STREET PHOTOGRAPHY - Why a 35mm LENS is LIFE

Is that a camera in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

When you're a good boy, everyone wants a photo with you! (Shot at 35mm)

Some of the things which made old school point-and-shoot film cameras so popular at the time, was their cheap price and diminutive size. They were essentially as deep as they needed to be, so that they could accommodate a roll of 35mm film and a battery or two. They were also only so wide as to allow the camera to wind the used portion of film at the other end.

Back then, cameras had a fixed minimum depth, width and height, because they had to fit a roll of film somewhere. Just like early portable music players were limited by how small they could be, by the size of AA or AAA batteries, as well as cassette tapes that had to fit inside of them.

Back to cameras, though.

This minimum camera depth was actually quite a fortunate size, because it also happened to be within the range required to accommodate a lens with a focal length up to 50mm. In fact, pretty much every early point-and-shoot camera had a fixed (prime) lens ranging between 24-50mm, with 35mm being the sweet spot. Physics dictated that wider or longer focal lengths required a longer (deeper) lens, thus adding to the bulk of the camera.

This may or may not have been the reason why 35mm is so popular with street photographers the world over, but I'm sure that a smaller footprint definitely helps us stay that little bit more inconspicuous.

In the famous words of Bob Ross; "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents".

So Why 35mm?

There is a lot of debate going back over many decades, as to the ideal focal length for street photography. This debate is not going away any time soon - or ever, for that matter - because focal length has always been a matter of personal taste and comfort.

There is no one fixed focal length that is perfect, but when we start to consider a range between 24mm to 50mm, we start to narrow the field down a bit.

If you have ever shot street photography with any of the below focal lengths, I'm sure that you would be instinctively drawn to one with which you would feel the strongest connection.

50mm Focal Length

50mm lets you get close to your subject, without getting in their way

Many people swear by 50mm, simply because it mimics the real world.

What this means is that if you were to look through a 50mm lens, what you would see would be equivalent to looking through - for lack of a better example - a roll of toilet paper.

A 50mm lens appears to contain no glass at all, with which to distort or augment the field of view in any way. Nothing is zoomed out, or zoomed in. It's just real life as seen by our eyes through a tube.

This is a great focal length to choose if your subject is strong on their own, but when it comes to street photography, 50mm doesn't always allow you to get very much of the surrounding background in the frame, with which to help the subject tell their story.

35mm Focal Length

At 35mm, you can get close enough to your subject, while also capturing more of the surrounding background

35mm takes the 50mm field of view and zooms it out ever so slightly - but without adding any obvious distortion to the outer edges of the frame. It's like taking a few steps back from where you happen to be standing with your 'toilet paper roll', giving you a slightly wider perspective, but your field of view is still very true to reality. This allows you to capture your intended subject, while also getting more of the surrounding background in the frame, so as to give your subject better context within their surroundings.

Wider than 35mm

Shot at 16mm, this happy couple was almost right next to me when I took this candid shot

Things start to get a little tricky when you go wider than 35mm though.

At 28mm and wider, objects close to the edges of the frame still appear close enough, but the more you move towards the centre, the more distant everything rapidly becomes. The world appears to be getting away from you, like that Star Wars scene when the Millennium Falcon accelerates towards the speed of light.

Another downside to using such wide lenses for street photography, is that you end up framing far more of the scene than you may want to. This is great if you want to capture the chaos and bustle of a busy city, but it makes individual scenes a lot harder to frame up without some cropping in post.

The (Arguable and Debatable) Sweet Spot of a 35mm Focal Length

My 'Never Leave Home Without It' camera setup

As I mentioned earlier, every focal length is a matter of personal preference and comfort.

When it comes to walking around the streets of a city, I will often gravitate towards the 35mm end of the spectrum, simply because that is how my eyes 'frame' the world around me.

If you've been shooting with a particular focal length for any number of years, you will start to develop a mental 'view' of the world. It's like looking at everything through a viewfinder, and mine happens to be around 35mm.

I have proposed this analogy to a couple of wildlife photographers in the past, and they told me that they often see the world through a 400mm lens or wider, because that is the minimum safe distance from which to study wildlife. They often need to look far off into the distance, and imagine how a far away subject might look if it were much closer.

It's also why you will often see movie directors create a 'frame' with their thumb and index finger whenever they are composing a shot. That 'finger frame' trick is their preferred focal length for that particular scene.

Next time you come back from a photo shoot, make a conscious effort to take a closer look at the photos which you remember being the most comfortable taking.

Then, check the metadata for those photos to see at what focal length they were shot. This is an excellent way to help you learn your favourite focal length for your particular style of photography.

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Happy shooting!