Help with night shots of buildings...

[scouse007]

Hi
I am off to my hometown Liverpool for a couple of nights , main aim is to learn to take photos of building at night some I believe will be lit up from outside. I have a canon 70D with 18-55 STM lens added lens's will be 70-200 tamron macro lens and a Canon 70-300 lens, is there a any tutorials on here or can someone give me some tips, I have a tripod to hand too...

[Manfred M]

Welcome to CiC! Would you mind clicking the "My Profile" button at the top of this page and updating it with your name and where you are from? We tend to be a fairly informal group here and go about on a first name basis.

As for night photography of buildings. I guess it really depends on how you define night photography, the lighting, etc. Unfortunately, I don't know your camera (or your tripod) so can only make some general suggestions.

1. I would start with the 18-55mm lens. Most building shots (unless you have a long, clear view of them) will generally work better with a lens that is more on the wide angle side.

2. Tripods are great. Not only do they let you take long exposures, but more importantly they let you work on your composition. I try to use one for this type of work whenever I can, even in good lighting conditions.

A remote release will be useful as well to prevent camera shake on long exposures. I don't know if your camera has a mirror lock up. If if does, it will help to use it for exposures in the 1/30th - 10 sec range;

3. Focus can be a problem in night shots. The autofocus sensor isn't always all that reliable, so I will often use a manual focus. Here is where the screen on the back of the camera comes in handy. Set up the framing of the shot and then crank up the magnification as high as you need and focus that way. Auto focus will have to be disabled to use this technique.

4. Your camera's built in light meter will assume normal illumination is at play, so you won't be able to depend on it to give you the right exposure. Either shoot manually or use exposure compensation to bracket the shots so that you get a series of exposures to work with.

Use your histogram to judge the exposures. If the building has been lit up, you are likely to get blown highlights and if it is dark out, your shadow detail will be blocked as well. Sensor noise is more likely to be a problem in the dark areas of the image. Generally the lower ISO settings tend to have better noise performance, but...

5. Unless your camera is level, you will introduce perspective distortion (reverse keystoning) in your shot, where vertical lines slant inwards as you move up the building. There are a number of work arounds in post processing, but you need to know what you are doing there and leave enough space around the building to fix this issue. I have a perspective correction (shift-tilt) lens for this type of work, but this is not an inexpensive option.

This night shot shows a building image done with a wide angle perspective correcting lens.



Bottom line is go our and experiment. Like with all other aspects of photography, there is no formula that can be used to get this to work. Each situation is unique.

[DanK]

Just two suggestions to add to Manfred's post.

I often figure out exposure in night shots by pushing the ISO high enough to get an estimate quickly, even handheld shot. I shoot manual and adjust the exposure if need be until I get a handheld shot that is exposed correctly. I then do the arithmetic to get the right exposure for ISO 100. It's easiest to do this with ISO 640, because then the math works out to be simple: whatever setting you get in seconds at ISO 6400 is approximately the right exposure in minutes at ISO 100.

Re Manfred's #3: people often think they should open the aperture as much as possible in night photography, but that isn't the case with buildings, etc. The difficulty focusing at night is a reason to avoid wide apertures, and you will also often want more DOF to make minor errors in focusing less critical.

This one is ISO 100, f/8, 20 seconds:

[rpcrowe]

IMO, it is best to shoot buildings in the early evenings in the late fall or early winter. That is because most business will still be open: translated to mean that most windows will be lit. Lighted windows always make buildings more interesting.

Shooting at the "magic hour" is also a consideration...

Manfred wrote: "Your camera's built in light meter will assume normal illumination is at play, so you won't be able to depend on it to give you the right exposure. Either shoot manually or use exposure compensation to bracket the shots so that you get a series of exposures to work with."

I totally agree with the above. Believe it or not, the problem with most night shots of buildings is overexposure of the lights, not underexposure. That is because, as Manfred, points out ""Your camera's built in light meter will assume normal illumination..." and will expose to give a "normal" exposure of the black areas and therefore over expose the lights...

