Urban scenery shooting course

Traveling, traveling, visiting relatives and friends, people will not live in the city where they live for a long time in their lives. Even in the city where they live, will you always pay attention to your surroundings? Will you record these charming city scenery? I believe that a large number of people usually record the city or foreign country where they live. There is a great difference between urban scenery shooting and natural environment scenery shooting, because after all, cities are built by people themselves, and there will be obvious differences in methods after design and decoration.

For city shooting, the most important thing is the photographer's idea. An excellent composition and a unique perspective can make your city look more attractive, but a bad composition will make others feel disgusted when they see your city. You can tell the story of a city in an instant through your composition and angle, and you can also show the characteristics, style and legend of the city.

Life is in a hurry every day, but don't forget to record your city and life

Of course, shooting the city has its own unique methods, and you can also show your shooting skills through the scenes of tall buildings and traffic. Generally speaking, shooting large-scale scenery is mostly in the daytime, because you can't see the scenery at night, and most of the scenery won't move and stay there. However, when shooting the city, there are many complicated problems. For example, the traffic, people and even buildings in the city will move and change, which is not fixed. The night in the city will have another taste because of the light. Therefore, don't miss the scenery of the city day and night, and don't miss it in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Selection of shooting equipment for urban scenery

Taking pictures of the city scenery is actually very simple, and the main equipment is the camera. Of course, many friends like to shoot with their mobile phones. If your favorite photographic equipment is a mobile phone, you may need to skip this article, because it mainly teaches great artists how to shoot city scenery with a camera. Camera shooting is also very different. For example, some beautiful effects and unexpected skills may not be fully realized by ordinary cameras. You need a high-end SLR camera and a large aperture lens. Although we are not an equipment party, if we want to take wonderful photos of the city scenery, good cameras are indispensable, such as Canon's 70D, 7D Mark II, 6D, and Nikon's D5300, D7 100, D750, etc. In order to avoid advertising suspicion, we just cited too many examples.

With a camera, the choice of lens is very important. If you want to shoot a shocking city scene, you need wide-angle lenses, such as zoom lenses and fixed-focus lenses such as 14-24mm, 16-35mm and 24mm. If we want to shoot excellent close-ups of buildings or other details, then we need a telephoto lens, such as 85mm, 70-200mm and so on; Of course, you can also use some "one mirror travels all over the world" lenses to avoid the trouble of changing lenses, such as 18-200mm, 18-300mm, 28-300mm and so on. Of course, if you can choose, try to choose a lens with a large aperture, such as F/ 1.4, F/ 1.8, F/2, F /2.8, etc., so that you can shoot more special effects in many occasions.

Example of central combination method

The central composition method is to put the photographed object in the center of the picture, and at the same time let the subject occupy most of the area of the picture. This urban shooting method is definitely the most common, and it is also the simplest and most direct way to express the photographer's shooting ideas and subjects.

Diagonal synthesis method

Examples of diagonal synthesis method

When shooting many scenes, if the lines in the scene are "smooth and smooth", the effect is often not good. If you change the shooting angle and shoot the lines obliquely, you can make the picture feel more dynamic.

Symmetric synthesis method

An example of composition method of golden section line

The ratio of gold to yellow is the most beautiful one recognized by human beings, and the ratio is 1.6 18: 1. In a rectangular picture, it is about two-thirds of the picture, and most of our pictures are rectangular, so we can follow this ratio. Putting the main body of the picture on the golden section line will make viewers feel comfortable when watching the whole picture, which is also in line with aesthetic principles. Therefore, for beginners, whether shooting buildings, objects or people, you can try the golden section composition method.

Tunnel composition method

An example of tunnel construction method

Most people in a house always want to see the scenery outside the window, which is a kind of psychology. When shooting, we can also use this psychology to shoot from the inside to the outside of an environment, thus forming a tunnel composition. Tunnel composition expresses the main body of the picture more quickly through the outline and guides people to watch the main body of the picture directly.

