How to Take Sharper Street Photography, Even at Night

Night Photography  •  Photography Tips  •  Street Photography

Capturing sharp photographs is by far the toughest technical skill in street photography. People move quickly, you are often moving quickly, the light isn’t usually ideal, and you sometimes have to frame instantly and suddenly. When I take a look at other people’s street work, one of the most common problems I notice is that the photos are not sharp and not in focus.

This being said, there are many tips to allow you to get sharper street photographs. And some are very simple. So let’s get to them.

1. Shoot with a Wide Angle Lens

There are many reasons to shoot with a wide-angle lens, but one of the main reasons is that wide angle perspectives have a larger depth of field. This means that if you miss your focus somewhat, there will still be a large range of the scene that will be sharp, which will give you some leeway to mess up and still get the shot sharp. The trade off is that you have to get closer to your subject than with a telephoto lens, but this usually leads to a better visual look anyway.

The other reason is that wide-angle lenses are generally lighter and easier to maneuver. Steadier hands = sharper photos.

28mm and 35mm are probably the most common focal lengths for street photography (50mm is used a lot as well, but it’s too much of a telephoto view for my tastes). I prefer 28mm.

2. Ideal Camera Settings for Sharpness

While you can go slower and still achieve perfectly sharp shots, a shutter speed of at least 1/320 of a second, and optimally 1/500, is recommended to fully freeze people in motion. If I am in a very dark location then I will sometimes stop down to 1/250 or even 1/160, but I prefer not to.

Similarly, we generally want to use the smallest aperture possible (small aperture = larger number), for the same reason behind using a wide-angle lens, because there will be more depth of field. With more of a scene that will be sharp, the more leeway we have to get the focus correct. When possible, it’s best to shoot from f/8 to f/16.

So if we want to shoot at 1/320 or 1/500 of a second and f/8, and the light isn’t great, something has to give. That means we will need to push our ISO. Despite what you might have been told, shooting at high ISOs for street photography is often the number one key to creating street photos that have a higher technical quality because of the flexibility it allows for your shutter speed and aperture. You should test out your cameras upper limits for ISO to see the amount of grain that you are comfortable with. With the 5D Mark II, I often shoot in ISO 800, 1600, and 3200.

Also, grain is beautiful.

3. Zone Focus (Pre-Focus)

Zone focusing is the technique of manually focusing your camera to a specific distance, say 8 feet away, and then photographing people as they enter that range of distance from your camera. For instance, with my 5D Mark II and a 28mm lens, if I pre-focus the camera to 8 feet away at f/8, then everything from 5.5 feet to 15 feet will be within an acceptable range of sharpness.

This is one of the keys to being successful at street photography because auto-focusing can be a huge hinderance in many situations. If you have the time to autofocus or manual focus through the viewfinder then you should do it, but focusing these ways takes time, which isn’t often ideal for many of those fast moving situations. I probably zone focus for 75 percent of my street photos.

A good exercise for this is to take a tape measure and measure two feet from your lens all the way up to 12 feet and try to memorize those distances away from you. This is a skill that needs to be practiced continually.

It can also be good to learn how to slide the manual focus without looking. What this means is that if someone is walking towards you then you can capture them at 10 feet away sharp and then as they get closer you can move the manual dial to 6 feet without looking to be able to capture them sharp at 6 feet away as well.

Also, I would only recommend zone focusing with focal lengths of 35mm or less. With more telephoto views with shallower depth of fields, it is much more difficult to guess distances and still get shots perfectly sharp.

4. Stopping Your Motion and the Stutter Step

By far my biggest pet peeve of photographers is when they don’t stop their own motion before taking a photo. I see it all of the time. People frame, focus, and capture an image and don’t even stop moving. It’s sloppy. Don’t do it. How can you get a sharp photo while you are still moving unless you are shooting at 1/1000 of a second?

The stutter step is basically just a way of stopping your motion instantly while in mid stride to take a shot and then continuing that motion right after the shot. Just stop in mid stride for a half a second, take the photo, and continue your stride. It’s a great way to stop quickly and take a shot without drawing too much attention to yourself. Just be careful about people being behind you. I have stopped short a couple of times and had people bump into me. In those cases, I just pretend to be a dumb tourist (instead of what I really am, which is a dumb photographer).

5. Pick a Spot / Background and Wait There

You really want a technically great street photograph? Then plan it. Find the location, wait for the right light, and choose the perfect settings ahead of time. Then, wait patiently for the right person to enter your scene. It is about a million times easier to get a technically good street photograph this way than by only taking spontaneous shots as you come across them.

At Night:

Street photography at night is one of the most incredible experiences. Cities glow, people and scenes become more magical, and it’s just exciting. However, you need to be careful. Choose safe areas or travel with a friend. Don’t bring too much attention on yourself or your equipment.

6. Step Back

During the day I much prefer to get closer to my subjects, but often when out at night I will step back somewhat and get further from my subjects. When subjects are a small part of a dark scene it generally looks more interesting than when they’re a small part of a scene during the day, and the backgrounds are often much more interesting. Of course this is a gross generalization and every situation is different.

When you step back, you don’t need to use as fast of a shutter speed to capture moving subjects sharp. The shot above was taken at 1/60 of a second and the subjects are all super sharp.

7. Find Glowing Window Signs

When you’re shooting at night, seek out lampposts or artificial light sources and wait there to photograph people as they pass by. These are often very strong light sources if you are close enough to them. You can see this in the previous photograph, but getting even closer to the light source and shooting away from it is often a good idea as well.

8. Tripod and Blur

Who says you need sharp people as long as you have a sharp background? Put your camera on a tripod and wait for lots of people to walk through. Some people will be blurry and some sharp. It is a very interesting effect, especially of crowds.

9. Photograph with a Flash, Even During the Day

Some street photographers prefer to use flash to bring out their subjects and to make them sharp, even during the day. Bruce Gilden is probably the most famous flash street photographers, and Bruce Davidson is another photographer you should take a look at. He would photograph with a flash in the NY subway system back when it wasn’t very safe. It takes some nerve to do that.

This strategy is a little too intrusive for my tastes out there, but I love the look when other photographers do it.

My final word of advice is to not become too obsessed with sharpness. You don’t need to pixel-peep each image from a few centimeters away. When you are aiming for a sharp photo, of course you want it to be as sharp as possible, however view the finished photograph from a traditional distance that normal viewers will look at it from to truly gauge how the photograph looks.

Aim to get sharp photos, but don’t become too obsessed with sharpness.

About the Author:
James Maher is the author of Essentials of Street Photography, which covers everything about the genre even down to specific post processing techniques that can bring the best out of street scenes.