I just discovered this forum 3 days ago after being a reader (mostly) of photo.net for little over a year. I am a great admirerer of the street photography pictures displayed, for instance:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=427313&size=lg http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007T0l http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005sdF

I'd like to venture into this kind of photography and have a question regarding equipment. I already have an AF SLR outfit but find it too obtrusive and big to use for this. However I have no intention of investing in further cameras to try this out, so I was thinking of using one of my 70's rangefinders. Some of these have auto-exposure and some have shutter-prority, but what I need is actually aperture-priority, right?

-- Kenneth Darling Soerensen (kenneth@darling.dk), January 21, 2002

Answers

Kenneth,

You don't need aperture priority or anything else. I often use my Voightlander which is manual mode only: pre-set the distance and check the exposure reasonably frequently. Use print-film, of course.

That being said, I'd go for aperture-priority of full automatic if I had to use my SLR.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), January 21, 2002.

any camera will do...

-- grant (g4lamos@yahoo.com), January 21, 2002.

Any camera that you're comfortable using should work well. I think people notice your behavior more than they do on the kind of camera that you use.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), January 22, 2002.

Thanks for the replies! I'll take one of the RF's and put a roll of Tri-x in it and have a look at what I come by :-)

-- Kenneth Darling Soerensen (kenneth@darling.dk), January 22, 2002.

Thinking about street photography, if I ever really get into it, I think I would take my first edition Yashica Electro and use that. It's quiet and really doesn't look quite like a camera! I'm very timid about this and just don't want to be noticed.

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), January 23, 2002.

recently, ive been using a vivitar focus free that i got in the salvation army for 1.50... film costs more than the camera! :)

-- grant (g4lamos@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.

First of all, it was an honor to see one of my shots come up when I looked at the three photographs you used as your examples. Thank you.

As for my advice, just take that 70s rangefinder (whatever it may be), load it with some Tri-X and go out and shoot.

For what it's worth, I try to meter off of something "general" in the area I'm shooting and then preset the focus for a distance I'm feeling comfortable with that day, and shoot. The hardest part for me is not feeling "obtrusive." Somedays I feel invisible, other days I feel like everyone within a hyndred yards is staring at me.

Good luck, enjoy, and post some results.

David

-- David Cunningham (dcunningham@attglobal.net), January 28, 2002.