City scape photos...

[EllaElla]

Was wondering which lens is most popular to shoot on a city tour. While visiting Rome, I brought my 55-200. I took plenty of great photos, but I think my focal length caused me to miss more shots. The city is so crowded, and the views are spectacular. It was very difficult to get good city scape shots. The greater zoom came in handy, but I do regret not taking a shorter lens. Going again tomorrow. .The only other lenses I have are the 18-55, and a 50mm. I think I'll invest in the 18-200 in a few weeks when I get home. Anyhow, just looking for some of your advice.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

18-200 would be a fabulous casual, walk-around, tourist lens. If you want to do serious work, you'll need to look into better quality glass.

One way to make busy crowds "disappear" is the use of a 10 stop filter. These filters were originally designed for architectual shots. If the exposure is long enough, and people are moving in and out of your frame during the exposure, they will not appear in the final image. If a person is stationary in the frame, they will show up.

 

[batmura]

One way to make busy crowds "disappear" is the use of a 10 stop filter. These filters were originally designed for architectual shots. If the exposure is long enough, and people are moving in and out of your frame during the exposure, they will not appear in the final image. If a person is stationary in the frame, they will show up.

Is this how people shoot pictures of huge squares which are normally super crowded? They look empty so I always thought they were shot very early yet still couldn't understand how not a single person was in the frame. I didn't know one could use ND filters for such shots? Would an 8-stop (2 4-stop) filter do the same job?

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

One way to make busy crowds "disappear" is the use of a 10 stop filter. These filters were originally designed for architectual shots. If the exposure is long enough, and people are moving in and out of your frame during the exposure, they will not appear in the final image. If a person is stationary in the frame, they will show up.

Is this how people shoot pictures of huge squares which are normally super crowded? They look empty so I always thought they were shot very early yet still couldn't understand how not a single person was in the frame. I didn't know one could use ND filters for such shots? Would an 8-stop (2 4-stop) filter do the same job?

Sure. The more stoppage, the better (although vignetting becomes more of an issue with stacked filters). For the few stray people that end up stationary in the image, the clone tool can work wonders.

 

[Buckster]

One way to make busy crowds "disappear" is the use of a 10 stop filter. These filters were originally designed for architectual shots. If the exposure is long enough, and people are moving in and out of your frame during the exposure, they will not appear in the final image. If a person is stationary in the frame, they will show up.

Is this how people shoot pictures of huge squares which are normally super crowded? They look empty so I always thought they were shot very early yet still couldn't understand how not a single person was in the frame. I didn't know one could use ND filters for such shots? Would an 8-stop (2 4-stop) filter do the same job?

Don't forget the tripod you need for the long exposures. If you do this, you can also work with multiple shots to get the whole scene, then auto-stitch them together in post with software like Photoshop. Just be sure to lock down the ISO, shutter speed and aperture so they're the same lighting and DOF for each shot, and overlap your frames well, so the software can better figure out where and how to join them up.

Meanwhile, use the 18-55 to get wider shots of cityscapes that won't fit into the frame of the 55-200.

Which body are you using? I like the 10-22 best for very wide shots of cityscapes and so on when using my crop sensor 7D or 40D. For my 5DMKII, the full frame equivalent would be the 16-35mm, which I haven't gotten yet.

 

[EllaElla]

Thanks for the advice! I'm shooting with a D3100. I bought it just before my deployment just for these port visits. But I think I've already grown out of it. And yes, I know the 55-200 isn't the best quality lens. I was really new to photography a few months ago when I bought everything. Still am very new to it. Anyhow, I do appreciate the help. I'll post some shots in a couple weeks when i get home. Don't have enough bandwidth to post photos from the ship.

 

[TCampbell]

Using a long lens to photograph a city is a bit like going on a tour and looking through a drinking straw and wondering why you don't see very much. You're limiting your view.

A "standard zoom" or just a mildly wide-angle lens will capture considerably more. If you find yourself looking around to "take in a scene" (visually) then it's a good bet that you'll want a wide angle lens. Just be aware that wide-angles also make things appear to be farther away, so you don't want to go crazy with the wide-angle length.

As the for 10-stop ND. That works for objects which are MOVING. Suppose I'm shooting at f/16 & 1/125th. A 10-stop would let me cut the shutter time to:
1/60 -> 1/30 -> 1/15 -> 1/8 -> 1/4 -> 1/2 -> 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 seconds.

So I'm getting an 8 second exposure out of a shot that would have happened in 1/125th. As long as the unwanted subjects are constantly moving then they'll disappear. But if there's someone who is standing mostly in one spot for those 8 seconds... they are going to show up in your image. The 10-stop filter works better for places where an occasional person or car might pass through the frame. But if it's crowded or if the people and cars are staying put more than a second or two, the unwanted subjects are going show up in the shot.

If you took the f-stop up to 22 (one stop up) then you could take the shutter one more stop down (to 15 full seconds). If you take the aperture to f/32 (if your lens can even do f/32) then you can take the shutter down again to a full 30 seconds! BUT... bear in mind that very high focal ratios such as f/32 are definitely "diffraction limited" (the resolving power of the lens is substantially reduced... even good glass will not be able to create a "tack sharp" image under scrutiny. You'll may not notice this on small image sizes, but if you decide to make a big print, you'll notice that it's not the best quality work your lens can do.)

 

[EllaElla]

Thank you Tim! Another item on my list to buy is a tripod. Thank you fro the advice!