How to fill the light in macro ecological photography

Lead: How to fill the light in macro eco-photography? There are many ways to fill the light. I will introduce them to you one by one, hoping to help you.

I. Continuous light source

Continuous light sources include tungsten lamp and timely halogen lamps. The biggest advantage is that it can accurately predict the final image effect. But it will produce a lot of heat, which is not suitable for a delicate life. It may be necessary to cooperate with the slow shutter speed, so it is not suitable for shooting moving subjects.

Second, the brightness range of the subject.

Generally speaking, digital cameras can't shoot all the colors that the human eye can see. On a sunny day, the brightness range may far exceed level 8, and the bright place may be thousands of times brighter than the shadow. Ordinary digital cameras can only record a brightness range of about 5 levels, which means that the details of shadows or highlights may be lost, or both. You can change the light in many ways, such as soft mask or reflector, or you can use electronic flash to create shadows? Fill the light? . Each accessory has its own characteristics, and it is worth trying more to see which one is more suitable for different subjects.

1, reflector

The main purpose of reflector is to reflect light to the shadow area of the scene and make it bright, thus reducing the overall contrast. Many things can be used as reflective surfaces, such as white cardboard, silver reflectors, mirrors and so on. , you can reflect light to the shadow. Different surface materials and sizes determine their respective characteristics. Some manufacturers produce a series of circular reflectors, which can be folded into small bags for easy carrying. Lastolite produces various reflectors, including white, silver and gold. For most close-range and macro photography, you may only need a small reflector with a diameter of 30 cm, which is only about 10 cm when folded. White and silver are the most commonly used. Small pieces of white cardboard, silver cardboard or mirror cards are also worth standby. The silver cover of takeaway food packaging can be turned into a very useful reflector.

2, soft mask

Place a soft mask between the light source and the object to soften the light. Create an effect similar to clouds covering the sun. There are many kinds of reflectors. You can buy round foldable soft light covers or soft light umbrellas in the market, but you can also randomly change them into gauze such as drawing paper or greenhouses. If you use other materials instead of professional soft masks, such as drawing paper, you may need to verify whether its color is neutral. The simple method is to shoot 18% gray cards or similar items in the light of a soft box.

Step 3 flash

Electronic flash is characterized by small size, high power and uniform light. When used with a digital camera, it can be used as a main light source or an auxiliary light source in the sun like a reflector. It is generally believed that flash can? Coagulation? Moving subjects, but the flash duration of many flashlights is only about 1/500s, which may also cause blur for high-speed moving objects. Like photographer Stephen? Stephen Dalton used special high-speed flash equipment when shooting insects in flight, and the flash moment can reach 1/25000s or even less. If you want to take photos in this area, you need to check the technical specifications of your flash. When shooting indoors, you can completely use the flash to illuminate the subject; When shooting outdoors, the flash can be combined with sunlight in various ways. No matter how you use the flash, the general principle is that the effect should not be too conspicuous, and the more natural it looks, the better.

4, the combination of flash and sunlight

The combination of small electronic flash elements and sunlight can balance the light ratio. The output of the flash can be adjusted according to the intensity of sunlight, so as to adjust the flash intensity and realize various lighting effects. There are two main ways to use it, natural light is the main way, and flash is the auxiliary way. Flash is the main factor, supplemented by natural light.

It is assumed that mushrooms are photographed in a dazzling sunlight environment (assuming that the brightness range of the subject is 400: 1). The exposure given by TTL photometry of the camera is 1/60s, f/ 1 1. If you add a flash to this setting and set the flash amount according to f/ 1 1, then the subject will be overexposed at this time because it has passed twice? Is that correct? Exposure. However, if the exposure compensation setting flash is-1 EV, the sunlight is the main light and the flash is the auxiliary light. You can try different exposure compensation settings. The exposure compensation of-1.7EV may have a good effect on subjects with middle tones. For subjects with lighter tones, -0.7EV is enough.

Flash is the main factor, supplemented by natural light.

