THE SOLUTION

The first thing you might need to change is what time of day you’re shooting. Landscapes and cityscapes generally display more abundant color at dawn or dusk—not during the full light of day or the darkness of night. They also tend to exhibit the best natural contrast during these times. And contrary to a popular misconception, getting your exposures right in the narrow window of “magic light” at dawn and dusk is not hard at all!

In all my years of photographing at dawn and dusk, I’ve found there’s no better—or more consistent—approach than taking meter readings off the sky. This holds true whether I’m shooting backlight, frontlight, sidelight, sunrise, or sunset. If I want a great storytelling depth of field, I set the lens (a wide-angle lens for storytelling) to f/16 or f/22, raise my camera to the sky above the scene, adjust the shutter speed for a correct exposure, recompose with my ideal composition in view, and press the shutter release. And if depth of field is not a concern, I set the aperture to f/8 or f/11 and again take a meter reading off of the sky, recompose, and shoot. When shooting city scenes at dusk or dawn, I rarely even take a meter reading anymore since most city scenes have proven to require the same exposure (when using ISO 200): f/8 for 1 second, f/11 for 2 seconds, f/16 for 4 seconds, or f/22 for 8 seconds.

Of course, for all of these longer exposures I use a tripod. This is essential. Often, I’ll also employ a cable release or set the camera’s automatic timer, just to make sure I’m not shaking the camera during an exposure that goes on for several seconds. I prefer the self-timer for longer exposures so that I avoid any contact with the camera. Note that your camera’s default for the self-timer is usually a 10-second delay. I strongly recommend changing this to a 2-second delay for this type of photograph. Waiting 10 seconds between shots can mean missing the perfect shot entirely.