You Can’t Use a 125 mm Lens for Street Photography

Or can you?

Photo by author

I recently started making street photography images — the inspiration being the purchase of a Sony a6600, mirrorless camera. It’s a “crop sensor” camera (APS-C), so the millimeter designation of the lenses used on that camera needs to have the crop factor applied to be able to compare their field of view to lenses used on a full-frame camera.

My go-to lens for street photography has been a 25 mm, manual focus lens. As you can see below, it’s a very stealthy combo. I can make photos all day without attracting attention.

The Sony a6600 paired with the TTArtisans 25 mm f/2.0 lens ~ Photo by author

But lately, I’ve been using an 85 mm lens — which provides the field-of-view of a 125 mm lens on a full-frame camera (127.5 mm, to be exact). Despite the title of this article, I’m going to stick with convention and refer to the lens by its full-frame focal length — 85 mm.

The Sony a6600 paired with the YONGNUO 85mm f/1.8 lens ~ Photo by author

For many street photographers, this is heresy. Even I was surprised at how much I like using this lens for making street photos.