The glass is the enemy — everything else is manageable
Photographing Tokyo Skytree, inside and out
Most disappointing Skytree photographs fail for one reason: reflections in the observation glass. This guide covers how to beat that, what settings actually work at night, and where to stand outside for the shots you cannot take from inside.
Book your Skytree entry ↗The rules
Photography for personal use is permitted throughout both observation levels. Tripods and monopods are not, and in a gallery that busy it would be impractical anyway. Flash is technically permitted but completely useless through glass and actively harmful to your own picture, so turn it off before you go up.
Beating the reflections
This is the whole game. Put the front of the lens physically against the glass — not near it, on it. That removes almost every internal reflection at a stroke. If your lens has a rubber hood, use it as a gasket. If you are shooting on a phone, cup your free hand around the lens against the glass to make a seal. Wearing dark clothing helps more than it sounds, because you are the brightest thing being reflected.
Night settings
The city is far brighter than it looks and the failure mode is blur, not darkness. Brace the camera or phone against the glass, which doubles as your tripod. Keep the shutter as short as you can get away with, raise the ISO rather than dropping the shutter speed, and take several frames of anything you care about — one of them will be sharp.
The blue hour
The best twenty minutes for photography are not at sunset but shortly after it, when the sky still holds deep blue and the city lights are fully on. Before that the lights are lost in daylight; after it the sky goes black and the photograph loses its depth. If you are booking a slot for photography, aim to be on the deck about half an hour before sunset and stay through it.
What to shoot from the deck
Resist the urge to photograph everything wide. The best pictures from up here tend to be tight: a single expressway curving through the grid, the Sumida catching the last light, Tokyo Tower as a small orange detail. Wide shots of an endless grey city rarely survive the trip home.
The glass floor
Shoot straight down with the lens on the glass and your feet just in frame — that is the picture that reads. It is dim down there and the surface is scratched by millions of shoes, so expect softness and lean into it rather than fighting it.
Photographing the tower itself
You cannot do this from inside it, and the tower is far more photogenic than most of what you can see from it. The best-known spot is the Jikken Bridge on the Kita-Jikken River, a few minutes' walk from the base, where on still days the whole tower reflects in the water. The Sumida riverbank and the bridges over to Asakusa give you the tower with the old quarter in front of it.
Getting the whole tower in frame
It is 634 metres tall and you will be standing close, so a wide lens and a good deal of distance are both necessary. The classic solution is to cross the river and shoot from the Asakusa side, which gives you enough separation to fit the tower in and something interesting in the foreground at the same time.
Shooting the night lighting
The two main lighting designs are quite different photographically. Iki lights the central shaft in blue and leaves the frame dark, which reads as a slim pale column and works best against a still-blue sky. Miyabi lights the outer steel in purple and gold, which reads as structure and works well against full black. If you are planning a night shot from outside, it is worth checking which design is scheduled for that evening.