Street Photography with the Sony HDR-AS20 Action Cam

Recently I decided to try something alternative with my street photography. I’m finding that the more different cameras I shoot with, the more I learn about photography and the more I broaden my skills and experience. So far my street photography has been focused on shooting with dedicated cameras – namely DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. I haven’t yet tried my hand at street photography with a smartphone, although I intend to.

Those of you who are familiar with our street hunt videos will be aware that we shoot our videos by mounting ‘action cams’ in a rig on the hotshoes of our cameras. The weapon of choice for both Spyros Papaspyropoulos and myself is two variants of the Sony HDR-AS Action Cam. This is essentially Sony’s rival to the GoPro. They offer 1080p HD video as well as absolutely essential (for our videos) image stabilisation. I used the Sony a couple of times for still photos on the beach and in the pool, and I was pretty impressed with the image quality from the 11.9MP Exmor sensor, as well as the effects from the super wide angle lens. I decided that this, combined with the action cam’s tiny size, might make for an interesting combination on the streets. So I tried using the Sony HDR-AS20 action cam for street photography. Here’s what I learned: