Shoot townscapes while travelling

[Peter_S.]

Townscapes are popular subjects for travel photography, offering scenes and objects not found in your everyday life. Here are some tips and techniques to help you capture the atmosphere.

Camera settings 

First, set the camera to the “A” mode so that you can adjust the aperture, and shoot with a smaller aperture (around F8 if you are shooting in the daytime).

Composition and cropping

To capture the atmosphere of the town, think about the composition first. Shooting casually while travelling, we often use wide-angle (with shorter focal lengths), trying to include as many objects as possible in the frame. However, depending on the scene, shooting with zoom (with longer focal lengths) can be a better way to convey the atmosphere. Here are some examples.



These photographs were shot at 16 mm, using a normal zoom lens without zooming in at all.

The building is emphasised in photograph [1]. However, since one building occupies most of the area in the frame, the photograph doesn’t properly convey the full atmosphere of the place. As in this example, if you shoot with your lens at the widest angle (not zoomed in), objects in the foreground appear large, while objects in the background appear smaller than you actually see them. This composition is fine if you want to highlight one building and make it look powerful. However, if you want to capture the entire atmosphere of the town and streets, try another approach.

In photograph [2], also shot without zooming in, most of the area is occupied by the building and ground. However, thanks to the "radial composition," with the end of the street in the centre of the frame, it has more depth compared with photograph [1]. If you are taking dynamic wide-angle photographs like these, take account of the direction and the angles of the streets when shooting.

Now, let's see how the impression changes if you use the zoom.

Focal length: 50 mm / F-number: 8.0 / Shutter speed: 1/80 sec

This photograph is shot at 50 mm using a zoom lens. To bring both the foreground and the background into focus, the aperture value was set to F8. Also, to prevent the buildings from appearing tilted and giving an unstable impression, the camera was securely held in the vertical position.

Shot with the lens zoomed in, the photograph successfully captures the characteristics of the town. Unlike the photograph shot using wide-angle, the building on the near side does not occupy a large area. Also, the street fits within 1/4 of the entire frame. This type of composition gives a natural perspective to the photograph.

To achieve zoomed-in shots that also capture the vivid colour and detail of your townscape, try a lens like the SAL18250, which offers a very broad zoom range, and offsets lens flare and chromatic aberration to keep your images true to life.

Focal length: 50 mm / F-number: 6.3 / Shutter speed: 1/80 sec

This photograph was also shot at 50 mm. Even in a scene like this, where the cloudy sky could occupy a large area if shot wide-angle, the townscape is captured in a way that’s close to what the human eye sees.

Focal length: 30 mm / F-number: 7.1 / Shutter speed: 1/60 sec / ISO: 160

This technique, where part of the scene is cropped using the telephoto lens, is effective for shooting from vantage points as well as in the streets.

When looking at a townscape from a vantage point, we often try to shoot everything at once using wide-angle. However, if you crop part of the landscape out of the frame, you can take a photograph that shows the unique atmosphere of the town more effectively.

Photograph [1] was shot at 28 mm, with a normal zoom lens slightly zoomed in. From the entire town, which spreads outside of the frame, only the most impressive part is captured. In photograph [2], shot boldly at 135 mm, the entire frame is filled with houses.

With each house represented at the proper size, this is also an interesting photograph that conveys the atmosphere of the place.

Cropping a distinctive part of a picture by zooming in is an effective way to capture the feel of the townscape. Make full use of the zoom lens to try various focal lengths. A smaller, lightweight zoom lens like the SEL18200LE is a good choice for shots like these, especially if you’re hiking up to a vantage point. It also has optical SteadyShot to minimise the effect of camera shake.

Try high-magnification zoom lenses

Lenses categorised as "high-magnification zoom lenses" are convenient for travel. As a high-magnification zoom lens covers the whole range of focal lengths from wide angle to telephoto, it can take impressive shots of travel scenes in various ways. Also, as you don’t need to change the lens for each scene, you are less likely to miss shooting opportunities, and you can focus on enjoying your trip.

Focal length: 250 mm / F-number: 7.1 / Shutter speed: 1/640 sec

Focal length: 28 mm / F-number: 10 / Shutter speed: 20 sec