Last Updated on 09/20/2017 by Anthony Thurston
Ever wanted to get those gorgeous long exposure shots of busy cities with light streaking along the streets? It’s one of the classic highway and cityscape shots every photographer does now and then because it conveys a lot of energy and activity in just one frame. If you can think of a nice vantage point where you can capture this beautiful city scene, you’re already halfway there. The other half comes in this video tutorial from Serge Ramelli.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwiwKSUTKFs
French photographer Serge Ramelli wanted to shoot some nice city snaps around downtown Los Angeles, but didn’t get the dramatic sunset shot he originally wanted. The next best thing? Wait for nightfall and head to a nice vantage point to shoot the quintessential long exposure of cities scene at night.
Of course, you’ll need a tripod and maybe a slightly wide angle lens if you’re shooting a wide highway and want to capture as much of the surrounding elements in your shots. While you’re shooting at night, you also want to get a crisp image that has minimal noise, so Serge set his camera at the lowest ISO possible (ISO 50 in this case) and turned on the noise reduction in camera. Also, to make sure his foreground (the highway) and the background (the buildings behind it) are sharp, he set his aperture at f/10. Finally, setting the shutter speed to 10 seconds produced a well-exposed shot with a trail of light blazing across the highway.
As a bonus, Serge threw in a Lightroom tutorial for touching up the shot, and for creating a panorama photo by merging two of his long exposure shots with a little help from Photoshop. Now, those are some neat tricks to try for your next night photography around your city!
Want more tips from Serge Ramelli? Make sure you follow his YouTube channel for more free tutorials.
Screenshot image from the video by Serge Ramelli