Talk to people

Candid portraits will level up your street photography, but remember to ask permission, smile and be polite.

Level up (and down)

Capture different angles, as a busy crowd looks different at hip level than eye level. Experiment with taking images above your head height, too. Angle your monitor to check your composition.

Experiment with camera modes

Look at how changing the aperture can alter the depth of field to blur out background or try a longer shutter speed for some motion blur of traffic, for example.

Learn to wait

You never know what’s going to happen, so be prepared to wait and watch for a moment you think is interesting.

Start local

‘Go where you know’ is good advice for beginners. Start looking at your local environment in different ways, seeing what compositions you can make.

Great lenses for street photography

A ‘standard’ focal length lens is a great choice for street photography, so you can get both people and surrounding environment details in the image, which work together to tell the story.

Pro choice
NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S

Great value prime
NIKKOR Z 40mm f/2

DX choice
NIKKOR Z DX 24mm f/1.7

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