Guide to shooting night scenes in low-light cities

Lead: The beautiful scenery at night is hidden in the city under gorgeous or dim lights. What equipment do you need to prepare to take a night view of the city, and what problems do you need to pay attention to? The following is the experience of foreign photographer james farley, hoping to inspire your landscape photography!

Guide to shooting night scenes in low-light cities: photographic equipment and auxiliary equipment

Low-light photography, like many other forms of photography, requires you to think ahead and get ready before you leave. The first thing to make sure is that you have the right equipment. Camera, lens and a sturdy tripod. Maybe your camera will be exposed for 30 seconds or even longer, even if the camera shakes slightly, it will ruin this perfect shooting opportunity.

Next, prepare other equipment. You don't have to, but if you do, it will bring you great help. These devices include:

Cable release device

There are many kinds of it: wired, infrared wireless and so on. I have tried all these, and now I always prefer wireless triggers, which are not only cheap, but also very reliable and widely used. Now there are also applications that can be used on smart phones, and there are some powerful functions, and even camera parameter settings can be controlled through WIFI technology, so it is not just a simple trigger. I once used a great shutter trigger called TriggerTrap.

flashlight

You can focus the camera in dim light. Sometimes focusing on problems can be a headache. Ambient light is too dim to focus automatically or manually. Shine a flashlight on the area you want to focus on, and the camera will focus quickly. Remember to switch to manual focusing mode after focusing is completed! Flashlights can also help when the plane is in a dark corner and the camera settings are not visible. In short, flashlights are very practical.

Medium gray gradient filter

It is by no means essential in landscape photography. It can easily control the illumination ratio between the sky and the ground, and ensure the correct exposure of the foreground, especially when shooting in the shadow, the brightness of the ground will be very low.

warm coat

In some parts of the world, when it is dark, the temperature will drop very quickly. If you are familiar with that place, you should have experience. If you are traveling, it is better to bring clothes. Please ask the local people for details. The worst thing is that you stand there shivering and listen to the slow countdown of the camera's 60-second exposure!

Camera settings: based on manual

Make a composition in your viewfinder, use the flashlight I mentioned before when you need to focus, and then switch to manual focus mode to stop the autofocus of the lens. At this time, I will wait for the moving light source (such as the vehicle) to leave the image and set the camera to manual mode, so that the aperture shutter will not change again.

If the scene is dark, the camera's automatic exposure will often go wrong. Even if the exposure is correct, the cooperation between aperture and shutter is not as good as you think. The camera's automatic metering often thinks that the shutter speed is faster, but what I really want is a small aperture with a long exposure of 30 seconds.

Measure in complete darkness.

At the beginning, I will set the aperture size first, and take some photos with the B file of the camera as the photometry of the scene according to my experience. Before the actual shooting, measure the light in the bright and dark parts respectively. It is also feasible for some photographers to shoot the light with the maximum aperture first, and then convert it through the law of reciprocity, but I prefer my own practice. Such exercises will gradually develop your own judgment on light.

When looking back at photos, don't adjust the amount of light according to your own judgment, but look at the histogram. When the light is dark at night, you will feel that the photos are very bright, but in fact, the computer feels a little dark when you get home. Even if the camera has the function of automatically adjusting brightness by sensing ambient light, don't trust the screen too much.

Even if the low sensitivity is set, the camera may still produce more noise in the case of long exposure. Many SLR cameras provide long exposure noise reduction function. Generally speaking, if you shoot for 30 seconds, it will take 30 seconds to reduce noise. Machine noise reduction is really a waste of time. It is recommended to go home and reduce noise in the later stage of the computer.

Other tips

Personal safety is also very important, not to mention that you are shooting in a dark corner of the city. It's best to have someone to accompany you, or at least talk to someone, so as to pass the boring long exposure! Or at least tell others where you are going and when you will come back. Take your mobile phone with you and try not to show your expensive equipment.

Maybe you already have a place in your heart suitable for low-light photography. I find the most interesting thing about city night scenes is that you can shoot buildings from different angles and improvise according to night scenes and constituent elements. Artificial lighting can greatly increase the color of dark scenes. Street lamp fan. If you use a smaller aperture, such as F/ 16, you can capture the star track and increase the drama of the picture.

Once you find the scenery you like, set up a tripod and be careful not to interfere with others. If the tripod has a bag hook, hang your camera bag to increase its stability.

Don't stay at home when it rains. Rain is the best source of special lighting effects.