What camera for candid/street shots?

Most (99%) of my shooting is as described in the title.

I see some FLEETING thing that catches my eye, and I truly "point and shoot."

There is zero time for histograms, LCD screens, or even little green focus boxes.

It's literally, eye to the optical viewfinder, and click. I've had some success using TV mode, PRE-setting a shutter speed that is appropriate to the existing light, and that I know I can hand-hold.

Ideally I would like a large sensor, f2 or larger maximum aperture, and 24mm to 240mm range for those FEW occasions that I have time to zoom.

I'm posting this question in the G camera section, as I THINK a G15 comes closest, in the Canon lineup.....but I'm willing to stray to other manufacturers.

Thanks in advance, del Sol

Here is an old blog on setting up a G9 for street shooting. The same concepts can be applied to the G15, or other G-series cameras.

http://mycanong9.blogs​pot.com …-shooting-mode-on-g9.html

Dennis

You will probably have to sling about 3 cameras on your neck to get all those features.

Thanks Denncald,

This will be extremely helpful!

Cheers from sunny Melaque, Jalisco, Mexico.

del Sol

Del,
If you do not have a G camera yet, there are some minor points to be aware of:
- (on my G9) the optical viewfinder is not an accurate representation of the frame actually captured. IIRC the photo has extra area to the left and bottom. Centering the scene, the amount of offset varies between wide and zoomed.
- there is a bit of shutter lag on this camera. Not bad, but I have to account for it if I want to get close to what I expect from the shot. (I'm impressed by a friend's new Sony H20. Fast shooting little bugger, and nice low-light results. However, it's not a G -- I assume H20 has smaller sensor, and lens has small range of aperture settings, limited in flash, etc.)
- as for lens tele- reach, I think the old G9 had the most at 210mm equivalent. G10/G11 had something like 140mme I think.


There are some interesting discussions on the forum on street shooting, although much of it is more about style and shooting and less about equipment.

Post some shots when you hit the pavement.

Have you looked into film? That's what I shoot streets with. There's great point and shoots out there with fast lenses and they're full frame.

Last time I was in Jalisco there were still several film labs. They even had scanners.

This might be worth considering should it actually come into existence:

http://www.petapixel.c​om …-feature-an-aps-c-sensor/

If you go with a Canon G15, set up the camera with all the settings in the link provided by denncald above, save those settings in one of the custom locations (I stored it in both C1 and C2 so I was always one notch away from returning to my settings). Manual focus, set to hyperfocal distance for the widest zoom, is SO helpful because you eliminate 99% of the shutter lag when there's no autofocus needed. This really helped me when I used the G cameras - it made a world of difference in the number of quality shots I got in the street.

Having said all that, I have started using a Fuji X100 and the quality and responsiveness (with similar settings to the above) is so much better than any of the Canon G series I have used (G10, G12, G1X). For me, it may be the ideal street photography camera, and what I have been looking for from the G all along. LOTS of people are posting street shots from the X100, just google it. The X100 APS-C sensor is huge compared to the G sensor (sjones provides a link above to a comparison). There's a robust used market for the X100 now since Fuji has announced an upgrade coming in March (X100s). It also has a smaller sensor, less expensive "little brother" - the X10 - which I think would also give excellent results (X20 coming in March). Worth a look since you said you were open to other brands.

The most useful tool I have found for street photography is a tilting screen with touch focus point selection and shutter release, as long as it is matched with very fast single-AF speed. With the right lens, the Olympus E-M5 is by far the best street camera I have used because of this.

Ricoh GRD IV - built for street plain and simple

Nikon V1 - Crazy fast AF and a little bigger sensor than the GRD

The fuji X100 would work well too, but you'd probably want to set it up with a hyperfocal distance and shoot manually. Also if you pick up a used one, beware of SAB, sticky aperture blades. Lots of X100's had to go back to Fuji for repair after the blades stuck. Fuji will honor it for second owners, if the camera was sold by an authorized dealer, so beware of any grey market stuff.

Look into the Canon S110, you can pretty much hide it in your hand, and it has a lot of high end features crammed into a tiny package.
1/1.7" sensor
zoom 24–120 mm (not the 240 that you want)
F2.0 - F5.9
can shoot RAW

del Sol wrote in post #15593947
Most (99%) of my shooting is as described in the title.

I see some FLEETING thing that catches my eye, and I truly "point and shoot."

There is zero time for histograms, LCD screens, or even little green focus boxes.

It's literally, eye to the optical viewfinder, and click. I've had some success using TV mode, PRE-setting a shutter speed that is appropriate to the existing light, and that I know I can hand-hold.

Ideally I would like a large sensor, f2 or larger maximum aperture, and 24mm to 240mm range for those FEW occasions that I have time to zoom.

I'm posting this question in the G camera section, as I THINK a G15 comes closest, in the Canon lineup.....but I'm willing to stray to other manufacturers.

Thanks in advance, del Sol

If it's an optical viewfinder you're after you're in the wrong place... the G series viewfinder is like that of a £5 disposable film camera from the 80s!

The best camera for the street money no option would be Leica M.

Try Ricoh GRD series, or a Micro 4/3 camera with snap focus lens like the Olympus 12mm f/2 or new 17mm f/1.8...

If you're asking in the G' series forum, then my guess is that
your budget doesn't include a Leica M camera. Amirite?
I would definitely have you take a close look at the Fuji X10,
or the new X20 if you're willing to wait for it. Not much of a
viewfinder, but at least it has one - with no shooting info.
The X20 adds shooting info into its viewfinder - that's good!
One great thing about all advanced Fuji cameras is that they
all have a silent mode which renders them discrete as can be,
apart from the obvious which is that they show in your hands.
For the kind of street photography you describe, I say go Fuji.

-eyalg