This year for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day ParadeI went out to the streets of East Tampa and did some street photography. The parade began at Cuscaden Park, 2900 N. 15th St. and went all way down 15th Street to Middleton High School. 

For this shoot I brought along my Sony A7iii and paired it up with the Canon FD 50mm f/1.5 vintage lens. It was also my first time using the Rode Wireless Go microphone system for my video. I still have to tweak my settings in order to get really good audio quality.

Anyhow, I am not used to shooting street photography in all manual mode, so this was somewhat of a challenge, but I really enjoyed getting out there and pushing myself. This is a great way to get out and not only learn photography, but a great way to learn ins and outs of your camera. There were plenty of people out and about lined up all up and down 15th Street, so I was able to capture some really good shots of the parade and the people.

Vlog

I created a vlog of this shoot, so if you want to watch it check it out here: Street Photography With A Vintage Lens | Canon FD 50mm F/1.4

Photos

Below are some of the shots that I took while I walked up and down 15th Street. Unfortunately, a lot of my shots were really soft and out of focus. When you use a vintage lens with a newer camera you need to use an adapter, and on the adapter you have to make sure that it is “locked” in order for the aperture ring to work. Well, I didn’t have mine locked and all afternoon I thought I was shooting at F/8, but in reality I was shooting wide open. The Canon FD 50mm F/1.4 lens is really soft at F/1.4, so that explains why the photos were soft. Lesson learned though, make sure you check your gear and camera settings before you actually start shooting, it never occurred to me to check and see if the adapter was in the locked position. I hope you like the photos. All of them were slightly edited in Lightroom.