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  • About me

Frederik Trovatten

Photography by Frederik Trovatten

These are my camera settings for street photography

Alright, camera settings, this is a part of my “Learn Street Photography Series“.

In this video I go over my favorite camera settings for street photography

We have Manual mode, shutter-priority, P-mode, aperture priority mode: When to use what setting in street photography?

If I’m doing street photography at day-time, I usually try to use a minimum shutter speed of 250 of a second in order for me to freeze the subject. My aperture is set depending on the subject – but often times it’s just set to auto – as with my ISO.

What if it’s night or low light?
– If you shoot at night, then watch this:

Make sure to also read my 99 street photography tips.

This photo is impossible to take in P-mode

When I took this photo, the camera setting I used was shutter priority mode. The shutter speed is set to 1 second and everything else is in auto mode.

Long-exposure: Shutter-speed on 1 second.

In this video I actually try to replicate this exact photograph:

Fujifilm x100f: Long-exposure: ISO 250 Shutter-speed / exposure time of 1 second, Aperture / F-stop : ƒ/16.0 – Focal Length: 23.0 mm

When I shoot with the Fujifilm x100f – my preferred camera for street photography, I use three different settings for street photography.

The Fujifilm x100F comes with three customizable modes. And when you pick your street camera, it’s crucial it has the option to set a minimum shutter speed.

  • Setting 1) The mode I use the most for day-time: 1/250 shutter speed and ISO max of 1600. This setting will tell the camera to never go above 1600 ISO and never go below 1/250 of a second. This helps me avoiding blurry motion by freezing moving targets and keeping the ISO at a decent level.

Update: 2018 – I just got my hands on my new favorite camera for street photography. It’s the brand new Fujifilm X-T3 and it’s amazing.

Street Photography at night

When I’m doing street photography in the night, I always go to a max ISO of 12800 and a shutter-speed of something like 125 of a second. It’s difficult at night to push your shutter-speed much faster than that.

My gear

My favorite lenses are the 35mm 1.4 when I’m doing street photography and the 56mm 1.2 for portraits.

P Mode vs. Aperture mode for street photography

In the past, I would usually just shoot in P-mode – always. Lately, I’ve been experiment a lot more with aperture priority mode to control and master the depth of field (DoF) better.

Focusing: Autofocus, prefocus, AE-L & AF-L

How to focus: This is a tricky thing in street photography because everything moves so fast and your scene is very unpredictable, which is why you should rely a lot on your settings and experience.

At the moment, I do a zone focusing and single-point focusing. I’m not sure a have a favorite yet.

AE lock stands for Auto Exposure-Lock. The reason to use AE-L is to lock the exposure where you want and point that camera elsewhere after.

AF lock stands for Auto Focus Lock. The point of using AF-lock, which is something I often use, is to pre-focus at a certain spot, so your next shot will be a lot faster.

See more of my work:

  • Street Portraits: A little passion of mine.
  • Black & White Photography: What can I say. I really like B&W street photography.
  • 99 Street Photography Tips: These are my learnings from awesome photography books.
  • Review of the Fujifilm x100f and the small, but amazing Ricoh GR II