One way to ensure that you can get a decently exposed image in every series is to use auto exposure bracketing of three stops at one stop intervals. Combine this with a minus one stop exposure compensation. This will result in one exposure as the meter reads, one exposure at -1 stop and one exposure at -2 stops. One of these frames should be right in the ballpark.

I also often use longer focal lengths when shooting across water of city skylines. That way there is less black water and sky and more building in your frame.

I prefer to shoot with a tripod and will mostly shoot using programmed exposure control. That way I can modify the shutter speed and f/stop to get what I want in an image.

This image was shot using 75mm on a 1.6x crop camera. ISO 320 at 1.3 seconds @ f/5.6


I wanted a longer exposure so I used the programmed exposure to shoot at f/14, giving me a 30 second exposure. The longer exposure smoothed out the water and also produced star patterns in point source lights.


BTW: I would never shoot at night without having a small flashlight handy. It helps with some camera adjustments as well as helps you not to break your leg on rough ground...

[arith]

I cheat; mostly shoot in the evening and then adjust in Photoshop. You will get a lower dynamic range in the evening making it easier to get a good shot.

[scouse007]

Hi
Thanks to all, lot to digest for me as a novice BUT I am taking time out to give it a good go, Hoping to try shots from across the Mersey to take in the Liverpool Landmark ie... The Albert Docks and the Liver Buildings, I do have a tripod and remote via my mobile...looking forward to having a go taking on board your comments I know they are a guide....fingers crossed !

[Manfred M]

Shooting across the river is a bit different than the traditional "night shots of buildings", as this is really urban landscape photography.

It does simplify some of the issues that you were given in some of the previous posts. You can avoid distortion by setting up your camera to be level, so this will not be an issue. The tradeoff will to some extent be that there will be a lot more sky in your shot, and this dark sky will be a potential source of digital noise, which tends to be prevalent. A properly exposed image will minimize this, but I find I do have to do a bit of spot cleaning with an editing tool with these types of shots. Lower ISO settings will tend to minimize this issue.

You will also find that a longer focal length lens might be more appropriate. This will of course depend on where you are setting up to shoot. You will also find that when shooting across water, that it will become a compositional element in the shot and you will need to take care to compose well.

This type of scene will definitely be a bit problematic from an exposure standpoint and the camera will generally overexpose this type of shot, so either manual exposure or exposure compensation with a good deal of bracketing will be required here, especially if you are not all that familiar with how your camera deals with this type of shot.

You might want to plan several outings and post your shots here on this site for comments. Some of the more experienced photographers on this site will most certainly help you along.

[scouse007]

Shooting across the river is a bit different than the traditional "night shots of buildings", as this is really urban landscape photography.

It does simplify some of the issues that you were given in some of the previous posts. You can avoid distortion by setting up your camera to be level, so this will not be an issue. The tradeoff will to some extent be that there will be a lot more sky in your shot, and this dark sky will be a potential source of digital noise, which tends to be prevalent. A properly exposed image will minimize this, but I find I do have to do a bit of spot cleaning with an editing tool with these types of shots. Lower ISO settings will tend to minimize this issue.

You will also find that a longer focal length lens might be more appropriate. This will of course depend on where you are setting up to shoot. You will also find that when shooting across water, that it will become a compositional element in the shot and you will need to take care to compose well.

This type of scene will definitely be a bit problematic from an exposure standpoint and the camera will generally overexpose this type of shot, so either manual exposure or exposure compensation with a good deal of bracketing will be required here, especially if you are not all that familiar with how your camera deals with this type of shot.

You might want to plan several outings and post your shots here on this site for comments. Some of the more experienced photographers on this site will most certainly help you along.

[scouse007]

I am going to read up on bracketing, have took on board what you have mentioned, Photography is still trial and error to me, there is never enough time each time I go to Liverpool as there is so much to take in and on top of this my family whom I visit on most occasions when I visit Liverpool are learning of my trip...haha This is a break for time with my partner and photography, my partner is into photography too...so we are going to make the most of what we can do as we only have three nights...Thank you for this help, I am trying out both a Tamron 200 mm lens and a canon 300 mm lens which would you favor...The spot I know of for the over the Mersey shots is almost next to the Mersey Tunnel in Birkenhead...