How to take a long exposure photo of urban landscape?

Autumn and spring are the best seasons to shoot city scenery. The weather is cool, but not cold. When the sun goes down, it doesn't matter if it's too late to take a night view. There will be more cars with headlights on to illuminate the road. Long exposure photography of urban landscape is a way to look at urban landscape from different angles.

1, prepare food and shoot the shooting material.

A slow shutter takes a long time. Take food, lest you lose patience when you are hungry. Exposure usually takes about 30 seconds. In addition, after shooting, the camera needs a lot of time to process the photos, and it also needs to wait until the shooting theme appears in the picture. If you don't shoot in a densely populated place, the waiting time may be longer. This kind of shooting requires patience, preparation for cool weather, and taking into account that it will get cold over time and it will take a lot of time to stand still.

Step 2 shoot the bridge

Bridges are the best places to provide a good view because they can provide a higher view. Therefore, near objects and far objects can be put into the screen at the same time. When taking pictures on the street, the camera must always face up to capture the image of the building, but the camera can keep a straight line or even tilt down from the bridge, and the direct position eliminates the perspective deformation.

Use a tripod that can mount the camera on the railing, so that you can get more interesting angles. Similarly, the camera can be fixed to the railing with a belt. If you use a tripod, you can only put your legs out and lean towards the railing to keep the camera as close to the edge as possible.

The disadvantage of using a bridge is that cars crossing it will make the bridge vibrate. When the shutter speed is slow, jitter will occur. You will have to guess when the bridge is not moving, or it is above the support. Above the column, the vibration of the bridge is so small that it can hardly be seen.

3. Panoramic assistance

Cities usually look good in a wide format. If you shoot with a wide-angle lens, you can get a wide field of vision in one frame. However, when the building looks small, there will be characteristic deformation. In order to avoid distortion, please use a longer telephoto lens, or even use a telephoto lens to shoot several frames and then splice them into a panoramic view. A lens with a focal length of 50mm is a good start, which will make the building bigger. You can take about four shots and have a wider field of vision.

You can emphasize the verticality of the city by making the panorama vertical instead of horizontal. Make the overlapping box at least 25%. When creating a panoramic view of night scenes with long exposure, the most important thing is to ensure the maximum camera stability.

4. Motion blur

It is an interesting activity to take pictures with the traces of car headlights. First, find a place with many bullet trains. Remember, the taillights are red and the headlights are white, so please decide the shooting theme according to which color. White light is usually bright, and the red color of night city looks more interesting.

Then set ISO to a very high value, at least 3200. This will allow shooting at a higher shutter speed. At this stage, it is worth building a map to find an angle. With these settings, you don't have to wait for a long time to check the picture after each shooting. After synthesis, reduce ISO to 100 or 200.

Shutter speed will determine the duration of headlight trajectory. Exposure for about 5 seconds will produce long marks that will overlap each other. A shorter shutter speed (such as110 second) allows you to see every car. Various settings will give you various effects.

After choosing the appropriate shutter speed, you can use aperture and ISO to brighten or darken the whole image. The diaphragm also affects the appearance of the lamp. When the aperture is closed to F/ 1 1 or F/ 16, the star effect will appear.

Remember the basics of composition. Use motion blur as a guide to balance bright and dark areas. Blur looks spectacular, but make sure there are other objects in the frame and consider making abstract photos.

abstract

Long exposure is an interesting activity. Observe familiar streets in different ways, try to shoot with friends, or take long-exposure portraits with synchronous flash.