Best Walking Around Lens

[Larry S.]

I’ve read the responses and it all comes back to what you hope to achieve in street photography. Consider the variety of scenes you may want to capture. Here’s a few samples w/different equipment over a few years. Walking through the N/O French Quarter, a Key West, Florida street, and a bar in Knoxville, Tennessee…

Nimi’s advice of a 35mm f/1.4 is excellent…. I could have shot all these with that one lens…. Don’t over think this…. Move to get your best shot….

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[beano]

I’m late to the party, but anyway, here goes:
1. If I need versatility, I simply drop the 24-120 f/4 on the one Zf body, and I always have my Voigtländer MF 40 f/1.2 on the 2nd Zf.
2. If I’m in the mood to carry one body only, I always have the 40 f/1.2 on it, and my 26 f/2.8 pancake in the pocket.

These combos are what works best for me, YMMV.

 

[seh]

The Z 24-200, while not an S is quite useful and light. I don't have a urge for the 24-120. The z 40 f2 is good forroutine street and family shots

 

[Calson]

The advantage of using a zoom like the 24-120mm lens for street photography is that over time you can analyze your images to learn what focal length work the best. For me over the past 55 years the 105mm focal length has worked the best in terms of its view angle and the working distance between me and my subjects. Shorter focal lengths and one gets more extraneous stuff in the frame and closer subject distances make many people uncomfortable and it shows in the pictures with their body language and facial expressions.

Focal length affects the apparent DOF at a given aperture. The 70-200mm at f/5.6 provide a very nice background blurring at 200mm and sufficient DOF for people's faces.

 

[Michael Dreese]

Ok, I realize that's a wide open question and the answer is "it depends" but just looking to generate some thoughts for myself. My normal lens for this has been the Z 24-70/f4 which came with my Z7II but that was mostly supplanted by the 24-120/f4 unless weight was really important. However…at f4 neither of these is really good for street photography or low light or situations where shallow DoF is a nice thing to have. So…I'm considering adding a faster prime for this sort of situation. While f1.2 is better than f1.4 for DoF issues…the weight and size for me make the extra 1/3 of a stop not worth it. So…thinking of either the 35/1.4 or 50/1.4…and wondered which would be more useful for this sort of single lens/body walk around I'm OK with foot zooming if needed use. One thing I am going to do is try a couple outings and shoot just at 35 and 50 to see what seems to suit better but wondered what others might have concluded.

I love my Z 24-120 for general purpose travel but if weight and space are a consideration, I would highly recommend the 40mm f2. It’s light, sharp and renders very nicely. It’s a great one lens solution but could be paired with a zoom or the 28mm 2.8. Also, the 40 and 28 are very affordable.