Five advanced shooting lighting technologies

This paper can not only make photographers understand the functions and properties of different light sources, but also understand the work content and characteristics of professional photographers from all walks of life.

First, introduce the natural lighting tool: the sun.

Sunlight is the most basic and commonly used light source for photographers. It is sometimes bright and strong, and sometimes dim and soft; Sometimes the hue is warm, sometimes it is cold; Sometimes direct light can produce a long shadow, and sometimes it is diffused by dark clouds, leaving no shadow. As the sun rises and sets, sunlight can be main light, side light, backlight and cold light (here? Glowing? Refers to a light source specially used to brighten hair. Translator's note). Sunlight looks natural (because it is natural) and it is always free.

Portrait of celebrities

Cheyenne Ellis is a professional photographer in Los Angeles who shoots portraits and advertisements of celebrities. The photo above shows that she is a famous actress, Harry? One of Berry's series of works, he only uses sunlight and reflectors to polish portraits. This series of works has been? American Weekly? 、? Bazaar of Fashion? And then what? Shape? Wait for the magazine to be published. You might think that in such a high-profile shooting project, photographer Ellis will not only shoot with a $47 camera and a reflector.

However, sunlight and reflector are photographer Ellis's favorite combination, and the works displayed on her personal website are full of natural light. ? I like the simplicity and flexibility of the reflector, and the style it brings? She said that I seldom point the mirror directly at the person being photographed because the light is too strong. On the contrary, I will put the light? Feathers? Make sure there is a beautiful reflection in the photographer's eyes. The beach in this photo is like a huge light spot, which is very helpful. ?

Simulated light distribution diagram

Cheyenne Ellis designed a clever way to use a 20-inch silver/white mirror without an assistant: she sat down, put the mirror on her lap, and adjusted the direction of the mirror with her forearm when shooting.

Second, the integration of sunlight and studio lighting.

? Dyad photography? Is a photography studio located in Brooklyn, new york, founded by photographers Justin and Colleen Picciotti, mainly shooting commercial and artistic works. The two have filmed a private project with the theme of food, and they have taken this project from a symbolic image to an amazing direction. The works of this project are available on their website (www. dyadphotography.com )。 These works were shot by freeze-frame technology at first glance? Dynamic food? , just like the traditional display screen. But look closely, and you will suddenly realize. Some of the works you see are shocking and some are hilarious, but these works about food don't emphasize the three-dimensional nature of objects at all, which is what other photographers try to highlight in their works.

Food photography

These works are real, even anti-traditional two-dimensional images. How did photographer Piciottis shoot it? Like most studio works, lighting plays a vital role. The tables, chairs, floors and tableware under the spaghetti and meatballs in the above works are actually printed photos, not real objects. In order to deceive the vision, make this scene look like a one-time photo. Room facilities? Must be consistent with the color temperature and density of pasta light. But this is not easy, because the light on the desktop comes from the window, while the light on the spaghetti comes from the lamp in the room.

However, the exhaustion of the works also makes the audience notice that these are not ordinary business pictures. For example, photographer Picciottis deliberately let the light shine on the noodles from the opposite direction to the desktop. He explained: we can highlight the control of perspective by choosing the combination of light sources in different directions? .

In order to highlight the spaghetti in the cold background, the photographer chose light that is slightly warmer than the background light.

Photographers spend hours shooting and printing desktop photos. They use white/silver reflectors and black flags to keep the brightness of the desktop, chairs and floors consistent. When shooting, they hung the Hasselblad 50 1 camera on the digital back of Aptus75 above the table, and the lens was 50mm f/4 Karl? Zeiss lens.

The desktop photos were printed with Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printer, and photographer Piciottis chose matt paper to avoid the reflection of the photo paper during the second shooting.

After the spaghetti is laid, the photographer installs the radome. ? One trick of using light when shooting food is to use a more directional light source, which can capture different textures of each element? Picotis said,? The radome allows us to soften the light without weakening the shadow, and we also put white and gray light patches around the pasta to further strengthen the shadow and highlight the direction of the light? .

The use of radome also enhances the sense of space of Italian cheese crumbs in the picture, which is the most dramatic sign that this work is different from traditional food photography. Another advantage of using radome is that reducing the angle of radome can avoid the reflection of photographic paper.

Simulated light distribution diagram

As for the lighting of this work simulating freeze-frame photography, Picciottis used the natural light from the window as the desktop lighting, and used the Profoto)Acute2 2400WS studio lamp ($3,245) to illuminate the pasta ($352). PocketWizard wireless trigger ($3,565,438+0) is used for synchronous flashing of studio lights. White and gray filler plates help to increase the density of shadows, strengthen shadows and highlight the direction of light.

Third, the location professional photographer moved the studio outdoors.

Running out of location shooting may be one of the most serious challenges for photographers. Photographers must carry lamps, bring or look for power, and also need to seamlessly combine ambient light with artificial lighting.

Portrait photography

For the above reasons, Laura barison, a professional photographer in new york, was initially allowed to take this portrait of a bodybuilding model only with natural light and reflectors. Professional sports and life photographer said? Much easier than setting lights and carrying power? .

But the clouds are rolling in the sky, and the ambient light alternates between direct sunlight and scattering. The lighting strategy used by the photographer is to use the lights of two studios to suppress the sunlight, so that she doesn't have to care whether the sunlight is directly on the model.

My treat.

? For me, the secret of running out of light for location shooting is to ensure sufficient electricity? She said. She doesn't like to use batteries because the charging time between flashes is too long. ? If the battery is used for power supply, I will be eager to finish the shooting, because I am always worried that the battery is not enough, so I usually use a generator to supply power to the studio lights? . In order to keep the venue clean, she also likes to use the flash of PocketWizard to trigger wirelessly.

