Photography doesn't have to go to an open field, and the scenery in the city is beautiful.

Probably living in the city, I'm a little tired of the reinforced concrete structure everywhere. When it comes to landscape photography, people naturally think of natural scenery. But the best scenery may be around us. Pay attention to life, and the city scenery may also surprise you.

First, the city scenery framing

1, urban rivers and bridges

Generally speaking, the greening on both sides of urban rivers and the lighting effect at night will be better. If there is a river, there will be a bridge, which can be combined to shoot. Coastal cities will have a cross-sea bridge, which is of course better. It doesn't matter even if your city is not near the sea and there are no urban rivers. For example, Butterfly Bridge, with vivid lines, is suitable for shooting tracks at night.

2. Urban landmark buildings

Many cities will have landmark buildings, and urban landmark buildings are often very distinctive buildings, with better surrounding greening and gorgeous lighting effects at night.

3. Urban Hubo and Wetland Park

Generally speaking, urban lakes or wetlands have a large area and few surrounding high-rise buildings, so it is a good choice to shoot sunrise and sunset. In addition, there may be migratory birds in winter, and the sight of Qi Fei, a hundred birds in Qi Fei, is also very attractive.

4. Ancient architecture

Due to some historical reasons, some cities will have some well-preserved ancient buildings. This kind of ancient building has a unique style, which can make the works full of story and charm.

5. Central Business District

This is unique to big cities, which are characterized by high-rise buildings and large traffic. Climbing the stairs to shoot CBD is a common method.

Step 6 climb stairs

Urban characteristic architecture

Overlooking the panoramic view of the city, sunrise and sunset, night view of the city or telephoto scenery, capture a certain part of the scenery with telephoto lens and find a unique perspective.

7, municipal, provincial and national stadiums, theaters, libraries, art galleries, etc.

This kind of building is generally more creative in appearance and attractive in lighting effect.

8. Track

The light trace formed by the car lamp during long exposure is vivid. Because of the uncertainty of car trajectory and speed, it is also lucky and interesting to shoot, and it is possible to shoot more dramatic moments.

In fact, there are many beautiful scenery, so we should be good at discovering them. Maybe at a certain angle, a certain position will have unexpected effects.

Second, the attitude and matters needing attention when shooting city scenery

Attitude:

1, diligent

Generally speaking, there are very few successful airplane seats. When I first tried airplane seats, most of them stepped on the spot and accumulated experience. Therefore, a good plane seat is worth visiting several times, and you should try it all day and night, even if it is sunny or cloudy.

Step 2 be patient

Landscape photography depends on the weather, and a lot of good light and shadow come, and it also depends on luck. You are never sure what the color and light and shadow of the sky will look like in the next second. So, arrive at the shooting location one hour in advance to get ready, and don't be impatient when shooting. Don't think that you can leave after taking a lot of photos. Wait a little longer, wait a little longer, you may have unexpected gains.

3. perseverance

civic landscape

There are many mosquitoes in summer, and the weather is hot, but you should bring shelves and machines; Winter is cold and windy, especially when climbing stairs. It's colder and windy on the roof. It takes a photographer's perseverance and persistence to wrap himself like a bear and still be cold. This spirit comes from their infinite love for landscape photography. Behind every work is the author's hardship and sweat.

4. Be good at exploring new seats.

In cities, there are many places suitable for shooting, such as the ground, the roof, the city center, the suburbs and so on. There will be some well-known classic seats, but they are also badly shot, so it is difficult to make a breakthrough in further shooting. Therefore, it is not recommended to follow the trend to shoot some poorly photographed seats, which is of little value. Go out for a walk by yourself, pay attention to some unique perspectives that have not been discovered by most people, make good use of this seat you have explored, and shoot a good work before others.

5. Photographic creation with emotion

A good work should not only portray the scenery in the picture clearly, but also convey its feelings to the observer, impress others and produce a * * * sound. For urban landscape photography, we should not only reflect the beauty of the city, but also express our feelings about the city.

