15 essential skills for taking flowers

15 essential skills for taking flowers

In our ordinary student life, do we often chase teachers for knowledge points? Knowledge points can also be popularly understood as important content. In order to help you master the important knowledge points, the following are the necessary skills of 15 for you. Welcome everyone to learn and refer, I hope it will help you.

15 tips for flower patting 1 suggested equipment for flower patting.

Lens selection

In fact, wide angle, medium distance and telephoto can all be used to shoot flowers, because various lenses can also shoot different effects, but if you have the following lenses and accessories, remember to bring them!

Telephoto lens: such as 70-200mm, 100-400mm, etc. , used to eliminate messy background and facilitate composition;

Macro lens: it will be used when shooting close-ups of flowers, and the recommended focal length is100 mm;

Close-up ring or tube: If you don't have a macro lens or a telephoto lens, you can also buy a close-up ring or tube and put it on your other lens to shorten the shortest focusing distance, so that you can enlarge the flowers.

If shooting outdoors, flashlights and tripods are not really needed, but they can also be used for creation. If necessary, you can bring a reflector to fill the light.

A telephoto lens can not only avoid crowds, but also create a shallow depth of field.

Camera selection

The camera is not really important. Even a mobile phone or a small DC can take beautiful photos, but of course DSLR can give you better control.

Key points of camera setting

Control your depth of field.

We may enlarge the flowers when shooting. Please pay close attention to your depth of field. If the depth of field is too shallow, a small part of the flower will be clear, while other parts will fall outside the depth of field, resulting in blurring. Remember that a large aperture will lead to the depth of the scene (another is the distance between the focal length and the background, see this), so if you find that only the middle part of the flower is clear, please shoot a smaller aperture.

Be careful not to have a shallow depth of field, or many parts of the flower will fall into the bamboo range with a shallow depth of field.

Watch out for the breeze!

Especially when shooting outdoors, in addition to its own stability, we should also be careful that the breeze blows the flowers, resulting in blurred photos. Pay attention to your shutter speed. If possible, use shutter priority or manual mode to ensure that the shutter speed is kept above1100s-1/250s. If necessary, please upgrade ISO. If you hold a telephoto lens, you must also pay attention to the "safety shutter" to avoid hand shock.

But you might as well try to slow down the shutter and let the flowers move slightly in the wind, and you will find that the photos taken will become very dreamy!

Note that white and yellow flowers will affect the photometric control of underexposure.

If you use semi-automatic modes such as aperture priority or shutter priority, please note that when shooting white flowers, the camera's metering may be misjudged, resulting in underexposure. At this time, you should correct EV according to the formula we have taught before: "Brighten in case of light, darken in case of darkness", so you should add EV to compensate for underexposure.

Be careful that white flowers will misjudge the camera and lead to underexposure. At this time, increase the exposure or +EV.

Watch out for details of safflower loss

When shooting red flowers, be careful not to overexpose the flowers and lose details, and don't excessively increase the saturation.

Set your own white balance to avoid affecting the color of flowers.

When you shoot when the light color changes greatly in the morning and sunset, we can choose whether to choose white balance to correct the color of flowers. If you don't set your own white balance, the flowers taken at sunset may lose their warm colors. In addition, by setting the white balance by yourself, the color of flowers can be completely restored. Learning: white balance skills-the important influence of color orientation on photos

Eliminating reflection with CPL polarizer

When the light is sufficient, flowers may reflect light, which makes the contrast of photos insufficient. At this time, you can try to add a CPL polarizer to remove the reflection of flowers and leaves and improve the contrast and saturation.

Selection of light

Make good use of soft light, side light and backlight to avoid shooting at noon.

Light is very important for taking flowers. It is best to have clouds that day to form a natural soft light box, or to take pictures after sunrise or near sunset. When the light is soft, it is easy to take beautiful flowers. Avoid shooting at noon when the sun is overhead, or when the sun is strong.

