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Shooting Cityscapes, Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
February 07, 2012
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more.
CITYSCAPES
There is nothing quite like a great nighttime cityscape image; the lights of the city make everything just look magical. The bigger and busier the city, the easier it is to get a good cityscape mainly due to the amount of light present. I have often been amazed at the actual amount of light available when looking out at San Diego. A lot goes into getting good cityscape photographs, including choosing a fantastic location, the best time, and the ideal exposure.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
There is a saying in the real estate business that the three most important things are location, location, and location. Well, that holds true for capturing cityscapes as well. There are two distinct views to look for: the first is to get as high above the city as possible, and the second is to get away from the city and shoot from a distance.
To shoot down on a city, look for the highest point that gives you the view you want. Check to see if the location allows visitors — specifically, photographers — and tripods instead of just showing up and hoping for the best. Of course, if you are on vacation, then you have nothing to lose, so just go for it.
In the busiest areas of most cities, some of the tallest buildings are hotels, usually upscale hotels, and a lot of them have bars or restaurants on the upper floors, taking advantage of that view that you want to photograph. Many times you can just call and ask if it is possible to take photographs from that area. It really doesn’t hurt to ask.
When shooting down from a high vantage point, wide focal lengths work really well. The wider focal lengths allow you to capture the grand vista of the whole scene. The twinkling lights in the offices and the traffic patterns rendered as light trails make the whole scene worth capturing. Take the cityscape in Figure 8-17 and the way the city looks alive with the lights twinkling in the scene. I took this image from the 40th floor of a hotel in downtown San Diego with a 24mm lens.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO The city looks alive with all the lights, which add a glow to the sky. Taken at 5 seconds, f/7.1, and ISO 400.
The other option is to photograph the cityscape from a distance at ground level. This works really well when you have an unobstructed view of the skyline, and it is even better if the city is on a body of water. Many times this approach requires a longer focal length to focus in on the buildings because of the distances involved. The added advantage to this type of shot is that the longer focal length causes compression in the image, making things appear to be closer to each other than they really are, as you can see in the San Diego skyline shown in Figure 8-18. These buildings appear to be much closer together than they actually are.
THE BEST TIME TO SHOOT
In the winter and fall, it is easier to get great cityscapes because the sun sets earlier. Offices are lit up as many people are still at their desks with office lights on, which provides more available light for your photo.
In the summer months, with the sun setting after most people leave their offices, the amount of light available is reduced. That isn’t to say that you should forget shooting at any other time of the year except winter and fall, but just realize that the images might not have as much light.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO The San Diego skyline photographed with a long lens makes the buildings look like they are closer together than they really are. Taken at 5 seconds, f/7.1, and ISO 100.
The direction that you photograph in also makes a difference in the final image. Facing west will catch the most color in the sky as the sun sets, while facing east could allow you to catch the reflections of the setting sun’s colors in the glass buildings and make the photos something special.
The best time to photograph is right after the sun sets, when some of the colors of the day are still bleeding into the sky. Take the photo of the San Diego skyline that I shot from Coronado Island (shown in Figure 8-19); you can see that the sky hasn’t gone completely dark yet, and the clouds are starting to take on the color of the sky and the city.
EXPOSURE CONCERNS
Metering a changing sky with the gradually increasing brightness of the city lights can be tough. This is one of those scenarios where practice can really pay off, but to ensure the closest starting point, do the following:
Set the camera on a tripod.
Compose the image and lock the camera into place.
Set the ISO to 100.
Set the exposure mode to auto.
Set the metering mode to matrix or scene metering.
Press the shutter release button halfway down to get a light meter reading.
Change the exposure mode to manual and apply the settings shown in the previous step.
> Either increase the shutter speed or reduce the aperture by 1 stop and take a test photo.
> If the image is too light, increase the shutter speed or decrease the aperture by another stop.
> If the image seems too dark, decrease the shutter speed by 1/3 stop or open the aperture up 1/3 stop.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO The San Diego skyline photographed from Coronado Island. I took this picture in the winter months so that the office lights were still on and the sun had already set, even though it was only 5:30 pm. Taken at 10 seconds, f/10, and ISO 100.
Once you have the settings that give you the proper exposure, you have to keep adjusting them as the scene changes and the sky gets darker, as I had to do to capture the image in Figure 8-20. When photographing the San Diego skyline, I needed to constantly make adjustments to the exposure. Because the light is constantly changing, there is no single setting that will work all the time. Shoot the scene, check the LCD display on the camera, make adjustments, and try again.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO The San Diego skyline with the ferry in the foreground. The light rapidly changes right around sunset, and a couple of
minutes can make quite a difference. Taken at 2.5 seconds, f/10, and ISO 100.
Assignment Capture a cityscape at night
Where you shoot from is important when planning a cityscape photo. To get the photo below, I set up on Coronado Island before the sun set, and with plenty of daylight left, I set up my tripod in an area that would not interfere with any pedestrians and wouldn’t be blocked by the ferry when it pulled into port. As the sun set, I started to take a series of photos, adjusting the exposure each time; I needed to use longer and longer shutter speeds to get a proper exposure. As I moved into the very long exposures, I noticed that the images were losing their sharpness, so I increased the ISO so that I could use faster shutter speeds and hopefully keep the image sharp. This is my favorite of the series I took. It was taken at 2 seconds, f/10, and ISO 1600.
To keep the image as sharp as possible, and to allow me to keep an eye on my surroundings, I used a cable release to trigger the shutter on the camera. This way, I didn’t have to touch the camera and move it in any way. I used a long lens to get in close and then cropped the image even more in postproduction. The only real change to the image that was done on the computer was to adjust the white balance of the image to get the colors closer to how I wanted them.
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