Complete guide to winter night scene photography

Introduction: What are the techniques for shooting night scenes? What should you pay attention to when shooting night scenes in winter? Let’s take a look at the complete guide to shooting night scenes in winter.

Preparation for shooting city night scenes

Generally speaking, I will carry 8-15mm, 14mm, 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses to obtain different perspectives. In addition, you should also bring a large tripod with excellent stability, a shutter cable that can lock the shutter, spare batteries, lighting equipment, filters, black cardboard, and cold-proof clothing. The stability of the tripod is very important, especially on the rooftop where the wind force is much stronger than on the ground. Small tripods are more likely to shake when taking long exposures. In addition, night scene photography consumes a lot of power, especially real-time view, so you need to prepare enough batteries.

It is essential to visit the location in advance

If you want to express a grand scene, the best way is to choose a bird's-eye view from a commanding height. Such a perspective is conducive to expressing the space and hierarchy of the building as well as the relationship between the building and the environment. In order to find the best shooting position, be sure to thoroughly inspect the shooting location in advance. First of all, you need to understand the location and surrounding environment of the shooting location; secondly, you need to climb to a nearby commanding height to observe the view and find the most suitable shooting angle; finally, wait for good weather and arrive at the shooting location in advance to prepare for shooting.

The two photos also took the Xizhimen Overpass, but due to the angle, the two photos are different, so it is essential to check the spots beforehand.

The shooting time is very short

Night photography does not mean waiting until dark before shooting. Taking Beijing in winter as an example, the brightness of the sky during the period from 17:20 to 17:40 is different from the Color is the best for photography. In addition, the level of the sky should also be considered. When there are clouds, it is more suitable to express the sky after sunset than when there are no clouds. So when the weather is nice, it can be said that 50% of the shooting has been completed. It is recommended to shoot after rain or snow, because the air quality in big cities is not good, and the air quality will be much worse the next day. In addition to paying attention to the weather, you should also pay attention to whether the PM value on the day of shooting is "excellent". You should try to choose a day with cloudy sky to shoot, so that the sky will not look monotonous.

Adjust camera parameters and settings

It is recommended to use manual exposure mode + spot metering mode when shooting. The light in night scenes is complex, and automatic metering may be inaccurate. At this time, you can use spot metering to meter the darkest and brightest areas in the picture respectively, then use the middle value to expose, and then fine-tune the exposure according to the playback picture.

To achieve a warmer tone in the picture, you can set the white balance to daylight mode; when set to incandescent mode, the original colors of the night scene can be reproduced more realistically. When there is no special color orientation for the picture, it is recommended to use the automatic white balance mode and shoot RAW format files.

A small aperture can make the picture clear and sharp, and narrowing the aperture can achieve a "starburst" effect. However, if the aperture is too small, the image quality will be degraded due to light diffraction, so it is better to control the aperture between F8 and F16. Generally speaking, the lower the sensitivity, the finer the image quality, so it is recommended to set the sensitivity to ISO100. If the camera's sensitivity can be set to ISO50, you can also get a slower shutter speed.

On the rooftop of Beijing’s second-highest wealth center, you can overlook the whole of Beijing and wait for the moment when night falls. I used a grayscale gradient filter to darken the brightness of the sky, ensuring that I pressed the shutter when there was still glow in the sky.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 16-35mm F2.8L USM / F8 11 seconds ISO100 white balance: automatically use tripod, grayscale gradient filter

How to obtain accurate exposure

When shooting after sunset when the street lights are on, the brightness of the picture is too high. If you want to capture the effect of a train track, you need to use an ND filter to achieve a long exposure. At this time, the sky will be brighter than the ground, so you should use a grayscale gradient mirror to balance the brightness of the picture, or use black cardboard for blocking.

Under normal circumstances, a combination of a grayscale gradient lens + an ND lens can be used for shooting. The function of the grayscale gradient mirror is to darken the brightness of the sky, while the ND mirror increases the exposure of the ground (due to the increase in exposure time, the trajectory of the car lights will increase the brightness of the ground to balance the brightness of the ground and sky). The grayscale gradient mirror should be replaced at any time according to the gradual darkening of the sky brightness. If you do not use a grayscale gradient mirror, you can also use the "shake black card" method to block. The operation method is: use black cardboard in front of the lens (sky part) at the same frequency, leave it, and block it again until the exposure is completed. This method has no certain rules and relies entirely on experience. The frequency and blocking duration of the "shake the black card" are adjusted according to the brightness of the sky.

This picture deliberately looks for a composition in which the road extends. Because of the perspective, the overpass in the near area is very wide, while the one in the distance appears very narrow, creating a strong depth effect.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 16-35mm F2.8L USM / F13 25 seconds ISO100 white balance: automatically use tripod, grayscale gradient filter, ND filter

This is in use The picture captured after shooting at the telephoto end of a telephoto lens. Through the special composition, the sense of repetition of elements in the picture is strengthened, and the reflective glass texture on the surface also expresses its texture.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 24-70mm F2.8L USM / F8 10 seconds ISO100 white balance: automatically use tripod

Proper use of lens language

Shooting When dealing with urban themes, you can choose the most appropriate composition according to the focal length of the lens. A wide-angle lens can fully present the building in the field of view in the picture, which is suitable for showing the sense of space and depth of the building. At this time, you can choose the rule of thirds to compose the picture. Depending on the feeling you want to express, either the sky area will be larger or the ground area will be larger. When using a medium focal length lens, the composition should make full use of the formal beauty of lines to enhance the depth of the picture, thereby improving the appeal of the picture. The telephoto lens is more used to express the sense of compression, and can express the curves and shapes of the building by intercepting parts of the building.