Vanishing point synthesis method

Examples of vanishing point composition method

"The near is big and the far is small" is an objective perspective phenomenon, especially when using a super wide-angle lens, it can capture a very obvious change of "the near is big and the far is small". If the subject is a road, the road will gradually narrow and disappear in the distance, so this composition is also called "vanishing point composition". Using this composition method, we can create a strong sense of spatial depth and highlight the three-dimensional sense of the scene in the plane photo.

Of course, composition does not mean that you can only use one shot, but you can also combine multiple composition methods in one photo. As long as the picture is beautiful enough, it is ok to use strange composition methods. Don't be limited to traditional composition when shooting.

The difference between big scenes and close-ups.

No matter what you shoot, you can shoot big scenes and close-ups In urban landscape photography, the shooting of large scenes mainly shows the scenery and characteristics of the whole city, while the close-up part mainly shows the details and representatives of the urban scenery. Then I will explain to you the difference between big scenes and close-ups in urban scenery shooting and the shooting skills.

Big scene

Lens focal length: Because shooting a big scene is what we often call a wide-angle picture, we suggest that you use a wide-angle lens, so that you can shoot more scenery. Wide-angle lenses have been recommended to everyone before, such as 24mm, 16-35mm, 14-24mm, etc., which are all commonly used wide-angle lenses.

It is best to take a bird's eye view from a height.

Location: When shooting big scenes, the best place is shooting from high places, such as TV towers, mountains and even airplanes and helicopters. Of course, sometimes there are no such occasions for us to take pictures and overlook, but don't give up. We can choose to climb to the higher buildings in the city and take pictures overlooking the big scene. If all these can't be achieved, then we can only shoot on the ground. If shooting on the ground, the choice of scene is also very important, which can be buildings, parks, green spaces and so on.

It might be more beautiful to add some backlight effect.

Shooting skills: Of course, it is very important to take clear photos of big scenes, but sometimes you can add some natural elements appropriately to make the picture look more beautiful, and don't just want to shoot the scenery of big scenes. You can add some backlight effects when shooting. If you encounter a rainbow, you can combine the rainbow with the city as the main body of the picture. Of course, planes in the sky, vehicles on the road and even wild animals can be added to the picture, adding more interest.

Feature Articles

Specially written, mainly to shoot an object. In urban scenery shooting, close-ups can be part of a building, part of a garden in a city, a souvenir, a window, a car, or many things. In a word, in the city, the scene taken in close range is Qian Qian. Of course, it is best to choose a unique or memorable scenery, so that the photos taken will be more impressive.

Close-ups can be taken with telephoto ends.

Large aperture blur can better highlight the subject.

The large aperture not only increases the amount of light, but also brings the blurring effect in the picture, so that we can skillfully arrange the subject we need in a part of the picture, and then blur other levels of the picture through the large aperture, so that we can highlight the subject we are shooting. According to the needs of shooting, we can choose the aperture from f/ 1.2 to f/4, but it mainly depends on how much the maximum aperture of your lens supports.

Sometimes blurring is to shoot another unique effect.

Of course, you should also use a large aperture when shooting. If you need to shoot a big scene, try to shoot all the scenes with a small aperture, otherwise the whole picture will look unsightly. But we can choose as many large apertures as possible when shooting the close-up part of the city landscape and the details of an object. Or we deliberately shoot an effect to blur the foreground or background, then we should also use a large aperture at this time.

The magic of light spot

In addition to blur, there is another outstanding feature of large aperture, that is, the appearance of Jiao Wai spot. Different lens spots have different shapes, some are round, some are oval and some are polygonal. The facula is mainly formed because if there is a little light source or reflection in the Jiao Wai part of a large aperture lens, a very beautiful facula will be formed. Of course, the shape of the light spot can actually be controlled by itself. The specific production method can refer to the article "How to use the aperture skillfully in the world travel photography of Big C", so I won't repeat it here.

