[wehavenowaves!]

hey guess i am taking a trip to tokyo next week. i want to take some nice city shots. hopefully from within the city and perhaps some shots looking down or out across the city. i dont know. i havent been there to see the kind of views i can find. but i bought a tripod in hopes of getting some neon lights at night. never really messed with night photography before (i had no tripod!). anyway, just some general tips or things to keep in mind for shooting in a city would be awesome! cheers!!!

[Ash]

Best advice anyone can give you is to practice. Practice shooting whatever buildings you have around you now. Daytime and night time. Get used to the settings you'll need to get the best results you can under each of the circumstances. Learn the exposure triad well. Get used to how your tripod works and be sure to switch off shake reduction if you have the camera on the tripod.

And get some inspiration from good work around on the genre, like here:
52 Great Examples Of Urban Photography | Design your way

[RioRico]

And a trick: Take an old B&W #8 Yellow filter and use it to shoot glaring neon colors at night.

Yes, the tripod is your friend. Depending on the weight of the tripod, and of your camera+lens setup, and the winds that blow through some urban corridors, you also might want to have means to secure and steady it. One of my 'pods has a hook under its riser, from which I'll hang my camera bag, to give the tripod assembly more weight. Sometimes I'll have a 'pod's feet dug-into a surface with traction, and I'll wrap a bungee cord around the legs to give them lateral support. I tripod isn't much use unless it's steady. Have fun!

[twitch]

Here's my 2c on cityscapes.

Get onto flickr and lok for tokyo night shots for ideas on where to go

Tripod is essential for night time shooting.

I usually shoot cityscapes in Av mode unless Im doing pano's in which case I use manual mode (to keep multiple exposures consistant)

I use ISO200

No filters

I use high f stops, usually f11+

I'm evenly split between manual and auto focusing. If you have an interesting foreground then know some basics about using hyperfocal distances for manual focusing. If that's all too hard auto focus on something 1/3 of the way into the scene.

Use either 2s timer, cable release or IR remote.

Consider shooting 3 shot brackets (of 1 1/2 to 2 stops apart) for HDRs (even if you don't know how to process them yet, at least capture the photos now)

Consider shooting panorama's (agian, even if you don't know how to process them yet). If you do shoot them with the camera in the vertical position and overlap a LOT. An L-plate would be handy for avoiding parallax errors but not essential.

Shoot lots.

Take your time, don't rush, look around you for best composition.

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Last edited by twitch; 01-23-2011 at 08:00 PM.

[SpecialK]

A lens wider than 18mm.

[clockwork247]

wide angle, prefer AF, point and spray.