Budapest is one of my favourite cities to visit in Europe and thankfully it’s an absolute dream to photograph. Let’s have a wander around the city in my visual guide to street photography in Budapest.
It’s been almost 12 years since I visited Budapest with Emma on our first city break. Most of the photos from that trip won’t be seeing the light of day but it was really where my love of travel and street photography began. I had a 35mm f/1.8 lens on my Nikon D5000 and I guess in some ways I started to develop my unique style of photography particularly with that focal length (equivalent to 50mm on a full-frame) on that trip.
Fast forward to 2025 and I’m lucky enough to visit Budapest again on a group press trip with Jet2holidays. Whilst there wasn’t too much time for leisurely photo walks and time to ‘work a scene if you will’, I still managed to come away with so many photos that I absolutely love and feel showcase Budapest in all its charm. You can read more about my weekend in Budapest if you have the time (it’s a long one) or you can stay put and just flick through the photos here.
My ‘On The Streets’ series takes us across the world with short posts focusing solely on my unique style of travel and street photography. The series will never be complete but here’s a look at where I’ve covered so far:
Ok, now it’s time for a virtual wander around the streets of the Hungarian capital. This is my take on street photography in Budapest.
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN BUDAPEST
THE DETAILS
After heading to Copenhagen in the summer with the brand new (to me at least) Fujifilm X100VI, I knew it was a camera that had to come with me again. There’s something I’ve missed about the 23mm focal length that just feels right; I don’t need to swap for the 18mm or 35mm, it is just a perfect walk-around focal length. That’s not to say that I didn’t take other lenses with me to Budapest; come on, of course I did. I will never, absolutely never, travel anywhere without my 35mm f/1.4 so that came along almost permanently attached to my Fujifilm X-T5 but the other lenses were the 18mm f/1.4 (for food shots when the light went down), 56mm f/1.2 (becoming re-obsessed with this lens) and the 50-140mm f/2.8. That last lens is obviously huge and not something I’d ordinarily bring on a city break but there were a few specific shots I wanted to try that required that longer reach.
If that was too long, the full list of camera gear I took with my for three nights in Budapest was:
Fujifilm X100VI
Fujifilm X-T5
Fujifilm 18mm f/1.4
Fujifilm 35mm f/1.4
Fujifilm 56mm f/1.2
Fujifilm 50-140mm f/2.8
I also brought along the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 for some horizontal 4k footage that will come in handy later down the line but also for cropping out some reels.
I know so many of you want to know more about the colours that I produce from my Fujifilm cameras. All these shots are JPEGs practically straight out of camera with some very minor adjustments in Lightroom. The recipe is my ‘Summer Negative‘ one that actually will do you for all year round.
You can find my current photography gear right here.
THE PHOTOS
MY 2026 TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR
FUJIFILM X-T5
FUJIFILM X100VI
FUJIFILM 18MM F/1.4
FUJIFILM 23MM F/1.4
FUJIFILM 35MM F/1.4
FUJIFILM 50MM F/2
FUJIFILM 50-140MM F/2.8
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