I attended Vivid for the first time this year (2024) and found it hard to find a lot of information on where and how to get good photos of the event. These tips for photographing Vivid Sydney are based on this first visit over five days with a friend acting as my local guide. I hope they are helpful but please let me know of other guides or blogs and I will link them at the end.
The Vivid website is always a good place to start, and it does have a few tips.
Tips for getting good photos.
It is certainly a challenge as you ideally want narrow f stops and fast shutter speeds which in the dark is a quite the challenge – thank goodness for ISO on modern cameras. Why do we need this. A narrow f-stop (11-14) will give you nice sharp lights and even higher f-stops will give some sun star effects.
Fast shutter speeds will capture scenes where the lights that are changing regularly like on buildings like the opera house. Don’t worry some great long exposures are very possible too. Most lights work through a story or pattern so if you watch you can see which parts change fast or more slowly.
I have added the place the photo was taken and the settings I used on the photo if you hover over them. You will see a real variety as I tried to prioritise different aspects.
Strobe lights can also be a challenge as can the changing pictures and lights bringing more or less light to the scene. It’s a bit of a game of playing around to get the shot you want.
If you are using a smartphone try the night settings and also remember to touch the screen where you want to capture the exposure or focus and you can generally slide the exposure up and down to get the lights nice and sharp. If you have a pro mode setting some of these tips below might also be helpful and will allow you to shoot in raw for more options for editing later on.
A few tips
Some tips might be obvious, but hopefully there is something in here that is helpful
- Shoot in raw if you can for more editing options
- Bring a tripod but don’t use it for all shots
- Try out your camera before the event to see how slow you can hand hold
- Arrive at your spot early, there are likely to be less crowds and its fully dark by 6 when it starts.
- If hand holding keep elbows close to the body and breath in and out then hold as you hit the shutter button.
- If your camera has steady shot make sure you have it on and off at the right time. It’s so easy to forget this if you are changing from tripod to handheld.
- If you are on a boat remember to have shutter speed a little higher – though I got shots I liked from a boat at 1/15th of a second.
- Don’t be too scared to get the ISO up high, see what your camera can handle. Don’t underexpose too much when using high ISO’s, it can be tempting to scrimp but it will just make the photos grainer
- Getting exposure right is not easy so try a few things to see what works for you.
- The blacks are likely to always be to the left of the histogram when you have a lot of sky or sea but keep an eye on it and try to leave a bit of room
- Metering on the bright lights might provide better balance
- Watch out when strobes or bright scenes come up you need to change settings fast
- Crowds are hard to avoid but you can include them in the shot to provide interest and tell a story. Maybe have a stationary point or person and get others moving around it with a slow shutter or silhouette them.
Where to shoot Vivid
Photography locations
There are many places to take great photos both around circular quay and at various bays. I have included the ones I found with my local guide but there will others.
Circular Quay
This is the classic spot to get the shots. On one side looking at the Opera house and the other looking directly at the Sydney Harbour bridge and the city skyline. There are generally a lot of people so the tip of arriving early is important. Its fully dark when it all starts at 6pm and if you are on the Opera House side you can get the sunset under the bridge first. Quite a few buildings are lit up around here so have a good walk around and see what vantage points you can find. Its pretty easy to use a tripod when you are near the edges in these spots.
Standing on the Opera House side
Standing on the bridge side
Behind Circular Quay
Sydney Harbour bridge
Walking across the bridge you get some great vantage points looking down on the action. You can walk up from Milsons Point on the Northern side or stairs in Cumberland Street, The Rocks on the Southern side. You can only walk on the side of the bridge looking toward the Opera House. The bridge moves and shakes (just a little don’t panic) but it means putting down your camera on a pillar or tripods will give you a shaky shot. As long as you have a good hold on your camera there are lots of places to take a photo.
Milson Point
This became one of my favourite spots. It’s a quick ferry ride from Circular Quay. From here you can get a few shots from the ferry and then the opera house looking back through the bridge. Its also close to the Luna Park which can also be lit up. While I was there the bridge was misbehaving so some parts were not lighting up on the west side but hopefully that was just a hiccup. There was hardly anyone here, so no jostling required.
Lavender Bay
If you keep walking past Luna Park you will come to Lavender Bay where you get another good look back towards the bridge. If you walk up the steps here there is a nice view looking down towards the lights and the city. There is a tree in the way but it is silhouetted. It a short walk back to catch a ferry to the next spot. Also a very quiet spot.
Bradfield Park
This is walking the other way from Milsons Point going under the bridge. You can’t easily get the whole bridge in but you get a different view across to the Opera house. I also took a couple back on the grass with the palm trees in the shot.
Blues Point reserve
You need a vehicle to get here but each time I went there were only a few people. It gives you a great view back through the bridge with the opera house tucked in a corner. Worth walking around to try a few vantage points. One of the nights we were there the full moon was coming up over the bridge.
Kiribilli Lookout / Mary Booth Reserve
A bit trickier to get around here but a great view back across the bridge and the to the Opera house and the city lights. If you can get down near the water there are some very solid spots for a tripod for longer exposure.
Balls Head reserve
This is another reserve quite far away and with no one at it. It’s a long view of the lights but with sail boats in the front making a great foreground.
Darling Harbour
I cannot give you much advice on this spot as I didn’t make it here for many photos but there are light shows and more buildings lit up with stories. The Vivid site is always going to be best for the actual events on.
Get some height.
I didn’t manage to find any high vantage points this time but if you are staying near Circular Quay in the right hotel this might work for you, or maybe a nice restaurant or cocktail bar. I will add to this if I find one.
Getting around
As noted above some of these will need a car or an uber but Sydney is very easy to get around on bus, train and ferry. Get yourself an Opal card and just enjoy it all. You can get some awesome shots from the ferries that travel around the harbour. These shots were all taken hand held on the ferries.
You don’t really need to do a Vivid cruise just use the public ferries.
Some other blogs and tips I have come across that might be helpful are from Canon, Teds Cameras as well as the tips from Vivid at the top of this blog. You will note they nearly all have full reflections of Vivid, Sydney being a harbour this is likely to be very rare so don’t be disappointed if you don’t get that. A good puddle could do just as well.