Capture street shots with zone focussing

Capturing candid but sharp shots of strangers is a tough technical skill. Keep the camera at your hip and use zone focussing for better street portraits.

When you’re shooting on the streets, being subtle is everything. If you want true candid shots of people who are unaware of your presence, they will also need to be unaware of your big camera. Holding a DSLR in front of your face shows subjects that you’re photographing them, so how else can you snap images? In this tutorial we headed to the city to reveal how simple it is to use zone focussing for sharp street shots – with practice.

To zone focus, switch to manual focus, set a lens to a predetermined distance and shoot subjects when they fall into this range of focus. The technique is ideal if you hold the camera at hip level and don’t look through the viewfinder. Pre-focussing enables you to take pictures with surprising accuracy and speed – and without alerting those interesting street subjects to your presence. While older lenses have markings on them to aid zone focussing, you can easily work out the distance of a lens yourself.

To determine the focus range (and change it) you’ll need to know the focal length of your lens, the aperture and the intended subject distance. Fortunately, there are apps such as DoF Table that will work out all the distances for you. This technique takes time to master, so don’t expect sharp shots straight away. When editing, boost the colours or switch to monochrome to finish off your photos.

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THE RIGHT SPOT Head to a bustling area of high people traffic, such as a market or train station. Interesting street photos tell stories or show quirky characters and social interactions.

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LENS CHOICE It’s best to use an unobtrusive prime such as a 50mm. Some older manual primes have a marked distance scale on the lens barrel. Switch to manual focus (from the menu or on the lens).

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CAMERA SETTINGS Switch to Aperture priority mode, and start with an aperture between f/5.6 and f/11 and an ISO of around 400. A high ISO will enable you to set a narrower aperture for greater depth of field.

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CALCULATE FOCUS RANGE If your lens has a marked distance scale, use it to determine the focus range and twist the lens barrel. If your lens doesn’t have markings, use an app such as DoF Table to calculate the distances.

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SHOOTING STYLE Zone focussing enables you to hold the camera away from your eye so subjects are less aware of you taking photos. Have the camera at your hip and the strap on your shoulder, if your camera has one.

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STAND IN PLACE Look up and fire the shutter when your intended subject enters the zone of focus (for us, about two metres away). If you narrow the aperture for a wider focus range, remember to readjust the lens.

After CANDID CAPTURE Yes, this man was already engrossed in his phone – but by shooting from the hip instead of holding the camera to our eye we were able to stay subtle, stand in front of him and capture a more pleasing perspective and frame-filling shot. Before SHOOT SUBTLE To take successful candids you’ll also need to blend into the crowd and remain unnoticed. Cover bright camera logos and dress in drab colours.