At sunrise and sunset, it will be reflected as sidelight, when flowers and darkness can produce dramatic effects; Backlight, that is, the camera shooting at the sun, can clearly show flowers, leaves and other textures, which is another common shooting method.

Side lighting can take dramatic photos!

Backlight photography can capture the texture and perspective of flowers, which is particularly beautiful under the blue sky.

Photographing and composition skills

Shoot at the level of flowers

When shooting flowers, please lower your height and shoot at the level of flowers, so that you can enter the world of flowers more; Sometimes it sticks to the ground and shoots upward, which makes people look like they are in a flower and shoots a special perspective effect.

Take close-ups of flowers and insects.

Don't just shoot the whole flower! Try to shoot a small part of a flower, such as stamens and petals, with a macro or telephoto lens. Or adding common insects such as bees and butterflies will also have a decorative effect.

Take a close-up of flowers

Make the flowers stand out.

Don't shoot a lot of flowers greedily (of course, sometimes). It is best to find one or two of the most beautiful and distinctive flowers among the flowers and shoot them with telephoto and large aperture, so that the background will be blurred due to the depth of the scene, so that the protagonist flower will stand out from the photo and avoid being affected by the messy background.

Highlight one of the flowers with a shallow depth of field.

(Choose a high contrast background.

Although we can use shallow depth of field to get rid of the messy background, we can also pay close attention to the color of the background and try to find a background with obvious contrast with flowers (such as red flowers on the edge color background) to make the flowers stand out!

Use a variety of composition methods to shoot flowers.

In addition to the most basic golden section, filling composition, diagonal and S-shaped composition, you can also make good use of the "frame map" to shoot. The shooting method is simple. First find out the target flower to be photographed, and then make a "frame" with the stems and leaves in front to shoot in the gap. This will not only bring a little mystery, but also make readers pay more attention to flowers.

Different flowers can use different composition methods, such as diagonal composition.

The golden section method is simple and effective. It is a necessary composition method for picking flowers.

Use the flowers in the foreground as a "frame"

Take a special photo-double exposure

Using the "double exposure" function in the camera, you can shoot the same flower many times, which can change the focal length and shape, or deliberately lose focus, or bring interesting photos. Try more anyway!

Double exposure of pink and white flowers.

Abstract effect

Using a telephoto or macro lens, only a small part of the flower is photographed and the picture is filled. In the right light (such as side light and backlight), you can often take photos with abstract significance, adding more artistic sense to your flower photography portfolio!

Shooting a small amount of flowers can produce an abstract effect!

Try shooting with a shallow depth of field and a large close-up!

Primary shooting skill

Beginners of photography usually start from practicing landscapes, flowers, still life and so on. Now, let's talk about some common flower shooting skills. Compared with photographing people and scenery, photographing flowers is also the easiest photographic subject to use.

Since it is a flower, it is natural to choose the right flower. Or delicate and charming, or in bud. In a word, only flowers can take exciting and good photos. But there are exceptions, such as "residual load" means loneliness and "withering" means a dead heart.

In addition to choosing a good subject, the timing of shooting is particularly important. Because flowers are the most beautiful in nature only when they are in full bloom, we mainly rely on natural light for outdoor shooting. And with the different time, the form of natural light is also different. It is best to shoot in natural light within two hours after sunrise. At this time, the lighting is ideal and the modeling effect is good.

Generally speaking, we don't choose to shoot flowers at noon, mainly because the light at noon is vertical, and the light is projected on the top of the flowers, and the front side receives less light, resulting in large contrast, lack of layering, poor color reproduction effect of flowers, high color temperature and easy to take blue photos.

From the perspective of lighting, the lighting angle of natural light is usually divided into five types. Namely front light, side light, back light, top light and scattered light. Scattered light and backlight are more suitable for taking pictures. Shooting with scattered light is because it is flexible, not limited by the directionality of light source, with uniform light receiving surface, soft color tone and moderate contrast. If you choose astigmatism after rain, the flowers look fresh and attractive. Using backlight photography, the objects illuminated from the back can be eliminated and the outline of flowers can be clearly outlined. The modeling effect of light is good. If the petals are thin, they will be transparent or translucent, which will show the texture, hierarchy and texture of flowers more delicately.

