One of the primary benefits of using a smartphone for street photography is that everybody has one – and with many others snapping away on the street, you certainly won’t stand out. This gives you a distinct advantage over those shooting with DSLRs, mirrorless or even rangefinder cameras as interesting subjects will likely fail to notice you and continue to act naturally.
Most modern smartphones have a variety of shooting modes, as well as different lenses to offer various shooting perspectives. Many also offer the ability to add special filters and effects – such as monochrome shooting – which is favoured by street photographers, without ever having to go near a computer.
For those that want to take full control, several smartphones nowadays have manual or semi-automatic modes which give you direct access to certain settings, allowing you to get as creative as you like. Most smartphones have a reasonably wideangle main lens, of around 24-28mm. It’s a good focal length for street photography, but if you find one with a zoom lens, you can also shoot from a distance and emulate the look of 50mm or perhaps even an 85mm lens.
In this piece, we meet three photographers who use their smartphones for taking excellent street pictures. They show off exactly what can be achieved, and give us some tips for trying it yourself.
Street photography can be daunting, but by simplifying your gear down to your smartphone it can