It's very popular on the Internet, which makes the whole picture appear bright and fuzzy.

As long as there are many point light sources, you can shoot like this.

The point light source mentioned here mainly refers to the lights in the city, such as neon lights, colored lights, car lights, street lamps and so on. Any light will become an independent point light source in the city. After being blurred by a large aperture lens, these point light sources will appear as light spots in the picture. When taking pictures, you can find some places with rich light sources to shoot, so that you can successfully take a very interesting and popular photo.

Slow down and enjoy the traffic.

Sometimes, a moment is recorded by us and becomes eternal. Sometimes, what we record is not a moment, but a period of time. For example, it may only take a moment for us to photograph buildings and other objects in the city, but if we want to photograph traffic scenes, it will take a long time to form. Therefore, in urban landscape photography, long-time exposure shooting is also a very important link. In addition, we need to make it clear that such photos usually need to be taken at night or in a dimly lit environment, and long exposure during the day will turn the picture into a "blank sheet of paper".

A scene of heavy traffic

Traffic is actually shooting the traffic in the city. In addition to the traffic, you can also shoot the boat flow if you have the conditions. In fact, for shooting traffic, we need to use a camera for a long exposure, such as 30 seconds, so that we can record the trajectory of the vehicle. If you shoot as usual, you can only record the instantaneous state of the vehicle. This kind of night map is very ordinary, without much aesthetic feeling.

Shoot traffic from a height.

Shoot traffic from the ground.

At night in Venice, there are fewer ships and the traffic scene is not obvious.

Shooting technique: generally, it is best to choose the TV file or M file of the camera to shoot traffic scenes. Of course, we recommend you to use M gear, because it is very convenient to adjust various parameters. Taking such long-exposure photos requires an accessory tripod, otherwise it will be difficult to take them. When shooting, in order to capture more traffic, you can use the shutter for 30 seconds, and select 100 for the ISO part. The part of the aperture needs to be adjusted according to the intensity of light at that time, which can be from f/ 1 1 to f/22. Shooting in the city is busy, and the light is generally strong. You can choose the aperture from f/ 16 to f/22.

It's nice to shoot the fountain like this.

We can often see that there are many fountains on the streets of most cities, especially in European cities. When shooting the fountain during the day, we can capture the instantaneous picture of the fountain spraying water, because the light is strong during the day, and snapshot is the most suitable shooting method. If you shoot the fountain at night, the picture will be dim, unclear and meaningless. When shooting fountains at night, you can still use the long exposure technology of shooting hoses, so the fountains will be more beautiful.

Fountains combined with buildings will be more beautiful.

Shooting technique: The long exposure shooting and shooting traffic here are roughly the same. First of all, we still need a tripod, and then we recommend using the M file of the camera. Then ISO still uses 100, which can ensure that there will not be too much noise during long exposure. The exposure time can range from 10 seconds to 30 seconds, depending on how much you want to take pictures of the fountain. Of course, it is recommended that you use an exposure time of 30 seconds. The part of the aperture is selected according to the intensity of light. From f/ 1 1 to f/ 16, the general light range can be covered.

Starry sky in the city

Shooting the starry sky in the city mainly depends on luck.

Shooting conditions: shooting the starry sky is very different from shooting at night. Take pictures of traffic and fountains. The environment is very rich and the conditions are basically relaxed. Shooting the starry sky is very strict with the surrounding light and weather. First of all, make sure the weather is sunny, preferably partly cloudy or cloudless, so that you can see the starry sky. If you can't see the starry sky, you can't shoot it. And the light in the surrounding cities should be very dark, otherwise it will seriously affect the shooting of the starry sky.

The shooting skills of starry sky have been introduced in detail in previous articles. For details, please refer to the article "How to take distinctive commemorative photos when traveling", which will not be repeated here.

