Try the 85 mm for Unique Street Photography Photos

This week, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite focal lengths for street photography: the 85mm. I'll share with you why I love this focal length and how it can help you take photos that can differentiate you from a lot of other photographers.

Well, the first thing that may come to most is that an 85mm lens is not a typical street photography lens. Most street photographers I feel prefer wider lenses like 35mm, which allows you to capture more of the scene and include more elements in your composition, which of course, there’s nothing wrong with. However, I think the 85mm lens has its own niche in street photography as well.

One of the biggest perks of the 85mm lens is that it allows you to take candid shots without getting too close to your subject. This can be particularly useful if you want to capture a natural expression or a moment without disturbing your subject. You can simply stand back and use your telephoto lens to capture the moment from a distance. This works great if you don’t want to get right into the scene next to your subject or if you’re nervous about getting confronted when doing street photography. I love this focal length for this as I don’t like bothering my subjects too much as I’d rather not be invasive, especially in cities or areas where it’s frowned upon or people are more private.

Another advantage of using an 85mm focal length for street photography is the compression effect it creates. This means that objects in the foreground and background appear to be closer together than they actually are. The compression effect can be used to capture interesting unique compositions and perhaps a more visually appealing image, as it allows you to capture scenes in a way that is not always possible with wider lenses.

In addition, a fast 85mm lens has the ability to isolate your subject from the background. With its narrow field of view, you can easily separate your subject from the rest of the scene and create a beautiful, creamy bokeh that draws the viewer's attention to the subject. This is especially useful in crowded streets where there are a lot of distractions in the background. But just because you can have that beautiful bokeh to blur out the background, doesn’t mean you always should. Look at your composition and ask yourself whether that makes sense for what you are trying to convey in your photos.

Of course, there are also some challenges when using an 85mm lens for street photography. One of the biggest challenges is because it’s an 85 mm telephoto lens, you can get “close” up detailed shots, but because of that, you have to really back up to get everything in frame. This takes some time to get used to as 85 mm can be very different if you’re used to a 35 mm or even a 50 mm. Another challenge is that you need to really pay attention to your hand-held stability when you get into the slow shutter speed territory as you might know from the 1/focal length concept. If you aren’t familiar with it, a nice idea to remember to avoid any motion blur from your movements in your photos when handholding your camera is having your shutter speed be 1/focal length. So if you’re using a 50 mm, you would want a minimum of a 1/50 shutter speed to not have any motion blur from your movements. But remember, this is just a recommendation. You can definitely go slower if you are able to hold still, which I discuss some techniques that may help you in my tripod hacks blog. You may also need to have a faster shutter speed if you or your subject is moving to avoid blur. Just remember that your settings will definitely be subject to change depending on what you want, which I discuss a little about in my “Stop worrying about Settings” blog.

But despite these challenges, I believe that the 85mm lens can be a great tool for street photography. It allows you to create unique images that stand out from the typical wide-angle shots that we often see in street photography. It also challenges you to think differently about composition and to be more deliberate in your approach to capturing the scene.

So, that's why I love the 85mm lens for street photography. It's may not be the most popular or easiest choice, but it can be a powerful tool for creating beautiful and unique images. I encourage you to try it out and see for yourself what kind of images you can create with this lens. Many tend to think of it as a portrait lens, but one of my favorite sayings from the photographer Professor Hines, “when you walk into a camera store and you buy a lens, it doesn’t say “Portrait Lens” or “Landscape Lens”. So don’t let these sort of common thoughts sway you into thinking in such a restrictive box.