Shooting street with a Zoom…. Part 1
Now this can be a contentious topic amongst street photographers so let’s get amongst it! The age-old debate about zoom vs. prime for street photography, or should I say “non-debate” since the conventional “wisdom” amongst the great and good of street shooters is that you shoot with a prime or nothing. Case closed. Or is it?
Now lets get the boring stuff out of the way before we start deconstructing the myths around why a zoom or a telephoto lens - and by telephoto I mean anything 100mm and above - gets dismissed. For the purposes of this article I’m going to be talking about “standard” zooms (e.g. 24-70s) and even zooms that shoot up to 450mm which is where things get interesting!
Ok, the boring stuff; this zoom dogma was once based on some real technical limitations of zooms vs primes (inferior image quality for one) but now I challenge any photographer to pixel peep and pick apart an image taken by a quality zoom and when you’ve finished, first I’ll tell you to stop wasting your time and go shoot - and next if you still think there’s a significant lack of quality in the zoom, then pardon my French, but you’re talking shite or if I’m being generous you’re overstating the amount of fucks anyone gives about a few stray pixels in a compelling image.
With that out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks and admit - as street photographers - that this is just dogma being repeated ad infinitum. If a zoom (like a 24-70mm) is good enough for Martin Parr then there’s a sliver of light coming through the open doorway that leads to the “Cult of Zoom”.
I’ll skip over the often used approach of a novice starting out with a kit zoom to find their ideal focal length, and even skip over the concept of the travel lens and the ubiquity of the 24-70mm lens in a lot of photographers’ kits. The former concept you can read about elsewhere and the latter relates to the fact that any photographer worth his salt should be able to:
A) handle a standard zoom, and
B) be creative enough to use it in a creative way if they want to.
Never mind this bollocks about “missing shots” because you’re flustered messing with your zoom range. Would we say this to a wildlife photographer? That they haven’t got the ability to catch a moment without bottling it when it comes to nut cutting time. I don’t think so, but I hear voices in our community say the same about street photographers.
The reality is: we miss shots for all sorts of reasons - the same mistake happens with a prime just because when the moment comes we’re just not close enough. And if a fellow street photographer doesn’t think someone can master and control a zoom like an absolute savant then they’re deluded. Practice always makes perfect, look to the incredible physical feats humans are capable of and then tell me they can’t use a zoom like an extension of their own body.
Suffice to say, this is all pre amble and misdirection - because I have no interest in talking about standard zooms, myths, dogma, gatekeeping, or any of that bullshit. What really gets my juices flowing are big time zooms. And that’s exactly what we’re diving into in Part 2.
We’ll be talking about the Good: versatility, creative flexibility.
The Bad: slow lenses, the risk of too many focal lengths diluting the consistency of a body of work, and the perceived lack of connection with a subject in a photo taken with a long lens.
And the Ugly: horrendous back and neck pain from handling a giant camera lens, sticking out like a sore thumb strutting around with your phallic-like optics, being conspicuous on the street, and - my favourite of all - shooting street photography with fear in our hearts.
See you in Part 2.
