The process of taking a photo

Hello,
I'm a beginner and this is my first post here. I don't have any problems with composition, it's the shooting that makes me look at other photographers rather than shoot myself. I'm quite interested in street photography or photography in general, but seeing old footage of pro photographers when they shoot is amazing and at the same time frustrating as hell. It seems like they don't really care about the settings or they adjust them very fast and they usually don't look through their viewfinders. They act almost if it was accidental. 

When I adjust everything, the action is already gone and the potentially great photo is lost. Now I kind of regret getting full manual film camera. 

Also, where to find actually useful info about settings instead of the usual basic "how it works" overview which is the same on every website and doesn't help at all. I think there's more to the settings and what's most important is how they work together.  

I've never thought photography could be that frustrating.

Only because you're mixing a lot of things up.

Street photography is one type/style of work, and has it's own requirements that have perhaps nothing to do with other types (portrait, architecture, sports, etc). If you're going to research, you need to focus on one thing.

Most street photographers, if you listen to podcasts and read articles (of which there are many; suggest The Candid Frame) you'll find that many will read the light at a given location, and preset the camera. They already understand their camera and its settings because they've practiced learning those things first. And not just on street photography, but in other situations where they can slow down, practice, learn, try, fail, and learn. Did I say learn? Once the camera is set for exposure, AF will take care of itself if you can point the camera in the right direction. Some try from the hip; others raise the camera to the eye. There's no single answer here.

There is, however, a horse that goes before the cart: learn and practice, practice and learn, in an environment that is controlled. And you start with "how it works", then the exposure triangle (how things work together), and lots of bad shots. Your choice of film to start... expensive. And Cartier-Bresson (look him up) suggested "your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." If I got the quote right without googling. I think I'm somewhere near 80K or 90K shots (about 6 years), and I still have lots to learn.

Camera adjustments come naturally to those that have spent a great deal of time practicing with their equipment. It sounds as if that's the first lesson to learn: hours of practice.

As for the hipster-ish manual film camera... meh. A cheap digital DSLR will get you farther faster if you put in the time to practice. IMHO.

Excellent post by Gary. Novices often put way, way too much emphasis on determining the precise ideal camera settings. For landscape or still life shots you may have all the time in the world to fuss over settings. But street photography is the opposite, time is usually fleeting, at best. For the street I usually preset the exposure. And once that is done, I forget all about it, concentrate entirely on finding and capturing promising shots. I may also preset the manual focus, usually called zone focusing. One more factor I can then forget about. And yes, often I do not use the viewfinder. As I am trying to be discreet and holding the camera up to my face gives away the game. With a wide angle lens you can often (not always!) simply point the camera in the direction of the subject and fire away. Of course you will have to crop later to clean up the framing.

There are several techniques that will work for the street. The preset and pray method I described above is only one. You just have to experiment with them yourself.

Kelly

Any subject that changes quickly used to be dealt with by presetting the camera so the photographer could point and then shoot.  These days, the camera can be set up to get reasonable results with an auto point and shoot mode.  That way the photographer can concentrate on framing and timing.  I don't think it is any more complicated than that.

I think the hardest shoot I ever did was for an oil manufacturer who made products used by motorcycle racers.  They sent me to a race and asked me to shoot bikes coming over a high jump.  I had to catch them at the height of their travel through the air.  I didn't have to worry about exposure, that could be set up ahead of time.  I didn't have to worry about focus because I used an autofocus camera (Nikon F5.).  But framing and timing were very challenging.  Some of my best shots were of motorcycles that didn't use the clients oil.  Who would have guessed?  I did get the job done but it was very hard.  Be prepared.  Know what you want and do what you need to do to get it.