If the same mushroom grows in dark and dense woodland, at this time, you can use the flash as the main light source and add some more? Spark? As a fill light. It may be necessary to use an off-board hot shoe cable to place the flash on the side above the main body, or on the back or back. First adjust the aperture according to the flash (for example, f/ 1 1). If the standard speed of flash synchronization is1125s, the background will be dark or even black. On the contrary, assuming that the flash is not used, the aperture f/ 1 1 corresponding shutter speed may be as low as 1/2s or higher than 1s in some cases. Press the shutter, and the flash will expose the mushroom correctly first. At this time, the shutter will remain open for a long time, which will fill the shadow generated by the flash and shoot the background. This technology has an obvious disadvantage: if the subject is moving, such as in the breeze. Swaying, although the flash will solidify the subject for a moment, its exposure in natural light will

Almost every outdoor shooting is different. Try more according to different subjects to achieve the ideal effect.

What we are discussing now is some basic principles of the combination of sunlight and flash. Some advanced flashlights, such as Nikon SB800, can save a lot of calculations. Like many cameras? Slow synchronization? Function, can automatically balance the ambient light and flash, and will prevent the background from becoming too dark through long shutter speed.

Wireless flash memory devices, such as? Nikon Creative Flash System? You can easily adjust the position and brightness of the flash without worrying about the extension cord.

5. Ring flash tube

Ring flash is a kind of circular flash tube, which can be installed in front of the lens to provide average shadowless illumination for the subject. Originally used in the medical field, such as dental or surgical photography. Because lighting has no characteristics, it is only used for some themes, such as illuminating the internal structure of morning glory. Some components can be combined with two or more ring flashlights and can be controlled independently, thus creating creative lighting effects. When using the traditional ring flash, you can try to cover a part of the flash tube (usually the lower left or lower right quarter) to shape the hierarchy.

6, macro special flash

Some manufacturers can install one or more flashlights in front of the lens, such as Nikon RC 1 remote control flashlight system, which is a ring device that can be installed in front of the lens, and eight small flashlights can be placed on it, and the position and angle can be adjusted at will. This device can be flexibly changed from horizontal composition shooting to vertical composition shooting. The ring can rotate, so the light effect of vertical composition can be guaranteed to be the same as that of horizontal composition. There is also a separate flash that can be used as a background or backlight. This system is wireless. Can it be controlled by a remote controller or a camera? Control mode? Supervision. The power of each flash head can be adjusted independently to obtain different light ratios. Each flash has a modeling lamp, which can accurately adjust the position of the flash, but the modeling lamp has little effect in strong sunlight.

7. Customize the flash bracket

When shooting very small subjects in the wild, there may be some such occasions? It is not practical to support the camera with any tripod. You need to hold the camera. Some macro lenses are equipped with image stabilizers, but a flash may be needed, especially when shooting small insects. Many photographers use their own brackets to fix one or more flashlights when shooting insect subjects in the wild. A flexible bracket is needed to arrange the flash in a certain range of the lens, for example, it can be placed on the top, side or other positions of the lens. The bracket can be assembled by metal belt, rigid or flexible pillar and spherical tripod head. When the flashlight leaves the machine, an extension cord is needed to trigger the flashlight.

If necessary, a low-power flash can be used to fill the shadow caused by the main light. The position should be as close as possible to the lens, and the shadow filling outside the lens range is meaningless. You can also add a small reflector on the other side of the flash to fill the shadow. Soft light can be obtained by installing a soft light cover on the flash or sticking it on the lens. The main purpose of the bracket is to provide a small and flexible component for outdoor photography, so it needs to be portable, light in weight and easy to assemble and operate.

8. Optical fiber lamp

Fiber-optic lamp is a small controllable light source. Generally, the timely halogen light source is installed in a metal box, and then the light source is transmitted to one or more flexible optical fiber bundles with a length of about 0.5m, which are made of glass fibers and used for guiding light, such as Kaiser Macrospot 1500 model. Some devices have electronic flash tubes, which can be good? Curing? Themes, such as creatures or small insects in a pond. The biggest advantage of fiber lamp is that the light emitted by fiber bundle is cold light, so it can be close to the living body. If necessary, the fiber bundles can even be soaked in water. Although the price is very expensive, fiber-optic lamps are very suitable for shooting small subjects, and second-hand equipment is also easy to find on websites such as Yi Bei. Be careful not to bend the fiber bundle excessively when using the fiber lamp, otherwise the glass fiber inside may break.

9.light box

When taking macro photography in the studio, it is very effective to use small light boxes to shoot transparent or translucent objects, such as leaves and ferns. Ideally, the light source should be the color temperature of sunlight, but you can easily adjust the white balance of the image in the software, especially when you use the RAW format. Once the main body is photographed on the light box, the rest of the light box can be covered with black paper to reduce glare.