Suggestions and skills of architectural photography

Architectural photography requires high equipment and skills, and there are many related skills. The following are the suggestions and skills of architectural photography I shared. Let's have a look.

There is a craze for architectural photography now. Indeed, China has a vast territory, a long history, profound cultural heritage and rapid social development. As a collection of politics, economy and culture, architecture can well reflect the present historical inheritance and future development of China, so this upsurge is reasonable. Architectural photography needs high accumulation and precipitation.

Lens and composition

At present, the most commonly used lens for architectural photography must be a wide-angle lens, because buildings are usually relatively large, and sometimes information such as the environment must be considered. In addition, the wide-angle lens can cause some visual exaggeration, make the work more powerful and enhance the sense of form. This time we used Canon ternary EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM to photograph the Catholic Church in Qingdao.

The distant scene ahead is grand and the environmental information is clear. Frontal shooting, the picture will have a little perspective effect on the perspective principle, which is suitable for expressing symmetrical and solemn buildings. You can lower your position a little, and your work will shine more easily. However, some buildings will have a poor stereoscopic impression due to the lack of side elevation, so you need to change the plane position.

Side shot, using a wide-angle lens, contains square street lamps, which contrasts with the building and exaggerates the building to make it look taller.

Shooting before building is the most commonly used shooting position in architectural photography. Because there are two perspective effects when looking at the building from the side, the horizontal line of the building will produce a convergent diagonal line with perspective effect in the picture, so this shooting position can easily show the three-dimensional sense of the building.

The telephoto lens is used to capture some delicate details and relatively isolated buildings.

If you want to capture the exquisite details of a magnificent building, you must use a telephoto lens.

Generally speaking, long-distance shooting can show the whole scene and emphasize the overall momentum. The range of middle shot is smaller than that of long shot, while the close shot is often a part of the building.

Use HDR to save more details of the sky and buildings.

Sometimes, due to the shooting angle and weather, there will be obvious brightness contrast between the subject and the sky. If we want to make the details of the whole house clearly visible, then the sky will be overexposed. In order to solve this problem, I think the best way is to use the "HDR" function in the camera! This time, we use EOS 5D Mark III to start its "HDR" shooting mode, and you can decide the HDR level you need according to the required picture effect.

Without HDR, the details in the sky will be lost under high brightness contrast.

As can be seen from the picture, many details of the sky and buildings have been preserved, so if your camera has HDR function, you can boldly use it in some scenes.

Black and white phantom:

When we shoot this kind of building in the scene of Gao Fancha, the difference between light and shade may make your photos dull. At this time, you can completely convert black and white in the later stage, and consciously darken the black area or brighten the bright part, thus creating a fully contrasted black and white retro photo.

Black-and-white photos will make them look more abstract after removing color interference. Another advantage is that the shadow will be weakened, so it won't be too uncomfortable. If you think your photos are messy, you might as well turn them into black and white works. Here I recommend a PS plug-in silver EFEX PRO. This plug-in has many black and white image presets for you to choose from, and you can also change the parameters yourself to make your work unique.

The function of geometric lines:

Mastering a method can make your work get twice the result with half the effort, shoot architecture, especially modern architecture, and grasp the essence of lines, then you have mastered an effective creative method.

You can use the external outline of the building to establish a visual guide line, so that the picture can be stretched far away.

You can also find lines inside the building to make a composition. Usually, this composition has certain regularity, and repeated lines are more expressive. This tension makes your work shine.

Therefore, carefully observing the composition of architectural lines and taking it as a reference for your composition can help you find the breakthrough point quickly. Sometimes you want to make simple lines, and sometimes you want the lines to move to form the geometry you want. Of course, you need to master the related photography knowledge of lines, such as straight lines appear tough, curves appear soft, X-shaped composition produces focus, and so on.

Architectural photography is the same as other kinds of photography. After mastering the general direction, the specific methods often come from their own personal practice. Practice more and find the skills you have found, which will become part of your photography knowledge.

Quiet architectural photography:

There is a kind of architectural photography (mainly black-and-white photography), which will give people a quiet and eternal feeling, as if time is still between heaven and earth. This kind of photo is cool and easy to attract people's attention, and the high-end atmosphere is high-grade. So how do you take this photo?

There are two ways to achieve this effect:

The first is long exposure, ranging from ten seconds to four or five minutes! But the problem followed. Such a long exposure time, and usually during the day, then overexposure is certain. Even if you set the ISO to 100 (some professionals can set it to 50) and set the aperture to the minimum, it is impossible to get such an effect, because the light is still too strong. At this time, you need a tool-subtractor, and it must be a high-grade subtractor, such as ND400, or you can use two subtractors together, such as ND 1 10 and ND 109. The number after ND is represented by A, and the shutter speed of your camera's normal exposure is set to B without adding a filter, so the normal exposure speed after adding a filter is: A times B. Therefore, you can use a reducing mirror to extend the exposure time. But there is a problem that the dimmer will affect the color temperature. The worse the dimming, the greater the influence on the color temperature. Foreign technology is good, and imports are much better. Subtractor is a commonly used filter. You can also use a subtracter if you want to take pictures in the wild.

There are some photos with normal exposure time, as shown below, but the effect is the same. How is this done?

In fact, this is a method of using multiple exposures, shooting at a fixed position and at different time intervals, and then superimposing these photos later, which can also have such an effect. The second method is not limited by equipment, but the process is relatively complicated, which is more difficult for people who have just tried it.

Importance of prospect

When shooting architecture, the prospect is very important. Setting a good prospect has several advantages:

1 Emphasize the sense of depth, because photography is the art of transforming a three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional space, and you need to build a foreground to strengthen the sense of depth, so that your work will not appear peaceful at one time.

2 Rendering the atmosphere, we China people will emphasize the artistic conception when we shoot architecture, especially ancient buildings.

The magnificent atmosphere was strengthened by the prospect.

If you have no idea about your subject, think about how to find a foreground to match it, which may have unexpected effects.