How to take portrait photos with external flash?

Lead: What's the difference between professional photographers and ordinary photographers? This is the difference between using flash and not using flash. How to take portrait photos with an external flash like a professional photographer? Let's have a look!

The high-speed synchronous flash function is generally used to fill the light when shooting with a high-speed shutter. In fact, it flashes continuously during the whole time period when the high-speed shutter is started, illuminating the subject. High-speed flash synchronization expands the application range of flash, which can not only illuminate the subject, but also fill the light.

Example of high-speed synchronous flash function fill light

Backlight portrait shooting is a common situation in our daily shooting. If you shoot in normal exposure mode and use a large aperture such as F 1.4, you will have a good background blur effect. However, the face of the backlit figure in the picture is not very bright, and there is an underexposure phenomenon. The reason for this phenomenon is that the background of the picture is bright, people's faces are in shadow, and the area occupied by people in the picture is limited. In order to obtain the effect of overall brightness balance of the picture, the photometric system has made a trade-off, which makes people's front exposure insufficient.

How can I get the normal exposure effect of the model's face? If we measure the light according to the model's face, as shown in the above picture, the brightness of the character's face has increased. At this time, the exposure of the model's face is normal, but the whole background has been overexposed, which affects the quality of the whole picture. How can we solve this contradiction?

Synchronous shooting effect with high-speed flash

That's when the flash comes in handy. First, in order to obtain a normal background exposure effect, the exposure parameters in the approximation diagram 1 are used. At this time, the shutter speed is11000s, which is higher than the flash synchronization speed of 1 /250s. Then cooperate with the flash to turn on its high-speed synchronous flash function to fill the light for the model's face. Finally, you can get the effect on the right, and both the background of the picture and the face of the model can achieve the best exposure effect.

Using the high-speed synchronous flash function of the flash, the soft background can be blurred, the shutter speed can be guaranteed under the strong ambient light, and at the same time, the portrait face can be supplemented with light, making the main character more prominent.

In the backlight environment, the usage rate of high-speed synchronous flash is very high. The flash index of external flash is very strong, which can ensure sufficient exposure even if the high-speed shutter of 1/8000s is used. It is a good helper for backlight photography. With the function of high-speed synchronous flash, photographers can give full play to their unlimited creativity in the process of portrait creation.

We can often see many amazing portrait photos. The model is in a backlight environment, the whole body is emitting subtle light, and the face is shrouded in soft light. When taking photos with this effect, the high-speed synchronous flash function of the flash plays an extremely important role.

For modern photography, the use of flash is not completely confined to indoor, and flash is also an important tool to fill the light in the sun. With the help of high-speed synchronous flash function, digital SLR cameras can realize more creativity of photographers.

Take photos of night portraits with a flash.

Night portrait photography is a special type of portrait photography creation. Because there is insufficient light in the background and characters at night, extra equipment is needed to supplement the light, so everyone thinks this is a particularly difficult way to shoot. In fact, in night shooting, we mainly consider the normal exposure of foreground figures and backgrounds. Knowing this will help us quickly master the skills of portrait shooting at night. Photographers can take advantage of complex multi-flash settings, including up to three flashes. Flash can automatically calculate the flash ratio to ensure that each flash provides appropriate illumination brightness, so that accurate light control can allow photographers to create in various ambient light according to the change of framing and achieve the best exposure effect. Generally speaking, the background is dark at night, which means the exposure time is long. For the foreground model, because we use a flash, it only takes a short time to complete the exposure. So if we shoot with synchronous flash, we will see that the people in the foreground are fully exposed and clear, but the background is very dark, so that the people in the background appear abrupt and unnatural.

In order to solve this problem, we first measured the background, and found that the aperture is F 1.6 and the shutter speed is110s, which can make the background accurately exposed. Then manually adjust the exposure combination to the aperture F 1.6 and the shutter speed110s, and then we choose to turn on the flash to fill the light for the characters. We can see that the background and the model's face are completely exposed, the lighting in the background creates a soft atmosphere, and the model blends with the background, so the whole portrait photo at night is very charming. In this photo, in order to get the blurred effect of the background light, so as to better set off the model, the photographer chose a lens with a large aperture, and set the aperture to F 1.6, using the large aperture to create an obvious blurred effect of the background. As we can see from the picture below, the background light sets off the model's expression well, making the whole portrait at night look softer and more harmonious than the portrait during the day.

In addition, it should be mentioned that it needs to be used all the time during the whole shooting process.

Tripod ensures clear background and character details at110s shutter speed.

If you have more than one flash, you can get more shooting effects, which is often used by professional photographers when shooting portraits at night. Changing the combination of these flashlights, or different flash output and focal length settings, can get a variety of picture effects and experience the endless fun of night photography.

For example, if we have two flashlights, we can use the wireless operation function of the flashlights. This kind of flash linkage is very practical and simple. One flash can not only control the output of another flash, but also adjust the output angle of light conveniently.

In the above picture, we can see that if a flash is installed on the camera and the photographer squats down to shoot in order to get the effect of the model's slender figure, the model's face will have a shadow from bottom to top. Therefore, the photographer uses the flash mounted on the fuselage to control the output of another flash. In actual shooting, the second flash plays the role of the main light source, filling the light evenly in the front of the model to create a softer portrait photo effect.

The core of night portrait shooting skills is to consider various combinations of background exposure and character exposure. Use your imagination and let the flash in your hand play a powerful role to help you shoot the most satisfactory works.

Perfect combination of flash and natural light in low light.

In portrait photography, the combination of natural light and flash can make up for the shortage of natural light and create all kinds of wonderful and moving light and shadow effects.

In the picture above, a photographer shoots a model in an empty Yuan Ye. As dusk approaches and the sky is blue, the photographer uses the side backlight to outline the light and shadow outline of the model's left body. At the same time, on the right side of the model's body, an external flash is set up with a lamp holder, the light is softened appropriately with a reflective umbrella, and the flash is illuminated with a flash device when shooting. Under the creative conditions of mixed light sources, photographers usually adjust the white balance mode to the flash white balance mode to correctly restore the skin color of models.

In shooting angle, photographers often choose to use wide angle.

The low-angle backhand technique of the lens makes use of the perspective deformation effect of the wide-angle lens to lengthen the legs of the model and highlight the slender figure of the character. In the above picture, the photographer uses natural light and flash to draw bright light and shadow lines on both sides of the model's body at the same time, creating a three-dimensional sense of the picture.

In addition, the external flash of a digital SLR camera can also be used as a large external flash after being equipped with special accessories, and the equipment to be purchased is mainly an external flash or an external flasher.

Shuangdeng creativity outdoor paishe

In both cases on this page, the photo was taken later than the last photo. At this time, the setting sun dyed the sky red, making the photo show a completely different tone from the above example.

The photographer worked with two flashlights and arranged one of them in the hands of the model. Flash lights can flash each other when they work together.

The photographer turned the flash in the model's hand into a bright light source, which became the creativity and highlight of the photo.

When lighting, the photographer arranged the main light source at the lower right of the model. In order to soften the light properly, he chose a reflective umbrella. At the same time, in the exposure control, the exposure of the background is appropriately reduced to create a strong warm tone in the twilight.

Examples of lighting shooting on this page

Examples of lighting shooting on this page

Many overhead flashlights also have high flash index, which can meet the requirements of outdoor photography for light output. But in order to really complete all kinds of outdoor shooting, photographers also need to buy special lamp holder rings, reflective umbrellas and other accessories. These accessories are not universal, and they are not universal with ordinary external flash accessories, so photographers need to look carefully in the market and make full preparations before buying a flash.