Which is the Best Street Photography Camera?
In this, the 4th kit review let us see what the BEST street photography camera is for this year. The first camera is what I believe to be the best camera for street photography. However, they all have their good features and not so good features, but I have not listed them in any particular order so that you can make up your own mind based on what you require in a street camera.
1. Ricoh GR III
Without a doubt this camera was made for street photographers. It features: –
- Smallest ASPC camera available
- Fantastic sharp lens
- Has a fixed 28mm lens
- Features snap focus mode
- Small enough to fit in your pocket
- Ergonomic handling
This is most definitely the camera I would choose for my dedicated street photography.
If there is one camera designed and built JUST with the street photographer in mind, it’s the Ricoh GR. It’s now on it’s third iteration, and it is only getting better.
Optics are provided through Ricoh’s own very fast [fixed] 28mm f2.8. It is one of the smallest APS-C sensor cameras. At f2.8 the lens gives a nice wide view and fantastic focal plane.
Full press snap
What the hell is Full press snap? Well in simple terms the Ricoh GRIII can obtain focus just like any DSLR by half pressing the shutter release, however, if you set up full press snap the camera does something quite unique.
By depressing the shutter release button all the way, bypassing the half-press, it will set the automatically obtain focus and capture an image at any where from 1mtr, 1.5m, or 2m, (depending on your set-up). As far as I am aware, this feature is not available in any other camera.
Handling
In my honest opinion, I think the handling of this camera is one of the best. It lets you to alter settings on the fly. Due to the ergonomic design you can twist and turn your hand to get the shot without worrying if will slip out of your grip.
Image Quality
The Rich possesses amazing image quality due to the large 24MP APS-C sensor. The only thing to know about this camera is…it’s for dedicated street photographers only, or at least if you are used with the 28mm. So it’s for street photography, but what it does, it does VERY well.
Quick Facts
- Accessories – it comes with an additional battery and Ricoh Soft Case (GC-9.) It also has a black and an amber ring to compliment the overall design.
- Full press snap – as discussed above it features full press snap via the Touch Screen.
- Customised shutdown screen- this is only available on this GR III Street Edition.
- Image quality – the images are captured through the large 24MP APS-C sensor, together with the GR lens and the new GR ENGINE 6. A combination that produces beautifully detailed
- mages across the entire sensitivity range, with superb colour reproduction.
- Pocket size street photography camera – it has a high-speed hybrid AF and a 0.8 second start-up in slim and compact body.
- Shake reduction: 4 step effective Camera shake is reduced for crisp images even when taking split-second snapshots
- 6cm Macro mode: Minimum focus distance of 6cm from the front of the lens
- Firmware updates – always keeping your firmware up to date will ensure you have the latest functions
What is included –
- Ricoh GC-9 Soft Case
- orange-yellow ring
- black ring GN-1BK
- 2 x battery DB-110
- USB adaptor
- AC-plug and USB cable
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2. Leica Q2
Warning this camera is expensive! At £4,500 this is not a casual purchase. However, as you can see it has a pretty impressive list of features.
The Leica Q2: –
- 47.3 MP full frame sensor
- Dust and spray water proof (IP52**)
- HighResOLED electronic viewfinder (3,68 megapixel)
- Fixed 28 mm fixed prime lens (Summilux 1:1,7/28 ASPH.)
- Fast Auto Focus (0,15s)
- 4K Video
- Bluetooth for easy connection with Leica FOTOS App
- ISO 50 – 50.000
- High-resolution Touchscreen
- Made in Germany
**Ingress Protection, class 52: Protected against dust in damaging quantities. Protected against dripping water when body is tilted at 15°.
Introducing the new Leica Q2
This camera a perfect symbiosis of the essentials for a stab at the title of best street photography camera. It is innovative, delivers pristine performance; provides connectivity; is resilient and elegant.
Drool over these essentials: –
- 47.3 megapixel full frame sensor!
- Extremely fast Summilux 28 mm f/1.7 ASPH. prime lens
- Fast autofocus
- Innovative OLED technology
- Timeless elegant design
Optics
This camera has a fixed 28mm lens, for dedicated street photographers. Leica is no stranger to street photography and a great many street photographers have used Leica cameras for their street photography. The Leica Q takes the Leica M camera and have stuck a fixed 28mm lens to it. Add to that a beautiful viewfinder and you have a photographic experience unlike any other.
This beautiful piece of kit is perfect for night street photography as well.
With the addition of an IP dust and spray sealing (rating of 52), the Leica Q2 stands out as the only camera in its class equipped with this feature.* From its classic design and respected “Made in Germany” quality seal to its integrated digital zoom that covers a range of focal lengths up to 75 mm, the Leica Q2 transcends the revered story of Leica’s full-frame compact story to new heights.
Sensor
47.3 MP Sensor. The Leica Q2 features a newly developed 47.3 megapixel full frame sensor that captures both richly-detailed still pictures and 4K video in brilliant quality at ISO sensitivities up to 50,000. The speed of the lens and high ISO lend it perfectly to low light street photography.
Dust and spray proof
The Leica Q2 is the only camera in its class to feature IP protective sealing, rating of 52, against dust and spraying water.
Prime lens
The extremely fast maximum aperture of f/1.7 is ideal for capturing the world. Let your subject stand out incredibly sharp against beautiful bokehed backgrounds. This lens almost guarantees you outstanding low light performance even the most difficult lighting situations.
OLED viewfinder
The fabulous high-resolution OLED viewfinder has a resolution of 3.68 megapixels. The high resolution provides an ideal view and live preview of your subject at all times, with improved image depth and higher contrast.
High Speed Performance
Goodbye focus lag! The Leica Q2 boasts an auto-focus system that sharply focuses on your subject in 0.15 seconds, the fastest in its class.
4K Video
The new Leica Q2 offers a 4K video mode with 3840 x 2160 pixels and frame rates of 30 or 24 frames per second.
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3. Olympus Pen F
The Pen-F comes in at the top of the current Pen line-up and has a 20-million-pixel Four Thirds type sensor – that’s four million more pixels than previous Pen models.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Most notably the Pen-F features a built-in view finder. It integrates an OLED electronic viewfinder with 2.36 million dots into its body. It also has Olympus’s excellent five-axis image stabilisation built-in. This is claimed to extend the safe hand-holding shutter speed by up to 5EV – that’s the difference between 1/500 sec and 1/15 sec.
Olympus PEN-F features:
- 20MP Live MOS Four Thirds format sensor
- 5-axis image stabilization with automatic panning detection
- 2.36 million dot OLED electronic viewfinder
- Up to 10 fps continuous shooting (20 fps with electronic shutter)
- Highly customizable interface, twin controls
- Fully articulating 1.04 million dot, 3″ LCD touchscreen
- 50MP High-res Shot mode
- 1/8000 sec top mechanical shutter speed (1/16,000 with e-shutter)
- 1080/60p video recording
The Pen-f shares a lot of the core features found in the OM-D EM-5 II. The most direct Micro Four Thirds competitor to the PEN-F is the Panasonic GX8, which also uses a 20MP chip. Other close competitors include the Sony a6000, a6300 and the Fujifilm X-E2S – all of which are APS-C format cameras.
It has a maximum continuous shooting speed of five frames per second with full AF and metering operation (or 10fps without).
It also has an 81-point contrast detection autofocus system. A full HD (1,920 x 1,080) at a range of frame rates. You can choose from 28 Art Filter effects. There is Wi-Fi connectivity; and the High Res Shot mode which was first seen on the OM-D E-M5 Mark II.
Stabilistaion
Pen-F’s stabilisation system shifts the sensor between shots as it captures eight 20MP images, which are then merged into a single high-resolution image. The JPEG image size has been increased to 50MP, while the raw files are a massive 80.6MP.
However, the maximum shutter speed available is 8 sec, while the minimum aperture is f/8 and the highest available sensitivity setting is ISO 1,600.
Noise
Noise is well controlled for most of the Pen-F’s sensitivity range. As usual, in the default noise-reduction setting you can expect to see some fine details lost from JPEGs at the upper sensitivity settings. Nevertheless ISO 6,400 images (both raw and JPEG) look good at A3 size.
As you would expect, switching to the High-Res Shot mode slows shooting down considerably, with each image now taking a long nine seconds, sometimes longer, to clear the buffer – but the results are impressive. Detail is markedly increased, and this in turn enables much bigger prints (larger than A1) to be produced. The downside is that Hi-Res mode is a ‘tripod-only’ option, and is unsuitable for shooting subjects with moving elements such as flowing water.
Pricing and availability
The Olympus PEN-F has a body-only price of £1000 upwards. You can pick up a used model for as little as £600.
4. Fuji X10F
There are some cameras which simply impress with their charm and good looks. Ask any street photographer to name some of the most attractive looking cameras to be released and Fujifilm’s X100-series is likely to get a mention.
We have all been told that camera phones destroyed the compact digital camera market years ago. But how many of you still like to have a small, lightweight camera with real buttons and dials, full manual control, and raw image capture?
A better option to the Camera Phone
Here’s what I want… a camera that is about the same size of my phone, yet offered so much more control and quality.
“what good is a compact camera these days if it can’t even shoot sharp raw images?”
And on that note, here’s the Fuji XF10. It’s one of the smallest cameras ever to offer an APS-C (DX, 1.5x crop) sensor, plus a good quality lens and full manual controls. It’s smaller (and just a little thicker) than most cell phones, and you can get one from as little as £300.
So, is it actually worth it?
