STE P BY STE P / Get in the zone for street photography

1 Busy location

Any public place can become a bustling and dynamic street spot, so head to an area of high people traffic, such as a city centre. It’s best to use an unobtrusive lens (and even better if it has a marked distance scale on it). First, set your lens to manual focus.

2 Dress in drab

Leave the bright and sequinned garments behind to remain incognito… Plain, casual clothes work well in most urban surroundings. Swap a branded Nikon strap for a plain one – or ditch it altogether – and cover bright logos on the camera with black tape.

3 Camera settings

Switch to Aperture Priority mode and set an aperture between f/5.6 and f/11 with ISO400. You can tweak these variables later if your shots are too light or dark, or the corresponding shutter speed too slow. Have the strap on your shoulder so the camera rests at your hip.

4 Silent shooting

You want to eliminate or minimize any noises your camera might make. The first thing to do here is to turn off all beeps, such as alerts for achieving focus. Some models have a quiet or silent shutter function – you may have to switch to Live View to enable this option. 5 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. You just need to input the aperture and focal length of your lens.

6 Shoot, review and edit

Stand in place so that passing subjects fall within the range of focus, then fire the shutter when your intended subject enters the zone of focus (for us, about two metres away). Setting a narrower aperture will give a greater range of focus, but will slow your shutter speed.