How to take good blue time photography?

When you hear the word "city night photography", what images do you think of? For many people, nothing is more interesting than taking pictures of the city scenery at the seaside, especially those taken when they are blue. Shooting in blue time will bring you interesting city lights, thus enhancing the landscape photos. Usually, most cities are located near reservoirs, either rivers, lakes or the sea, which means it is worth seeing for you to use the skills in this photography tutorial.

1. "Right" sky and light

This shooting method is very suitable for urban photography by the sea. If you want to take great photos, please try to take them on a clear night. On a clear night, the quality of light is much better than that on a cloudy night, which is easy to see in the image.

2. Sunset direction

When shooting city scenery in blue hours, there is one thing that will greatly affect the shooting effect. When the sun goes down, if the sun sets in the direction you shoot, you will often see the beautiful dusk it leaves, which makes the blue hour photo special.

The sun sets from the right edge of the picture, adding a good color gradient from red to orange to dark blue.

In this case, the sky lacks the beautiful hue that is usually seen on the sunset side of the sky. In such a sky, no matter how you retouch the picture later, the picture will not become very good.

3. Long exposure

If you especially like the scenery of coastal cities, this smooth water adds a dreamy artistic conception, which is a typical feature of long-time exposure photography. By default, weak light with blue hours will naturally slow down the shutter speed, especially when using a narrower shutter speed such as f/ 13. However, if the neutral density (ND) filter is not used, the shutter speed may not exceed a few seconds, which is enough to achieve a smooth effect.

4. Reflection in the water

Colored city lights reflected on the water will make the blue hour appear "amazing" effect. Even if you shoot the same city landscape from the same place for two consecutive nights, you can get completely different results in terms of the clarity of water reflection.

In order to get good results, as shown in the first photo below, the water surface should be relatively calm. If the water surface is uneven, it is unlikely to get a clear reflection.

5. Clouds in the picture

The slow shutter works best in water, but it is also good in the case of clouds, which may not be as important as the contents in other paragraphs above, but if there are clouds in the sky, the slow shutter helps to show its dynamics in air movement.

In addition, if you want to achieve greater results, please try it in the dark night. However, if the sky is too cloudy, the photos will look ordinary.