Find the professional techniques for looking up city skyscrapers photography trends. Read this detailed guide to make your cityscape photos stand out by using these techniques and recommended camera lenses.
What is Skyscraper Photography?
Folks involved in this niche of architecture photography capture giant structures, mostly buildings, and attempt to capture the dramatic presence of skyscrapers. Photographers are always keen to capture tall, multi-story buildings with dramatic angles that showcase their height, and they do so in several photography styles, including looking-up shots (explained below), wide cinematic cityscapes, detail shots, and skyline photography, among others.
What is Looking up City Skyscrapers Photography?
It is one of the niches of skyscraper photography, which involves taking photos from the ground while looking upward at tall buildings in a city. Capturing the building from the bottom draws attention to the structural height (and exaggerates it), symmetry, and details. Photographers use these techniques, especially in cities with dense clusters of skyscrapers, where such buildings naturally introduce an interplay of light reflections and shadows in the frame.
Mastering Look Up City Skyscraper Photos
1. Look for the Perfect Vantage Point
The first thing you need to do is find a good vantage point, which requires some time. Such a point won’t be a casual place where everyone can stand and snap a beautiful picture of a skyscraper. You will have to look for locations that offer a clear view of the buildings and their surroundings, such as plazas, parks, and streets with minimal obstructions.
2. Go as Wide as You Can
Professionals use a midrange or even a telephoto lens to capture skyscrapers, aiming to capture as much of the frame as possible, as these structures are huge and require more width to be captured effectively. A mid-telephoto or true telephoto wide-angle lens will allow you to have larger foreground and smaller background elements, which can fit much more into a frame.
3. Low Angle Composition
This is the core of looking up city skyscrapers photography as it requires you to get close to the building or any large structure’s base and point your camera upward. This, when combined with a wide angle, exaggerates the height of the subject, giving skyscrapers a monumental feel.
4. Use Manual Focus
Since you are often at the base of such shots, this will block the sunlight from reaching your camera. This can cause your camera and lens to struggle to focus on the subject. Switching to manual focus gives you control over your focus and is very helpful while taking images of skyscrapers.
5. Embrace Converging Lines
Using wide lenses and capturing such tall structures from their bases accentuates the vertical lines of buildings, resulting in optical convergence. This is something you need to address during your regular post-editing routines.
6. Tune your Camera Settings
Keep your camera shutter speed at 1/125s or faster to avoid motion blur when handheld (a tripod is recommended for long exposure shots). To capture crisp, dynamic urban images, keep the ISO low, between 100 and 400, and set the white balance according to your daytime conditions.
Best Camera Lens for Skyscraper Shots
The choice of camera gear is crucial for capturing high-quality skyscraper photos, as the camera lens plays a significant role. For professional-looking city photos, look no further than the SIRUI Saturn 35/50/75mm Full-Frame Carbon Fiber Anamorphic Lens, thanks to its premium optics, wide-angle framing, and top-tier low-light performance.
The lens lineup is built with optics that render 1.6x anamorphic squeeze in the frame. This enables a wide cinematic aspect ratio for each skyscraper photo, making it perfect for dramatic cityscapes, especially at night, thanks to its T2.9 aperture. Weighing under 500 grams, each lens in this kit is designed with a premium outer shell and is extremely suitable for handheld shooting or gimbal use, minimizing fatigue.
Wrapping Up:
The niche of looking up city skyscrapers photography exaggerates the height and overall size of skyscrapers, requiring specialized gear and a camera lens that can capture such massive structures with high sharpness even in low light. Photographers can capture such shots in professional-grade image clarity with the SIRUI Saturn lens kit, which features premium optics and a lightweight build, making it perfect for handheld shooting of majestic skyscrapers.
