Street Photography with a Zoom lens: the privilege of making the wrong choice

The art world has its fair share of dogmas and photography is no exception: if you’re into street photography at all, you probably know that no serious professional would be caught dead using a zoom lens! All the greats used prime lenses and there are plenty of good reasons for that: they’re compact, unobtrusive, and the more you get used to a specific focal length, the easier it becomes to compose a shot before even lifting the camera up to your eye. Plus, it eliminates pesky distractions like deciding which zoom range to use, increasing your chances of capturing the “decisive moment”.

All of this makes perfect sense if you think of street photography strictly as capturing people on the streets, but I would argue that nowadays this genre encompasses so much more than that! Here’s why I think it might be worth to consider a different perspective:

The Classical approach

A bit of context first: like many of you, I got my first mirrorless camera with a kit zoom lens which I used extensively in those early days. But right from the start I also had a vintage Canon FD 50mm (more on that story here) and it didn’t take long for me to realize I much preferred the results from that lens over the zoom. So down the rabbit hole I went…

About one year later I sold the kit zoom and for a long time I only bought and owned primes. Whenever I went on a photowalk I would either carry one camera and two lenses (usually a 35mm and a 50mm FF equivalent) or two camera bodies with different lenses attached. Overall this worked pretty well for me and I took some of my favorite photos of people on the streets with this combo, but as far as “user experience” goes I would often be switching lenses/cameras on the move, which could get a bit annoying and distracting.

My “classic” street photography using prime lenses

The “Eureka” moment

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when a friend of mine borrowed me his Fujinon XF 16-80mm on a photowalk that I really started to question my previous approach. Having this kind of range available meant I could easily go from photographing details in a wall far away, to a wide architectural shot with a just a twist of the zoom ring! It felt so liberating to have this whole new world of possibilities without worrying about switching lenses that a few months later I bought my own zoom again, this time a Fujinon XF 18-135mm.

A few samples from my first experience with the Fujinon XF 16-80mm

The result

I’ve used the 18-135mm zoom in almost every photowalk since them, but what’s really fascinating to me is how profoundly it changed my style of street photography: because I can isolate details very easily, I’ve started to focus more on shapes, patterns and abstract compositions and less on people (although it can obviously do that too). Funny thing is, nowadays even when I carry just a prime lens on my camera, I still tend to look for those same details, albeit with a much more limited range.

The one downside I have to mention is that because of the large zoom range, this lens is much bulkier than Fuji’s compact primes! I definitely wouldn’t recommend it as an everyday carry, I only use it when I go out specifically to photograph or on vacations with lots of sightseeing involved, otherwise I’ll choose a smaller prime instead.

But if you’ve been using strictly prime lenses and feel like you’re stuck in a rut, I highly encourage you to try a zoom lens and explore its possibilities on both ends of the spectrum, wide-angle and telephoto.

Here are a few more examples taken recently with the 18-135mm, you can check the focal length used in each photo’s details: