Do professional still life photography

Still life photography is an indispensable part of the whole photography field. When you see those exquisite ornaments and perfume bottles on the covers of some fashion magazines, you will be inexplicably surprised: Why can the same thing be photographed vividly in the hands of photographers, but it is so ordinary in your own hands? In addition to photography skills, still life photography also has special requirements for equipment. Having a good platform often gets twice the result with half the effort when shooting.

Preparation for Still Life Shooting

Usually still life shooting, mostly black and white background. If you use black as the background, you need at least two pieces of black cloth, and then fold them into a cube. The four corners can be supported by iron wires, which is more stable. The top and front are required to be empty, and then a thin wire or fishing line (fishing line is recommended because it is not easy to wear under light irradiation) is pulled about 50cm above the cube and fixed with a clip. When shooting, small ornaments can be hung with fishing lines, and heavy objects such as perfume bottles can be placed directly below. So is the white landscape.

Selection of cloth

But the effect of the above DIY method is actually not good. Firstly, in the choice of cloth, the surface of soft light cloth is not so smooth, secondly, the refraction of light is irregular, and the position of light source is rigid, which is not suitable for adjustment. So I suggest you buy a folding still life box. At present, it can be bought in the photographic equipment market of every city in China, and the price is very cheap, ranging from 70 to 300 yuan.

With this kind of still life box, we can easily turn too direct and complicated outdoor sunlight into soft and uniform light, which is very useful for us to shoot some small ornaments and still lives. Of course, the effect is better when there is a stable light source indoors (as shown in figure 1).

Lighting selection

As for lighting, as we are all photographers, it is impossible to invest such expensive professional lighting, so we have to use local materials. For example, a desk lamp needs two (preferably three), one as the main light source and the other as the auxiliary light source. The bulb is preferably an incandescent bulb with uniform brightness. The main bulb power is 80W, and the auxiliary light source is between 30w and 40w. If you really can't find incandescent bulbs, you can use energy-saving lamps, but you must preheat them for about 10 minutes, and then proceed to the next step (as shown in Figure 2).

Selection of light source position

The choice of light source location is very knowledgeable, such as what side light, side backlight and so on. In actual shooting, light can be divided into main light, auxiliary light, contour light, background light and so on. In the impression of many fans, the more complicated the light, the better. They like to shine all the light on the subject, which is actually wrong, because it can't reflect the layering of light, but it will leave a messy feeling.

The correct light distribution method should pay attention to the order of light use. First of all, we should focus on the position of the main light, and then use the auxiliary light to adjust the contrast of the main light on the screen, highlight the hierarchy and control the projection. The position of the main light can be in front or at the top, and the auxiliary light can be around or even at the bottom, depending on the position of the camera.

Still life shooting skills

Everything is ready, and then we will enter the shooting stage. Let's talk about the choice of equipment first. If you have a digital SLR camera, it is of course the best. With the macro lens of 100mm, the film production effect is very good. However, it should be noted that because the depth of field of the macro lens is very difficult to control, as long as the focus moves slightly, the picture is likely to be blurred or out of focus, so it is best to use it with the exposure lock.

If it is an ordinary consumer digital camera, the focal end should be about 80mm, that is, in the area of 2 times optical zoom, because the focal distortion of this lens is relatively small and the lens dispersion is well controlled. If you need to capture details, you can open the macro block, but be careful not to affect the light source.

In terms of composition, it is not much different from ordinary outdoor still life shooting. Composition emphasizes simplicity. You can find some small decorations to echo the theme and break the monotony of the picture. Of course, we still need the cooperation of light source.

In terms of exposure, due to the use of auxiliary lights, central focus photometry and spot photometry can be used, so that the exposure is accurate and the effect of light and shadow is easy to appear. Especially when shooting glass products, it is not easy to overexpose. However, it needs special attention that glass products are easy to reflect light because of the existence of auxiliary light, so it is necessary to add a CPL lens in front of the lens.