A Day of 33mm Street Photography with the Fujifilm X-T4
Today I’m going to share with you a day of 33mm street photography.
This was a photo session I had several months ago, and it was sort of reintroducing myself back into street photography.
Environment wise, not style wise, since I always try to keep some candid element to my photos.
We’re going to cover the thought process as I went through during this street session, things I tried, stuff I learned, mistakes I made, etc.
And hopeful you’ll find some of these things useful or interesting.
Warming Up
My sole purpose this day was to get more comfortable in a downtown environment again.
Recently I’d been shooting in my usual sunset spots and had fallen out of the rhythm of closer environments.
I’d gotten comfortable with more open spaces and it was challenging to get used to lenses like the 33mm (aps-c) and cameras like the X-Pro3.
You may remember from my 33mm f1.4 review, but the focal length itself was giving me trouble.
I had been using it a lot with the X-Pro3 and there were some challenges I was facing.
That being: my comfort level with the focal length and the screen of the X-Pro3.
So I had a theory that if I paired it with the X-T4 and switched my environment I’d have an easier time.
So that was this day.
With me, I brought the X-T4, the 33mm f1.4, and a variable nd filter to help me control light and shoot wide open.
And the day started out pretty normal.
I tried to get started a little before golden hour to get a few shots in so by the time golden hour peaked, I was already in the flow of things.
And whenever I begin, I like to get the first few shots out of the way.
This helps me get over any trigger anxiety I might have.
I did this by focusing on perspectives and angles.
Simple street point of views, buildings, light and shadow, and inanimate objects.
Those are easy for me to pick out and sort of ease myself into before moving onto pictures with people.
Plus, it keeps things low stakes and more relaxed.
I like to think of my photo sessions as normal walks where I’m also taking pictures.
As opposed to “photo sessions” where I’m out here trying to accomplish something and change the world or whatever.
Low stakes.
So that’s how the day started off, very simple, easy, warm up shots.
People and Timing
As I moved throughout the city, the day progressed, the sun started to set, and things got better.
I always try to time my photo sessions around when the sun is setting.
So that when Golden Hour is hitting, I’m in the right places with the right mindset.
It just makes it so the best photos get the best light at the best time.
So I let my feet carry me to places with more people as I got more comfortable.
I think this is a pretty important aspect about street photography.
To not only follow your eye, but to let your feet take you where they want to go.
This takes some experience to be able to trust your own intuition but it can often lead you to places where you wouldn’t have gone otherwise.
Which will get photos you wouldn’t have normally gotten.
During this time, the lens performed great.
I was really starting to feel the 33mm and I think the screen of the X-T4 played a big role in this.
On the X-Pro3 it was a bit more challenging because I had to slow down to properly frame the shots.
Environment also played a big role.
In a downtown area, everything is a bit more crowded.
Which makes the area more suited to things like the 23mm or 35 eq - but the 33 or 50eq was quite nice as well.
The focal length makes it easier to block off things, cut out stuff you don’t want in your pictures, and you don’t have to walk as much to get as close.
There was a bit of luck that factored in as well.
On this particular day there was some business convention or something so there were a lot of people in suits going out to eat, exploring the place, in a hurry.
This gave me many more subjects to play around with.
Now I’m not sure why, but I think this picture of this group of people waking down the stairwell might be my favorite shot of the day.
It’s nothing crazy, I just like the light of the shot and the contrast between this woman’s orange jacket and the blue of the water.
But debatably, this shot of a lady walking by, framed within different lines of the building, is objectively quite nice as well.
So anyways, lots of good images from this day - I was pretty satisfied with how things went.
By this time, the sun was getting lower, and golden hour was coming to an end.
I spent the rest of the time using what light I had to get some closing shots of the docks.
This one of the lighthouse I quite liked.
And this one of the ship in the background, the little house on the water, and the rocks in the foreground I really like as well.
It was good timing with the time of day - I was able to get some of that golden light on the image.
So that’s the thing about photography - it can be very time sensitive.
Especially when you consider how fast the sun sets at the later stages of golden hour; you really only have 10-15 minutes to get your shots in.
Otherwise, the lighting and color will shift.
And if you wait too long you’ll be taking more blue hour photos.
Which isn’t a bad thing, but it will change the look and feel of your images.
So that’s just something to keep in mind.
This means you have to be quick and selective about the shots you take.
And something I like to do when I don’t know which shot will be better is to cover my bases.
I try to take as many variations of the same shot as possible.
A horizontal, vertical, and the same shot at different focal lengths - if I’m using a zoom lens of course.
Then, I can compare which was the best shot for this particular photo later.
That way I don’t have to worry about it in the present.
Because sometimes it’s hard to know which shot or composition will turn out the best, so I just do it all.
Because the clock’s ticking and it’s better to get all those shots rather than look at it later and say: “Oh man I knew it would look better like this!”
So here you’ll see some of the shots with the rocks and without the rocks.
And between these shots you can tell I’m trying to play with the spacing a bit to get the ship and the house and the rocks equidistant.
It’s a lot of trial and error, experimentation, and seeing what works.
Little things like that make me appreciate shooting digital, because on film I’m limited on exposures.
And I can’t cover all my bases - I have to decide which shot is best.
When sometimes, in the moment, you simply don’t know which will look the best.
Areas for Improvement
Throughout this session I had a few blurry or unsharp images - because I was trying to move too fast.
And it wasn’t because I was using too slow of a shutter speed.
For most of the time I had my shutter speed at 1/500th and above, sometimes 1/1000th.
So I figured that the only other possible reason was because I was trying to shoot too fast.
This is a bad habit or tendency that I’ve noticed before.
On cameras like the V, it doesn’t seem to be much of a problem but with the 33mm, the lens is bigger.
It’s a longer lens and the nose determines what you’re taking a photo of.
Which means that there’s more rotation that needs to be done physically to get the same angle.
Meaning, there will be more motion in your shot if you try to move too quickly.
Which is sometimes what happens when you’re trying to get candids.
Missed focus...
If you’re trying to catch the moment, there will be times you have to be fast and times you have to be slow depending on how early your eye sees the moment.
So keeping that in mind is the big one for this day.
If I could see things earlier, I’d have more time to predict the moment, and not have to move my camera as fast.
Or even just reminding my self to be more patient, slower and predictive.
That’s the big takeaway from this photo session.
But overall I was pretty happy with how the photo session went.
We got a lot of good images, learned some, and got more comfortable with the gear and the environment again.
This was one of those “good days”, just so you know.
Most of the times I go out, and I don’t get that much stuff.
And sometimes I’ll go on entire walks and only take 4-5 pictures.
So not every day is like this.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this.
Hopefully you found it interesting or learned something.
And if you have any tips that have helped you out when shooting 33mm (aps-c), let me know, I’m all ears.
Also if you like photobooks, check out “The Sinking Sun”, my latest photography zine.
Thanks for reading.
