I decided early on when I finally bought the Fuji XT3 (my dream camera) that I was going to stick to prime lenses and keep my kit as minimal as possible (no easy feat when you are sticking to primes). The main purpose of the purchase was to facilitate more street photography. I had the D7200 for landscapes and seascapes, but I wanted something somewhat less bulky to carry around on the streets with me. Little did I know, of course, that I would end up largely doing street photography almost exclusively within a couple of years…
I started out with a couple of Fuji’s f2 lenses (the 23mm and the 35mm), and very much enjoyed using them. They were compact, had good image quality and, despite being relatively light, had a good solid build. It wasn’t long, however, before I had a hankering for an upgrade and began looking at new lenses.
I’ve now got three lenses in my kit: the Fuji XF33mm f1.4 R LM WR, the 18mm f1.4 R LM WR and the Fuji XF 50mm f2 R WR. Easily my favourite of the three is the 33mm (approx 50mm full frame). That’s the lens I keep on my camera most of the time. It is wide enough to get more context in my shots, but long enough that I can keep some distance from my subject. Perfect. The 50mm (75mm full frame) is a fairly recent addition I picked up second hand last summer. Since gravitating to street photography, I’ve become increasingly interested in the work of Saul Leiter, and was intrigued to discover that he liked to use long focal lengths, using anything from a 50mm to a 150mm lens. If it’s good enough for Saul Leiter…
After the 33mm, the 50mm has become my second most used lens. I liked it for abstract shots, but also I enjoy the additional reach and distance it gives me from my subjects (I’m not keen on getting too close when the subjects are people). It’s not unusual for me to just switch between these two lenses on a trip. They do the job for the kinds of images I like to capture, so it’s rare that I come across a scene where I want a different focal length. Which brings me to the 18mm…
When I bought the 18mm, it was a toss up between that and the 23mm. After a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing, I decided on the 18mm. At the end of the day, I can crop into 23mm, but I obviously can’t go from 23mm to 18mm. In that sense, it was a no-brainer. And although I don’t regret buying the 18mm, it has been a real challenge to use it effectively.
Looking back through my Lightroom catalogue, I can see that I’ve only used it on three trips in 2025. Given I go out both days on the weekend, that’s not a lot of usage, even if we are only at the beginning of March. In fact, if I look back further, I can see that other than product shots and family shots, the last time I really used it when out and about was in Berlin back in August, It’s clearly not getting a lot of usage. So why is that?
I think it’s largely because I haven’t really figured out how to use a wide angle lens in street photography. When I look at the shots I have got when doing street photography, they are largely architecture shots or group photos. None of them are particularly portfolio quality shots. They’re fairly standard, fairly ordinary shots.
I do look at wide angle street photography shots and see the potential, even if sometimes the photos aren’t my kind of style. Take for example the kind of street photo shots where the frame is filled with layers, foreground elements, mid-ground interest and background interest. The kind of shots where interesting people fill the frame, such as it’s almost as if put together deliberately in a collage. Like these by Vineet Vohra. Now that’s not my style of street photography, but I do love those kinds of images. And of course, this is where a wide-angle comes into its own.
But it doesn’t have to be the kind of layering shot as beautifully demonstrated by Vineet Vohra. There other ways to approach wide-angle street photography, I guess I’ve probably just not worked it out yet. So here’s a commitment from me, or maybe a challenge. For the next few photo trips, I’m going to try to stick to the 18mm and resist the temptation to switch out for the 33 or the 50. It’s time to put this beautiful, high quality 18mm lens through its paces properly. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, here’s some 18mm shots I’ve taken so far. I’ll let you be the judge as to how much work I need to do in the days ahead…