hey guys today we're going to try and figure out which lens is the better choice for a s photographer you can be a beginner or you can be a more advanced photographer but you can still have this debate with yourself which lens works better and which lens will suit better your needs one is easier to use the other one is harder to use and there is one that is sitting just in between that it's uh kind of the sweet SP spot between the two so 28 mm 35 mm 50 mm here we go each Fon is a very personal choice uh I can meet tens of different street photographers and everyone will stand strongly behind the lens he's using and will have this and these arguments and these arguments to support his Cent that his lens is actually the best one but actually it's the best lens for him the best lens that suits his character better and the tool that provides him with the opportunity to get better photographs by his own style and we are on the style subject lens Choice has also a big impact on on the way your images looks like so they do benefit to your style if you're shooting all the time wide with I don't know 28 mm lenses your work will look different than someone who shooting all the time on 50 mm lens there are a lot of small nuances for each lens but we will focus on the broad things and try to understand which lens is suitable for who the 28 mm it's probably the toughest lens for Street photographer I wouldn't recommend that lens for a beginner it's ambitious it's challenging composing with it will really make you sweat because there's so much to capture uh if you're not getting close enough you will find yourself with a lot of small elements that you need to spread through the frame you need to spray them in a way that it's logical that it's readable that it's aesthetically pleasing so it is hard to compose with it this lens will force you to shoot from a close distance and if you're a little bit shy you might be reluctant to use that one and then your compositions and then your result will not be good enough because you have to go close you really really get into the face of the people with that hands the 28 forces you to be involved in the scene and do thing quickly compose fast it also exaggerates the perspective a little bit so if you're getting to clothes or if you're trying to take portraits you might find the person with a very huge nose in kind of distorted head or if a hand is coming from the angle of the frame feel like it's too long or something like that another thing about this lens that makes you think scenery you can't really capture objects out of CLA of of course you can but but capturing the single object will require for me to get really really close like uncomfortably close and by doing that you are also distorting the person face so you will so you will have to consider the surrounding of the subject so you will have your subject in you the surrounding so it's not a point and shoot you cannot just uh point on the person and and and take the photograph because you will have so many other elements getting into your frame that you need to consider and that lens will really really pushes you towards towards learning composition you will have no choice you will have to understand how to navigate through all these things that are getting into your frame it's good for wise scen it's good for tight streets narrow alleys whatever uh space that you can think that that is relatively narrow and you don't have a lot of space from your distance you can of course use it on Open Spaces but then you will have to get closer to the people I like to use that street that lens in in in the smaller streets because uh people are passing next to you and you're kind of naturally there you're not really invading their space well you are invading their space but you are there on the street not necessarily that you are on an open space and you came to them with the lens and start shooting so it's a little bit different and it's great lens if you if you like layers if you like working with complex compositions if you like doing storytelling this is probably the best choice out there again it's challenging but it's very rewarding if you do it right and and the results are very very very nice and another benefit of the 28 mm it's that it's usually lightweight most of the manufacturers are not producing a huge lenses of that one you will be easily be able to carry it all day on your neck or on your back and as a street photographer I can assure you that weight has a lot of a lot of impact on your photography on your general feeling and how much time you're spending on the street actually shooting and rather than being frustrated from your tiet and whatever so weight is also a big big big issue the 28 gives you the ability to explore different angles such a way that other lens wouldn't it will it's really good one to to take a benefits of lines and curves and all the composition elements that you can think of that can bring you to your subject so yes if you if you want to master composition 28 would be the lens to look at the Lens comes with a lot of challenging it has a very long learning curve compared to the other lenses you literally imagine taking out your phone without changing anything on the zoom and trying to compose everything nicely from the like you you will see how close you need to get out I think that the phone is something like 28 26 mm because of the wide angle of view you're getting so much more into your frame so other than the subject that you're shooting you will usually have more elements in there and you need to think what to do with them how to organize them what is the best place for them each and every element in the frame should be should be there for some kind of purpose and using the 28 mm you will really have to think with about this things otherwise you will just get kind of unengaging composition you really really need to think about everything that is in your frame at that moment it's challenging for portrait sh if you decide to take portrait it is still possible to take portrait with that one but if you like I would go probably more for environmental portraits where the person is not taking more than 50% of the frame but I cannot imagine myself taking a a close up portraits with the 28 mm because it really distorts the face unless this is the purpose St that we want this and I don't know huge nose and the ears going backwards and kind of a distorted look it's good for street photography sometimes it's good for street photography but it's not necessarily a natural look of that person and I think about this lens is that there are no bouet superpowers bouet is almost non-existent so everything that is in your frame from here 100 meters forward you will have to have to pay attention to it and and take care of it whatever it is so coming backwards I will say that again you have a lot more happening in the friend with any other lens not you cannot bouquet your your way out of the messy composition you will have to fix the composition on spot and eventually if you don't learn how to compose properly with the 28 mm it would just look like a phone snapshot so it does require a lot of learning and who is a 28 best for I would say that it's probably better for somewhat experienced photographer you can as a beginning you can start using that lens as well but you will have a very long uh learning curve and you will be frustrated from the results at the begin so so maybe I would recommend taking one of the other lenses first and making you down to the 28 I think that the 28 and 24 we didn't speak about the 20 we're not speaking here about 24 but 28 and 24 are for extremely uh experienced rate phers that can really get close and really organize composition properly work the layers properly and know exactly what are they doing and it's also for people who like to be close close to the action you know to get interesting and energetic photographs with that lens you really need to be there you cannot just stay on the sidewalk and people passing by and and expect to get a good photo not possible you just need to be closed otherwise the elements everything will be just very tiny and it's good for storytellers storytellers is your thing yep go for it take 28 you will enjoy it the next lens that we're going to talk about is the 35 mm I have shots with the 35 mm for many many many years it's one of the lenses that I think that I have the most experience with and I will tell you that my first exper with the 35 mm was not good I purchased the 30 I I was shooting zoom lenses and telephoto lenses at the time I purchased the 35 mm because it was suggested online and people say it's a good lens you should try it but I didn't know how to work with it I was pretty much used to do tight shots and everything bouet behind and and nice nice and blurry and when I took the 35 mm I will suddenly I I I would feel that the pictures are not pretty enough that was my issue pictures were not pretty I didn't really bother understanding the compositional concept back then and I think I saw it I sold it and after some times h i repurchase it again and later on I purchased the fujix 100 series and I shot with that one extended period of time 35 mm is is not an easy Stone to swallow at the beginning but later on when you get used to it you can really learn learn and and enjoy the benefits out of this lens broadly speak about this lens it's pretty similar to the 28 you can still do layers but not as complex ones you can still get close but you don't need to get as close you can still do complex compositions but you don't need to deal with so many objects but actually I I could say that you could achieve you could achieve the 28 look if just Space by taking a step back in a way but you still need to get close but not as close of the 28 mm it is kind of balancing it works both for storytelling wi SC but also you can work with with with single subject 35 is already much nicer for Street Port than than the 28 it is great for environmental process you can really take the person and the environment and surroundings of it it is if I was beginning k street photography right now I would probably pick up the 35 first rather than the 28 and work out understanding how compositions work out learning to F the frame properly and slowly slowly if I feel at some point that okay I feel limited with my field of view they back to the 28 mm another thing with the 35 mm is that they're often coming with wide apertures it doesn't give you so much of bouet unless you're really close but it gives you the low light abilities but it comes with the cost it will be heavier lens than the small P lenses or similar to that so uh you can consider having uh a lighter version of the 35 or a heavier version of the lighter one will make your back happy but the the the heavier one will allow you to shoot in conditions that the lighter one wouldn't allow you the 35 mm can replicate to a degree the view of the 28 mm you just use food zooming you food Zoom forward you food Zoom backward and you're getting very similar results while you can achieve the similar results that the perspective the depth and the visual effect they will differ slightly and that's okay that's not a big difference you can still use it in a similar way overall du lens is a good balance between a subject and surroundings if the 28 mm would really push you to working with the surroundings so with the 35 you can still take singular objects so probably this would be the only difference big difference between the two of them and now let's speak about the 50 mm it is easier to begin with actually if you're a beginner and you're picking up the 50 mm lens you almost instantly can create interesting portraits something that is visually pleasing and uh and just nice you can use the bouquet blur things around and the results the results are quite aesthetically pleasing so that might be one of the reasons to go for the 50 mm it's also the focal distance that we perceive more naturally there is something about photographs shot on 50 mm from one side also the street look but on the other side there is some intimate in these photos it's uh closer and it is perfect for to include two people in one frame the good for shy people is that it gives you that respectable distance you don't need to push your camera into