Simulated light distribution diagram

The simulated sunlight must be high in position, hard in texture and high in brightness, and the light should shine downward at an angle of about 45 degrees. If the lamp holder is too high, it is easy to be blown down by the wind, so when there is wind, Barisonzi will use sandbags to increase the weight of the lamp holder, and will also ask his assistant to hold the higher lamp holder on the left side of the lamp holder.

Photographer Laura Barisonzi used two AlienBees B 1600 studio lights (360 dollars each), 1 GS 1 beehive and a Honda EU3200i generator to provide power. The camera used by the photographer is Nikon D3, 24-70mm f/2.8 nikkor lens.

Fourth, shooting jewelry, luster is everything.

It is the most difficult to use up light when shooting reflective objects, and it is the most time-consuming to shoot jewelry. The biggest challenge is to make inanimate objects full of jumping light and life glory.

Jewelry shooting

Photographers David Barowsky and Steven Devris face this challenge every day. They are located in the photography area of new york City? Ant farm photography? Members of the studio. ? We pay attention to all aspects of jewelry, especially diamonds, because they are expensive? Photographer Barowsky said. The Faraone Mennella 18K gold bracelet in the photo is inlaid with very good quality white diamonds, brown diamonds and champagne diamonds. ? This photo, the effect is all made of lighting, and there is almost no post-editing. Of course, we also need a sharp macro lens to capture the subtle changes of diamond cutting surface and color? .

When shooting jewelry, you must adjust the light in the Yi Deng, and also adjust the light on the cutting surface and surface of jewelry. Some jewels need to use more than 10 lights and reflectors at the same time when shooting. ? You must constantly adjust the light on the surface until it is adjusted? Barowsky explained? The lighting layout is compact, so don't let the ambient light leak in and affect the color temperature? . The reflected light from the background may cause a black dead zone in the picture. In order to avoid this situation, lights, soft masks and reflectors should all surround the main body, which actually plays the role of a soft light shed.

Simulated light distribution diagram

This photo was taken with two 3200WS brown Unilite studio lamps, one on the left and right sides of the bracelet, with a soft plexiglass plate in front of the lamp, and the bracelet was on a reflector coated with 925 silver paint. Because the lamp holder is equipped with a grid, the light passes through plexiglass and then attenuates, so that a subtle tone level can be created on gold.

The brown Picolite flash lamp installed near the airplane seat can emit concentrated light, which can increase the luster and flash of diamonds. At the same time, the light box arranged behind the bracelet can not only ensure the purity of the background, but also reflect light on the silver reflector.

Accurate exposure control is also very important. For this reason, photographers rely on exposure histograms. Many photographers use histograms to preserve the details of highlights or shadows in photos, while photographers who shoot jewelry use histograms to monitor the glare of jewelry to ensure that the flashing parts are not overexposed. ? Glare control is one of the main challenges when shooting bright and dazzling jewelry? Barowsky said. ? One trick to reduce glare is to gradually increase the histogram reading of background light to 255. If it exceeds 255, unnecessary glare will appear? .

The team of Antfarm Photography Studio used 65,438 +0 brown Picolite studio lamp (US$ 720) and two brown Unilite 3200WS lamp holders (US$ 65,438+US$ 0,565,438+00 each) to shoot the two diamond-encrusted gold bracelets, which were powered by brown grafit power supply. The photographer used Sinatra P2 4X5 camera, Sinatra 54h digital back, Schneider 120mm f/5.6 macro lens, and the shooting aperture was f/32.

5. Keep it dark under the light.

The effective use of lighting is an important link in advertising photography. The following photos were taken for the 20 10 brochure of Honda CRV minivan and hybrid SUV. Jeff Ludes, a car photographer from Los Angeles, and his three assistants spent four hours taking this photo.

Car publicity photo

When shooting, the main light was Arri tungsten lamp, and the photographer did not use the Fresnel lens commonly used by cinematographers. ? The reason why we didn't use Fresnel lens is to let the light fill the whole photo, just like the light of a street lamp? Rudes said.

In fact, the existing lights in the scene are also an important part of the whole lighting. The background lights added later are equipped with acetate filters for color correction to ensure that the color temperature of the output lights is consistent with that of street lamps.

The ultimate goal of the photographer is to add color and atmosphere and give the car a perceptual color-optimism, youth and urban sense. But it is also very important to outline the appearance of the car through lighting, to show the shape, line, color and size of the car. In order to highlight the subject, the photographer chose brighter light than the warm background to make the blue subject stand out.

Considering the blue sky and the reflection of the window, the photographer chose to take this photo at dusk. ? The difficulty of using light at dusk is that the light should be ready at dawn, and the position and brightness level of light cannot be determined at this time? Rudes said,? When the sun is about to set, you must quickly and accurately adjust the final position of the light and shoot in a short time window with perfect balance between sunlight and light? .

If Rudes uses a 2000-watt lamp to illuminate the whole scene, it may eventually produce a black shadow in the area that is not illuminated by the lamp, which will destroy the photographer's idea of shooting a street scene full of vitality and light. Rudes said,? Do we often use 150W low-power lamps? .

He explained:? It is generally not noticed that when the light is used up in a dim scene, small and dark lights are usually more suitable than large and bright lights, and too bright lights will only cause dark shadows. ?

Other shooting details? Water tankers soaked the whole street, making those dark and featureless black roads full of vitality and luster. The photographer's team even? Build? The sidewalk in the foreground hides the fact that the vehicle actually stops in the middle of the road (the vehicle being photographed actually stops in front of a lane).

The final photo consists of eight different photos, each of which is composed, polished and selected for specific elements, such as the side, back and tires of the car. ? If the light on the fender is appropriate, there will be a deep shadow at the hub groove. Do you need to expose the tire separately? Rudes said.