UPDATE: dedicated my tumblr bog (click here) to street photography exclusively.
I would like to get into street photography, which camera should I buy, I can’t afford the Leica M9! Is one of the questions I get quite a lot. The Leica M is considered the holy grail of cameras for street shooters. This of course doesn’t mean it is the ONLY tool that will get the job done. more after the break

I bought my first Leica M4-2 and a 35mm Summicron (the Canadian version) with price money from a big photo contest I won as a student. I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to start shooting with it and elevate my work to unknown heights. I soon realized it is just another camera and it took me a couple months before I started to see satisfactory results. This brings us to the core of the matter: It is not the camera but how you see and how well you know your camera! Of course the tool has to meet basic standards and selecting the right camera for the right job is essential, no point trying to capture decisive moments with an 8×10 inch, but we all know that. Digital cameras have matured and shutter lag, buffer overload and AF are not really holding us back these days.
Keep in mind this is my personal opinion based on my experience and there are certainly other ways to achieve your goal to become a good street shooter:
A) Limit your equipment, get rid of all your zooms and decide on one prime, preferably a standard wide angle or a normal, experiment and pick your preferred lens.
B) Make sure you thoroughly familiarize yourself with the camera you are planning to use for street shooting, ideally you should be able to hit all the controls without looking and handle it in your sleep, instinctively.
C) Take it with you at all times and shoot a lot.

That’s all you need to do and you will start to see results.
Soon you will realize how liberating it is to shoot with one prime only and you will start to see the way your camera sees and find yourself at the right distance to your subjects. No chance to get to that point using zooms covering everything from super wide to ultra tele. Give it a try and post your experience!
Here is a short list of my favorite cameras I have been using for street shooting (and a few I am planning to try). Ever since I pressed the movie button on accident on my D90, I mostly end up picking cameras with video capabilities.
1) Panasonic GH2 with 20mm Pancake
1b)(future: Panasonic GX1)
2)Sony Nex 5N with 16mm Pancake
2b)(future: Sony Nex 7)
3)Fuji X100
4)Fuji X10 (I leave it at the wide angle setting)
additional lenses:
Panasonic 14mm Pancake
Olympus 45mm
Olympus 12mm
Sony 30mm 3.5 macro
Voigtlander Nokton 25mm (mostly low light portraits)
Of course I vary my lenses but I usually stick with one camera and one lens for a couple of weeks, then change and stick with the new setup for a couple of weeks.
if you like what you hear: http://www.myspace.com/thestreets
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