By chance, I found this angle in front of a window that was being renovated on the 19th floor, and shot it using a Lensbaby Composer tilt-shift lens. This lens requires manual focus. In order to freeze the moving car, I focused on the intersection of the viaduct and increased the sensitivity to shoot.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / Lensbaby Composer 50mm F2 / F2 1/40 sec ISO3200 White Balance: Automatically use tripod

Preparation for night street photography

Due to Street scenes change rapidly, so a SLR camera with a short shutter lag is the first choice, while a rangefinder camera with a compact size and low shutter sound is also an ideal choice. Another key point for street sweeping at night is high sensitivity and image quality. In extremely dark environments, it is very important to use a camera with high sensitivity and excellent image quality.

When sweeping the streets, it is recommended to use a lens with a focal length of 28mm~50mm. This focal length is more three-dimensional and more suitable for most people’s perspective, making the photos taken with a sense of reality and space. Finally, if you want to show the flow of people coming and going, you can use a monopod for support. Compared with a tripod, a monopod is more portable and easier to use in crowded places. And because the exposure time is not as long as shooting city night scenes, a monopod can fully cope with it.

Use a tilt-shift lens to create a stunning scene. If you cannot avoid a noisy environment with people, you can tilt the focal plane to blur out other elements in the picture. Use a tilt-shift lens to center the most attractive person in the frame, and then use the tilt-shift lens to blur other areas.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / TS-E 24mm F3.5L Ⅱ / F3.5 1/60 sec ISO3200 White Balance: Auto

Adjust camera parameters and settings

< p> If you are using a large aperture lens such as F1.2 or F1.8, you can try to keep the sensitivity at ISO800~ISO1600, so that there will be relatively less noise in the picture! Of course, the latest digital cameras have Very strong noise suppression performance, you can use a higher sensitivity to increase the shutter speed, but for the sake of safety, the sensitivity should be as low as possible.

Some cameras can set an upper limit for their automatic sensitivity. This feature is very suitable for night scene street photography. Set the sensitivity to automatic, then set the upper limit to ISO3200, and finally change the exposure mode to shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed to about 1/60 second. The orange light in the street market looks particularly warm. Under this color temperature, it is very suitable for shooting works full of emotions. In order to express such a tone, the color temperature can be set at 4800K~5000K.

In front of a store, there is plenty of indoor light but very dark outdoor light, making it easy to create a silhouette effect. At this time, a couple appeared in the picture, so I adjusted the exposure and shot a silhouette work. For street sweeping photography, it is very important to increase the shutter speed to avoid blurry shots and missing wonderful moments.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 35mm F1.4L USM / F1.4 1/2500 sec ISO2000 White Balance: Auto

How to shoot with live light

Winter nights in Beijing are very suitable for photography. Although light pollution is rampant now, and there are almost no stars in the night sky, for street photographers, this kind of light is great, especially suitable for street snapshots.

Because the contrast of street scenes at night is very strong, you should try to meter the brightest area when metering, and then increase the exposure by 1 to 2 stops. It is still recommended to shoot in manual exposure mode here, as this allows you to carefully handle the exposure of specific areas and prevents the in-camera light meter from being affected by accidental factors such as car lights.

When shooting street photography, you should try to make full use of the ambient light. If you want to increase the exposure, the quickest and most convenient way is to increase the sensitivity. Although increasing the sensitivity will increase the noise in the picture, it still has advantages over using flash. Using flash will affect the subject and make the lighting effect unnatural.

Find an empty intersection and wait for the street lights to turn on. When the time and brightness are right, wait for the pedestrians on the road to come to the center of the screen and take the shot. To get the starlight effect, add a starlight mirror when shooting.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 16-35mm F2.8L USM / F2.8 1/30 sec ISO800 White Balance: Automatically use starlight mirror

Try to take interesting pictures< /p>

When sweeping the streets, strangers are often photographed. This seems to be a psychological barrier for photographers, so they often press the shutter hastily to capture the shocked and surprised expressions of the subjects. When sweeping the streets, communication is the most important. In some interesting scenes, or when you need to shoot strangers at close range, one or two simple greetings and a friendly smile can often shorten the psychological distance with the subject.

When shooting, you can also pay more attention to some elements that are easily overlooked, such as the shadow under the light, the silhouette in front of the window, the combination of movement and stillness, explosion effects, and even use a tilt-shift lens to shoot.

Changing the focal length under long exposure can create interesting image effects. The operation method is very simple. First meter and compose the subject. If there is a tripod fixed, it is recommended to set the exposure time to about 1 second. After pressing the shutter button, turn the lens focus ring to zoom. You can choose to change from the telephoto end to the wide-angle end, or from the wide-angle end to the telephoto end, and the effects will be different.

Canon EOS 5D MarkⅡ / EF 24-70mm F2.8L USM / F22 6 seconds ISO100 white balance: automatic using a tripod