people's noses you can take few steps backwards and try to capture your images from there and uh it's kind of a more of Observer lens than a participant one you are still close but you are not intrusive like with the 35 and 13 mm it kind of creates a comfortable space between you and your subjects that uh makes both of you feel comfortable uh in the photography process it feels very natural as portrait lens the way the 50 mm renders people it's just something beautiful and most of these lenses come at least with 1.8 aperture and know 58 mm 1.8 m aperture give you part ni slightly bouquet and you can get rid of a lot of distracting objects Behind still it's important to look at the composition and still some bright things can pop up you can easier deal with distractions while with the 28 and 35 mm you really need to take a look look what's happening in your frame and additional benefit of the lower aperture is of course you can use them in a lower light uh a lot of time it will just carry a 50 1.8 mm in the bag it's a small lens and just use it in uh in some indoor spaces or working with candle lights or street lights and stuff like that this is a lens I wouldn't take to narrow streets and if I need to get closer to subjects and take a wider scene sometimes it's not impossible because the the limit of the field of view is just very very limited it's not easy to create complex compositions with that lens actually because complex complex compositions require more space and when you have less space you kind of limited with less objects to compose with and if you're trying to do layering it is still possible with one two subjects but if you if you try to do laying with 50 mm even at f11 or F12 you will still have significant a shallower depth to fi let's say the 28 millimet so uh if you are targeting toward the layers go to other two lenses if you decide to go with the really low apertures with f1.2 that lens can be 1 kg so then then for me it loses its purpose of being a street photography lens you can use it nicely in the studio and for other things but there something else smaller for the street lens choice is really individual preference you can actually shoot everything with everything but you need to think about these things are you a little bit shy are you feeling comfortable or you're feeling comfortable getting close to people do you like Simplicity and emotion or you more for complexity and like organizing the chaos that's what a lot of St photographers do that's why what lens you choose it really depends on your personal photography style and something that is good for you today not necessarily will be the same good as it for you tomorrow if you're today sitting on a 50 mm you might consider going wider but if you are today sitting on a 35 mm might say wow maybe I want to get some more intimacy maybe I want to uh show little bit more portraiture a street portraiture or just just keeping little bit more distance from our subjects maybe you want to rest a little bit of being all the time in the action if you're seasoned photographer you probably don't need my advice and you know exactly what you need you will learn so much more about observation and human emotion if you use the 50 mm but you will learn so much more about composition with the 28 and 35 with the 28 and 35 you cannot V out of of whatever is happening there you just need to deal with backgrounds and structure and lines and whatever is there so who are you as a photographer are you more artistic in a way you express yourself or you just like to deal with complex things and solve problems H so I think that most Street photographers the majority are problem solvers but I do like the photographers who like to express them self artistically as well so for that artistic for the ones who like to express themselves artistically I would go for the 50 for the other ones the 28 and the 35 and probably the 35 first and the 28 later on and I have a small bonus tip for you it doesn't matter which one of the lenses you're choosing but it's important to master your lens we often think that okay I will change my lens and my photography will change get better or worse a lot of people connect their Improvement in photography with the change of lens but actually it has nothing to do with that you need to take the time to learn the lens whatever lens you take use it extensively and exclusively for extended period of time don't change lenses all the time because then your your mind and your eye is not getting used to to deal with the scam so uh if you're choosing 50 go with the 50 at least for a year I recommend two but at least for a year shoot with one focal leg then you will you will work with it automatically and the real secreted it's not about the lens it's about how you use it it's about your ideas it's about your photographic Vision it's about your experience in composing a compelling image for me shooting with a prime lens it's uh bringing me into the Zone it removes all the complications around choice is something that can rob you of your attention if I don't have zoom I can zoom with my feet I will go and I will get closer and I will explore the scene in a photographic creative way from every possible angle to get my shot that I was looking for when when I was younger in my photography I was very much about playing with different focal legs and everything but slowly slowly I got to the understanding that primes are giving you more discipline better compositions and better learning process you kind of learn the focal length and you become better at what you do now I'm getting older and with wisdom comes the desire to to let it go a little bit from the convex compositions I will probably be looking I have this inner desire to go s the 50 keep life simple focus on emotions I still haven't done that but the idea is cooking in my mind so I might go and uh do a change and shoot exclusively with the 50 mm for a certain amount of time not ready yet but I will be so what is your preferate lens for street photography and since we're finishing uh don't forget to tell me what's your focal length what's your prefer lens for street photography see you next time