So the city can still shoot like this? !

The shooting methods of urban scenery mentioned above are mainly some fixed techniques and methods, and most of them have rules to follow. However, how can we completely follow the rules when shooting? Many times, we need to innovate our own unique shooting techniques in order to take some impressive photos.

Don't miss the reflection

You can see the reflections of scenery, buildings, people, vehicles and so on, whether by the lake, by the river or on the rainy beach. Sometimes these reflections are even more interesting and beautiful than the scenery itself. So when we meet the reflection, we might as well find an angle to record it. In fact, it is very simple to shoot a reflection, that is, to find a reflective part of the water with rich scenery and record it with a camera, which is no different from shooting ordinary city scenery.

The reflection can be shot like this

You can also shoot like this.

When shooting reflection, we usually take the effect of the first picture, which is a simple reflection effect, but after shooting, if we flip the picture 180 degrees (usually in the camera), we can see the effect of the second picture. The second photo is actually a reflection of the lake. After 180 degree flip, isn't it obvious reflection? Many times, after taking a photo of the reflection, we can try to turn it over and see the effect.

Explosion blur

The so-called explosive focusing means that after focusing, the shutter is pressed and the zoom ring of the lens is quickly rotated, so that the photos taken are as explosive as the above picture, that is, lines are radiated from the center to the periphery.

Explosion fuzzy effect

How to shoot: When taking a photo with explosive focus, you must use a zoom lens, otherwise how to rotate the focus ring of the lens after focusing. In addition, you need to use a lower shutter speed when taking pictures. After all, it takes a certain time for a photographer to completely rotate the lens focus ring from pressing the shutter to the end of shooting. Generally, the shutter speed is between110 second and 1/30 second, which can be adjusted according to the environment. Try to choose AV file or M file (aperture priority file or manual file) when shooting. In the case of dark light, the natural shutter speed will be slower, which makes shooting easier. However, if you need to adjust the shutter speed yourself in the case of sufficient light, you can choose to adjust the shutter speed or shoot with a small aperture.

The next step is to take pictures. When taking pictures, the subject to be photographed must be placed in the middle of the picture, because only the middle position is clear, and the other surroundings will be blurred. When shooting, one hand presses the shutter, while the other hand starts to turn the focus ring of the lens, and the speed must be fast. This method takes many dynamic pictures, and also has the lighting for shooting street scenes and night scenes, which makes the photos light up and the picture effect is strong.

Focus shooting

The focus tracking mentioned here is not the automatic focus tracking function of the camera, but the manual focus tracking when shooting. For example, you can see fast-moving vehicles, running people, horses, etc. in the city, and you can shoot after focusing.

An example of focus shooting

How to shoot: its true focus shooting is very simple, but the probability of success is not high, so it needs to be tried again and again. After we find the object to be photographed, such as a moving car, we can take a clear picture of the car and blur the surrounding things by rotating the body with the speed of the car after focusing and pressing the shutter at the same time, highlighting the dynamic movement of the car. For the aperture part, we suggest you use a larger aperture, such as f/4. The shutter speed should not be too fast, as long as it is suitable, otherwise it will become a recording instant picture. The ISO part is mainly to help you not to take false shots, and add or subtract appropriately according to the light intensity of the environment to ensure a medium or slow shutter speed.

Write it at the end

In fact, there are many shooting techniques and composition perspectives in urban scenery shooting, so there is no way to list them here. The scenery of the city is mainly composed of people and man-made things, so it is more changeable than the natural scenery and more difficult to control in shooting. Although we have introduced you to some shooting angles and techniques of urban scenery, as well as common shooting types and forms, you can practice according to these. When the shooting level reaches a certain level, you can try to shoot some new angles and try new shooting techniques yourself, so that you can really bring unforgettable photos to everyone. Finally, I suggest that you record your city and your trip with your own unique perspective after honing and laying a good foundation for shooting.