Precautions:

1, safety first

When climbing stairs, you must pay attention to safety. Try not to climb tower cranes and scaffolding for construction. Don't climb mountains when it rains. When shooting in the street, pay attention to the vehicles.

2. Obey the law.

City sunset

Don't shoot some buildings that are not allowed to shoot, such as state organs, military camps, private villas, etc. In order to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Step 3 pay attention to morality

Don't interfere with others and traffic when shooting. After the shooting, clean up the shooting scene and take away the paper towels, water bottles, food packaging and other garbage for cleaning equipment. Don't try to break the door lock in order to get into some shooting locations. If you don't let them in, you can discuss it with others. If it really doesn't work, don't shoot.

Third, shooting equipment.

1, a 135 frame body: the focal length of the lens will not be lost, otherwise the wide-angle lens will be wasted. The picture quality is also better.

2, wide-angle lens: shooting large scenes, most scenes will be used.

3. A telephoto lens: take telephoto scenery, capture distant scenery and take local scenery.

4, tripod: shooting scenery, tripod is essential, it is very important to give the camera a stable support, shooting sunrise and sunset, night scenes, using filters naturally can not be separated from tripod. Four tripods are recommended. The shooting environment of the city scenery is not bad, so it is easier to put it in your bag when climbing stairs, and it is not easy to be found. An advanced four-section tripod will do. If the requirements are high, buy a 3-day daily use and a small one for climbing stairs.

5, a set of filters: six files, ten files nd: ten files ND used during the day, can be exposed for 20 seconds to 30 seconds, atomizing the river, painting clouds, eliminating traffic and pedestrians. Use the sixth gear at sunrise and sunset.

Polarizer: It can eliminate the reflection of water surface and building glass curtain wall, and make the sky bluer and white clouds whiter.

GND and RGND: Both of them are used to control the light ratio, but in the urban scenery, the limitations are slightly greater, because the buildings are uneven and it is easy to accidentally hurt the prospects.

Urban night scene

6. Cable arrangement: When shooting with a tripod, the cable arrangement can reduce the vibration of the fuselage, and some cable arrangements have the function of timing, which is also convenient for time-lapse photography. And in winter, you can put your hand in your pocket and release it by cable, otherwise it will be really cold for cities in temperate and cold regions.

7, rain cover: sometimes it will catch up with the rain, especially when deliberately shooting dark clouds or lightning.

8, cleaning supplies: leather tiger, lens paper. My personal habit is to put some lens paper, a pack of napkins and a leather tiger in the accessory bag, because it may dirty the machine when shooting and need to be cleaned in time.

Fourth, the choice of airplane seats.

I usually go out to have a look, write down what I think is worth taking, first take a few pictures with my mobile phone or camera, look at the composition and surrounding environment, think about the shooting position, and step on it by the way.

I will also make plans at home, first determine the shooting content, check the street view around the shooting location on Baidu, and choose the shooting location in combination with the panorama in Google Maps. However, if you are climbing a building to shoot, it is better to step on it in advance, because you are not sure whether the building can climb, what is the angle of view of climbing it or it is not convenient to set up machines on the roof.

After determining the content and location of shooting, I began to think about when to shoot. In addition to the light, shadow and color of the sky, we should also consider when to shoot the front light, when to shoot the back light, when to shoot the side light and so on. , and choose the shooting time according to the effect you want to express.

The city lights are on.

When shooting at sunrise and sunset, we should consider the height of the sun and the relative position between the sun and the building, which is conducive to ingenious and rigorous composition. If the sun is too bright, you can let a corner of the building block the center of the sun.

When shooting at night, you can add the moon to the picture, which can not only make the sky look empty, but also increase the artistic effect. However, it is necessary to check the orientation of the moon in advance. To be more accurate, we should combine the height angle of the moon with the latitude of the location to calculate the height of the moon, and then use the knowledge of similar triangles and trigonometric function to calculate the shooting position. But try not to use super wide angle when shooting, because under super wide angle, the moon will be very small and can't express the content of the picture well.