For scattered light shooting, photometry is generally not a big problem. For a machine with a little metering, as long as the metering point is placed on the subject, you can basically get the correct exposure. For some machines that have no point metering but can only use average metering, the following measures can be taken:

Close measurement: Get close to the subject to fill the frame as much as possible. At this time, it doesn't matter whether the subject is in focus or not, because it has little effect on the photometric value. However, it should be noted that when measuring in close range, do not block the light that irradiates the subject, which will cause the change of illuminance and make the luminosity error.

Substitution method: a medium gray object is placed next to the subject or under the same lighting conditions as the subject to replace the subject that is too small to measure light. Kodak 18% gray board is the first object with medium gray (but the price is higher, a set of about 180 yuan, made of cardboard). The first alternative is the back of the hand, or you can rush the back of the hand to the camera to measure the reflected light of the back of the hand.

If you want to shoot special effects with backlight, you must use a machine with spot metering to measure the shooting theme. When using this light source, you should pay special attention to the fact that flowers must be full of light and set off with a dark background, so as to show the image of flowers more prominently. For us DC, we should pay more attention to the adjustment of EV value when shooting such works. This basically follows the principle that the background is too bright, the EV value is increased, the background is too dark, and the EV value is decreased.

In composition, flower photography is the most exquisite type of photography. Generally, shooting follows the golden section rule, such as dividing the whole picture according to tic-tac-toe, and putting the points of interest at an intersection. However, because of different needs, and even different aesthetics, everyone will have different preferences in composition. Appreciating other people's excellent works and watching more movies can quickly improve your composition level.

Two important considerations in composition:

Imaging size: a flower photography, the position of flowers in the whole picture, belongs to perspective and contrast in composition. The configuration of the picture and the choice of flowers depend on the photographer's creative intention. Whole or close-up photography occupies different positions in the picture, which should not only highlight the main body, but also be sparse and dense to prevent distraction and confusion.

Angle: Angle refers to the angle formed when the straight line between the camera and the flower is associated with the horizontal line of sight or vertical line of the political party. Prone shooting, back shooting, left-leaning shooting and right-leaning shooting all form different shooting angles. A slight change in the angle will also have an impact on the composition, so in order to choose a suitable shooting angle, we will spare no time and energy to elaborate. Generally speaking, flowers are photographed in flower beds or flower beds that are easy to watch, and they are photographed from colorful angles. But sometimes it's not easy to choose the angle to shoot the red cotton on the tree, the lotus in the water and the water lily on the lake. But the more difficult it is to shoot, the more we should try to find the most ideal angle, so as to make a breakthrough and innovate.

A work with excellent composition is not enough to be an excellent work. How to highlight the shooting theme is also a top priority. The contrast between light and shade, the contrast between truth and color, can make photos more exciting by using these harmonies. Among them, the premise of contrast between light and dark is to choose the subject with strong contrast between foreground and background, and use the function of spot metering to accurately measure the subject and accurately judge the exposure of the subject. More importantly, because the subject of this kind of photos is generally outstanding, we should choose the subject with a good sense of situation as the shooting object, otherwise it will not be worth the candle. The contrast between reality and reality is the blur of background. This should be said to be the advantage of digital cameras.

Flowers win by color and by shape, so we should pay attention to the treatment of color in flower photography. A picture of a flower, the tone should be harmonious, not chaotic. Each flower has its own color characteristics, and the hue to be adopted is determined according to different themes, different lighting conditions and different backgrounds. Bright red and green, although dazzling, but handled well, but also gorgeous and pleasing to the eye; Understatement, though plain and properly used, is also elegant, naive and pleasing to the eye. A pair of flower photography must have a main color, whether it is cold or warm, as long as it is used properly, it can be "heavy makeup and light touch".

