The photographer tells you how to arrange the lighting in the studio.

Lead: Studio photography can create an immediately visible scene, but it also brings some invisible features? Is this object flat or three-dimensional? Is its appearance rough or smooth? Is it as heavy as stone or as light as feather? In order to let the audience have an intuitive understanding of the subject in the film, it is necessary for the photographer to control the light as a whole? This is the highest art of studio photography.

We will first notice whether an object has a clear outline. We can easily recognize the outline of a bicycle, an egg or an eggbeater, but it is not so easy to recognize the outline of a football or a refrigerator alone. We first need to judge how important the contour is. The emphasis on contour is to ensure the highest possible contrast between the object and the background, that is to say, a clear object can be outlined in front of the dark background, and vice versa. If diffuse light is used, the first factor will depend on whether you can find a suitable background that can form a strong contrast.

? The above is a typical example: the figure on the left emphasizes the outline of flowers, while the figure on the right emphasizes the shape and structure.

We can outline the outline perfectly with sidelight. At this time, it is best to put a spotlight behind the object. If the scene is too small to block the light, you can put the object in front of the black background and use two spotlights to shine obliquely from the back. In this way, the spotlight shines from the side and hits the outer edge of the subject. This kind of illumination is called dark field illumination. A small flashlight can solve this problem because its beam can diverge.

shape

After the outline, the shape should be considered, which refers to the plastic characteristics of the object. This requires vertical lighting and clear shadows, so we choose sidelight. Objects can show their shape and three-dimensional sense through their own shadows. We use the contrast of light and dark as information to measure the three-dimensional volume of the subject. The greater the contrast, the greater the volume of the object. Because we can control contrast purposefully, we can control the sense of space at will.

The shadow of the face itself has a three-dimensional effect. By contrasting light and shade, we can know the shape of the object.

If we want to judge the shape of an object, we can also rely on the shape of the transition area from light to dark. Smooth and soft transitions come from circular objects, while clear shadows come from corners and edges. It should be noted that the scene should be clearly set off from the background of the light side while keeping the shape unchanged. If the foreground and background overlap, you can add a low-power background light. This background light can ensure a continuous light gradient without emphasizing the intensity of a certain place. In addition, the soft material of mini-studio has a very limited effect on highlighting the shape of the object, and it needs strong light on one side, while trying to block it from the opposite side to absorb the diffused light.

surface

The surface structure can be shaped by intense side light. 30? ~90? The angle between them may be correct, depending on the characteristics of the surface. For rough surfaces, a relatively flat angle is appropriate because it can reduce the loss of shadows in the picture. If the plane is only slightly rough, you need light 90? Angle from the side, can make the shadow clear. For the surface with rich structure, highlighting the picture can make the details of the surface clearly visible. Usually, the surface structure is not that important, so you don't need to count the total exposure. Just feel it and don't need more.

The above is in the case of rough or dull surface. If the surface is an object that can strongly reflect or emit light, the situation is completely different. An object with a smooth and shiny surface will distract us so much that we can't notice the outline or shape of an object at the first time. Ceramics, metals and glass are difficult subjects to master.

Many works with glass products as the shooting object belong to masterpieces, because the combination of light transmission and reflection brings great difficulties to photography.

Reflection is not always unwelcome. By using reflected light to shape objects, we know the shapes of a large number of objects. We can use reflection to bring objects outside the image into the image. Of course, this is also a form of light source, or a form of diffusion. It can also be used to shape. Like shooting lights? The most popular flat lamp in studio photography is easy to recognize in rectangular reflection. Make your own diffuser and determine its shape. We can use reflection in image shaping, and even imitate a window: cut opaque cardboard into a cross frame on the window, and then put it in front of the light source to make it a visible reflection.

Glass and metal

The surfaces of metal objects are different. There are many intermediate forms among the forms with obvious structure, smoothness and high brightness polishing. Reflective objects are particularly tricky because they can not only reflect light, but also reflect some space, even photographers. These reflected lights are difficult to be removed in the subsequent photo processing program, but they will be displayed in detail.

Reflection follows a simple physical principle: the incident angle is equal to the reflection angle. Interference reflected light appearing on the plane is relatively easy to avoid. By changing the position of the light source or camera, the reflected light can disappear. But if it is a round object, it complicates the problem. Because by changing the light source, the reflected light can only change their positions, but can't really disappear from the image. In order to make the reflected light disappear, the light source should be as far away from the optical axis as possible, which is also applicable on the plane. When the black background plate is placed near the light source under direct light, the propagation direction of light will change accordingly.

Glass is the most skillful in all product photography, because it has the characteristics of transparency and reflection. For glass products, not only the front will reflect, but also the back and inside of the object will reflect. For polished glass products, we don't want to reflect on each individual grinding surface. Although this material is opaque, it is transparent and it is easy to distinguish the outline. Besides, we don't need to pay attention to the background in great detail.