Verb (short for verb) shoot.

Focus: Please use manual focus. Turn on the live view function, watch the picture from the LCD screen, enlarge the picture by 5 times to 10 times, and turn the lens focus ring to achieve accurate focus.

Shooting time: usually around sunset and blue time. Let me elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of these two time periods.

Around sunset. A very important time in landscape photography, because the air scatters sunlight during this time, the color will look better than during the day, and there may be fiery red clouds, which are colorful and unpredictable, bringing a lot of interest to shooting and the color of the picture is more attractive. If there is no flame cloud, and you are shooting by climbing stairs, I personally suggest that you choose to shoot when the sun sets on the horizon for about 20 minutes, because the air quality in cities is poor and the smog problem in big cities is serious. Before the sun goes down, the light will form a gray area near the horizon due to the refraction or obstruction of dust and water vapor in the air, which greatly affects the picture effect and is not easy to correct in the later stage. The higher the climbing height, the more obvious this phenomenon is, below 10 floor. Shooting 20 minutes after sunset can not only avoid the above problems to a certain extent, but also enhance the effect of cold and warm contrast. The sky near the horizon is yellow and the sky above is blue. Moreover, the ground is dark, the neon lights are bright, and the car lights are bright, which enhances the artistic effect a lot.

urban lighting

Blue time. Classic night time. About 40 minutes after sunset to 1 hour. When the blue is small, the sky is dark blue and transparent, and the color scale is not easy to break in the later period. At the same time, it is less affected by city lights and less stray light in the sky. It is easier to adjust the tone style of high-grade gray or metallic color in the later stage of shooting. However, in the deep winter in the northern temperate zone, the city lights don't turn on when the blue hour is on, so I will shoot the blue hour first, then take a picture when the light is on, and then synthesize it later.

Next, let's talk about car tracks. The exposure time of shooting car tracks is generally 20S to 40 s. Why? If the time is too short, the light rail connection is not good and not smooth enough. If it takes too long, the car will stop. The green light time of most roads is around 60s, and the green light time of a few main roads is around 90 s. If the car stops at the end of the exposure, it will be bad. If you shoot along the road, try to shoot in the direction of the car, because this is the trail of the taillight. The light intensity of the taillight is lower than that of the headlight, so it is not easy to overexpose, and it is red, which is more attractive than the white headlight. If you climb stairs to shoot, you will encounter the problem that the release time of each lane on the same road is inconsistent or the traffic flow in the two directions of the two-way lane is quite different. The solution is to predict as much as possible, seize the good shooting opportunity, shoot more, and stack later.

Sixth, the later period

1, processing light ratio

Gradient mirror image and HDR synthesis will not be mentioned here, I believe everyone will. My personal method is to gray the image first, extract the details, and then restore the relationship between color and light and shade.

2, the night sky color code is broken.

City scenery photography

If it's not serious, I'll grind the sky (surface blur+Gao Fancha reservation). If it is serious, I will sample the color of the sky with a straw, then fill it with color, and then modify the opacity or blending mode to keep some changes in the light and shade of the sky in the original picture.

3, the big light box or billboard in the city night scene.

These things are easily overexposed, brighter than street lamps and car lights, and are out of harmony with the overall environment. The effect of forced darkening in the later stage is not good, and it is easy to gray and the color scale is easy to break. I don't have a good idea. Try to avoid them. If you really can't avoid them, take a photo of the light box with normal exposure and synthesize it later.

4. The sky color in blue time

Although the sky photographed at this time is beautiful, the blue saturation is easy to overflow. It is very important to control the blue saturation. Personally, I recommend colors with low saturation and low brightness.

5. Architectural lighting

Urban characteristics

At night, the lights in the windows of buildings (especially high-rise buildings) are very important. Imagine if there are no lights or few lights in the main building in the picture, is it depressing? Give a person the feeling of lifelessness. However, in some office buildings, few rooms are lit at night, so we can only rely on the later period. Copy and paste the bright window to some unlit positions.