In fact, these technologies are not complicated and do not require very high-end cameras. As long as you master these skills, plus some care and patience, I believe that even novices can shoot amazing works.

The Expression Techniques of Flower Field

If you want to show the infinite beauty of colors, you can take pictures along the light. Shooting a large flower field under the condition of stable light can have better color performance, without too strong contrast, and the color is bright enough; In order to show the layering of the flower field, we can shoot with side light and oblique light, because under these two light conditions, the light-receiving parts and shadows of the flower field are displayed, which can increase the layering and three-dimensional sense of the picture; When shooting a large flower field in the morning and evening, you can't generally use the backlight technique, because if you don't control it well, any color will be red or orange.

The use of oblique light makes a simple picture look very deep and distant. Aperture: F5.6 shutter:1160s focal length: 105mm sensitivity: ISO 100 exposure compensation: -2.3EV.

The main lotus is located at the golden composition point, which can greatly attract the attention of the viewer. Aperture: F6.7 shutter:11500s focal length: 260mm sensitivity: ISO200 exposure compensation:-0.5ev.

A flower with rich contents.

For a single flower, both the shape and the petal texture have a strong expressive force. Through different light and shadow and composition, we can show different effects of shapes, so that the original monotonous flowers can show richer content in the photo screen. Diagonal composition, closed composition, divergent composition and golden composition are all commonly used composition methods. When the viewing angle is large or the shooting distance is a little far, the golden composition method can be used to place the flowers on the golden composition point, so that the flowers can fully attract the attention of the viewer and echo with the environment to form a very beautiful and harmonious picture; When shooting a close-up of a single flower, you can use diagonal composition, closed composition or divergent composition to express the texture, color and shape of the flower.

Light skills in flower photography

For the choice of light direction, the front light can make the flowers clearer and the light received by each part is more uniform, but the fatal weakness is the lack of layering and unclear color tone, which invisibly loses the beauty of the flowers; Side light is the best light for flower photography. The flowers under side light and oblique light have clear colors, distinct layers, clear tones and moderate contrast. Different from the shooting method of flower field, a single flower can also be represented by backlight, so that a clear flower outline can be drawn and the lighting modeling effect is good. If the petals are thin, they will be transparent or translucent, showing the texture, hierarchy and texture of flowers more delicately. Scattered light is more flexible, not limited by the directionality of light source, with uniform light receiving surface and soft color tone. If you choose to shoot with scattered light after rain, the flowers will look very fresh and colorful.

Backlight makes chrysanthemum petals transparent and crystal clear; The dark background helps to show the beautiful shape of petals. Aperture: F2.2 shutter:11000s focal length: 135mm sensitivity: ISO 100 exposure compensation: -0.3EV.

Show the texture of flowers

When you shoot flowers, you often get the advice of "shooting closer". Close-up of petals and stamens of flowers can take a very fine picture of the main body. At this time, if there is an oblique light source, the concave-convex texture will pull out a long shadow, which seems to be within reach and has a strong texture.

Side lighting and close-up techniques show the strong texture of lotus petals. Aperture: F6.7 Shutter: 1/500s Focus: 235mm Sensitivity: ISO200

Turn the background into pure black.

In our common photography works with flowers as the theme, there are many works with only flowers or petals in the picture, but there is no obvious background scenery, and the background is completely underexposed, forming a pure black interface. This can make the picture look very concise, and the flowers as the main body are very prominent; And the most important thing is to show the petal line of colorful flowers. It's actually easier to shoot flowers with this effect. Usually, photographers look at several shooting angles to find a darker background for flowers, and then take spot measurements at a brighter position on the flowers, so that the originally dark background in the picture will be underexposed. It doesn't matter if there is a messy background in the shot picture, it must be dim. You can adjust the light and shade curve or contrast of the picture slightly during post-processing.

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