- Sensor: 24 megapixel, APS-C (1.5x), Bayer-Pattern (not X-Trans)
- Lens: fixed, 18.5mm (28mm full-frame equivalent), f/2.8
- Stabilization: No
- Video: 4K (15p), 1080, (60, 30, 24, 23.98p) microphone port, no headphone port
- Size: 113x64x41mm (4.45×2.52×1.61 in.)
- Weight: 279 g (9.84 oz)
- Mechanical Construction: Mostly metal, rubber grip
- Flash: Yes, Built-in
- Viewfinder: None, rear LCD only
- Filter Threads: None
- Battery & Charging: NP-95, 1200 mAh, 330 shot estimated, USB charging
- Memory Cards: SD, SDXC, etc
- Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth LE
- Price: from £300
- Fuji XF10, Provia Film Simulation | 1/20 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400
If all you need your images for Instagram or Facebook, and you aren’t interested in editing your images with anything more than Instagram’s built-in filters and adjustment sliders, then let’s not pretend that you NEED this camera or any other for that matter- you’ll be fine with whatever cell phone you already have, as long as it can focus decently well and isn’t completely useless in dim lighting.
However, if you are a bit more serious about your photography, and are curious about a basic raw workflow, then you should strongly consider getting something a little more cpapble than just a cell phone. You will definitely see the difference when capturing high-contrast situations, low-light or even night-time situations.
This type of camera is a good way of stepping into the world of full DSLR photography.
The Fuji XF10 is made for: serious photographers, who want to shoot professional quality images in casual or incognito situations.
You might be an experienced photographers who already appreciate the full control of a serious camera, but who don’t always want to lug around a big ILC system everywhere they go.
Or, this could be beginner photographer who wants more than what a cell phone can offer, but who also know that they’re still hoping for something portable. For example it is great for situations where unobtrusiveness is valuable, like street photography, environmental portraiture, or just candid journalism.
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5. Panasonic LX100 II
If street photography is not the only style of photography you want to do, the Panasonic LX100 could be the ideal camera for you. It has 4/3 (approx) sensor, has a viewfinder integrated and a very nice 24mm-75mm f1.7 to 2.8, this is an outstanding lens for such a package. This camera is great for landscapes, portraits, events, street, etc thanks to that versatile lens. It evens does amazing videos in 4k, has wifi and does timelapse, etc.
That versatility unfortunately comes at a price.
One major drawback is that it does not have a focusing scale, meaning you cannot tell if you are focused at 1m or another distance. This is important to many street photographers who like to pre-focus. It does have focus peaking, so you can eyeball how much of the world is in focus as it becomes more and more highlighted. The transition from a Fuji is painless at it handles pretty much the same way with a dial on top and even has click stop aperture ring.
It is a great compact camera, and is perfect for those who do NOT want to deal with lenses. The focal length offered is simply pretty awesome if you do not want to do street photography all the time.
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7. Sony RX100 vii
The Sony RX100 is one of the most amazing pocket sized cameras on this review list. Basically it is a 1″ sensor DSLR. It might not have all the bells and whistles of a full DSLR, but it has a viewfinder, incredible zoom range and is surprisingly capable as a serious video camera.
Having this much flexibility crammed into a small pocket camera is absolutely amazing, but it comes at a price. You can get a larger sensor camera for the same cost but you try fitting a DSLR into your pocket!
Depending where you go prices start at about £650.
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9. Canon G1x mIII
The Canon G series used to be a staple in serious compact cameras. Smaller sensors but great controls and viewfinder.
It took a lot of chances, and offered a larger than 4/3 sensor and a host of new features. It’s an underrated camera that didn’t get much love.
Performance Canon G1x
Equipped with a DIGIC 7 image processor, the G1X III is a pretty speedy little camera, especially when compared to its predecessor. The G1X II topped out at 5.3 frames per second when shooting JPEG images and 1.4 fps when shooting RAW. The G1X Mark III is much faster, capable of shooting up to 9 frames per second for both JPEG and RAW.
The slower speed of the G1X II did allow it to have an unlimited buffer depth for JPEG and RAW shooting, but the G1X III trades that for much faster shooting speeds. The G1X III JPEG buffer is just over 20 frames and the RAW buffer comes up a bit shy of that 20-shot mark. Clearing speeds range from around five seconds to about 14 seconds for JPEG and RAW, respectively.
In real-world use, the buffer depths and clearing speeds are a little bit of an issue, but the camera’s new-found speed should be a good trade-off for most shooters.
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Best Street Photography Camera Conclusion
To be honest, any camera can be a street camera, but if you haven’t tried lugging a huge DSLR around for a few hours, give it a go. You will soon appreciate a pocket camera. In my opinion, the best street camera to buy, probably because it is the ONLY camera designed with street photography is the Ricoh GR.
Your camera is only as good as you are
If you are reading this, you are probably interested in getting a street photography camera, awesome! But what’s next after you get it? Your camera is only as good as you are, so if you want to make the best use of your gear, check out my photography courses.
https://rogerchapmanphotography.co.uk/develop-your-photography-skills/