Sao Paulo Street Portraits with the Nikon DF by Alejandro Ilukewitsch

December 27, 2013 DSLR, follow ups, Guest Post, Inspiration, Just for fun, Nikon, Street Photography, Voigtlander 18

Sao Paulo Street Portraits with the Nikon DF

by Alejandro Ilukewitsch

Dear Steve thanks for your wonderful site, to some of us who can’t actually test gear before buying is of an amazing help. I live currently in Brazil, and it’s not possible to go to a store to test all the wonderful equipment that is on the streets right now. I bought the RX1 mostly because of your review. I also recently acquired a DF, whose review came afterwards… J

I love shooting street portraits, specially wondering for hours on the streets and meeting strangers, having a talk with them and then politely asking them for a picture. Sao Paulo is a multicultural city full of a lovely mixture of people. You actually never know into what you might bump. Sadly as many other cities in South America has is toll of insecurity, but well, it’s a risk worth taking.

I have used many cameras, suffer from GAS, but think that with the DF and RX1 I am currently cover and cured for GAS, (don’t know for how long). I also have a D800 but for my enjoyment and street shooting the RX1 and DF are incredible fun! Specially the DF which reminds me so much of the X100, but without the lag.

Here are some of my street portraits in Sao Paulo I recently took with the DF, suing a voigtlander 40mm plus a 28mm 2.8 AIS. Thanks for looking!

If you are interested in seeing more portraits from Sao Paulo street please use the following link:

http://www.ilukewitsch.com/People-from-Sao-Paulo

Also here you can find my tumblr, only Sao Paulo pictures:

http://ailukewitsch.tumblr.com/

And my blog in which I post about everything I shoot.

http://ailukewitsch.wordpress.com/

 Nikon Df, sec (1/125), f/2.8, 28 mm, ISO 250, Exposure Bias 0 EV

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Nikon Df, sec (1/125), f/2.8, 28 mm, ISO 180, Exposure Bias 0 EV

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Nikon Df, sec (1/250), f/4.0, 40 mm, ISO 100, Exposure Bias 0 EV

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Nikon Df, sec (1/500), f/4.0, 40 mm, ISO 100, Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

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Nikon Df, sec (1/250), f/2.2, 40 mm, ISO 500, Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

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18 Comments

  2. What a great contribution. I just got my Df which is much better suited to street shooting than my trusted D800. I’m totally delighted with it. It’s also good to see São Paulo. I’ve been a frequent visitor for more than 10 years, but die to change in job responsibilities it just came to an end. Why don’t you join blipfoto.com, we could do with some great LatAm shots?

    • Hi SteinJ thanks very much! Glad to hear you like the picts. I just left Sao Paulo, actually in the process of moving to Mexico, hope is as fun. I loved Sao Paulo. Never heard of blipfoto, will take a look at it.

      • Thanks a lot for the response! Good luck in Mexico! I’ve visited many times over the years!

    • I agreed with Ibraar…

      Alejandro, you have a great eye for interesting subjects …regardless of whatever camera you’re using!

      Nice work 🙂

  10. I like them! Street portraits with a 28; who would’ve thought that was a good idea? But it is. I’ve thought about your style of centering the subject, and agree with it. All subjects look straight into the lens; centering makes the image stronger.

    Thanks for sharing. How do you like the Df?

    • Thanks for the comments Michiel, and thanks to Steve as well for this opportunity 🙂 Great that you notice, I actually don’t usually center my subjects in portrait shootings, like studio or stuff like that, but for street i love it, specially with the 28 or wider lenses, centers the attention on the subject and brings more strength to the picture. In regards to the DF, I been really loving the camera. No issues with dials, and construction seems to be top notch! Of course i do consider to be quite expensive since for a lower amount you can get a D800, but for my kind of shooting I love it. I feel like i felt when shooting with the X100, without the lag. Its a lot of fun. I was undecided if to get the A7r, but after shooting with a OMD and then with the RX1, (which i still have) I decided to get something that felt more like a camera, and was fully responsive.

      Only negative comments is the manual focusing, its the same as with the D800, no advantage here. focusing with the 28 its fast and easy, with the 40mm is another story, my hit rate was quite low….

      The Df is a great camera, and as Steve have said its also about the fun, not only about the characteristics written in paper 🙂

      • Thanks for the reply Luke (is that how I can call you? 😉 ), very kind of you. I like to off center my portraits; this is I think where the 51 points of my D800 give a slightly wider field to choose from. Mostly because of cost and the 39 steps (great movie btw) i decided against handing in the D800 and the 58 for the Df kit, but your images turned me into a ditheri g idiot again. I’ve got the 28 AiS and the 50/1.2 AiS, so no problems there… 😉

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