Clever use of flash in scenery tourism photography

Lead: For many portrait photographers, lighting is more important than lens and fuselage to some extent. So how do we use it correctly? Below I will bring you some clever use of photographic scenery lights, and interested friends should learn quickly!

Skillful use of scenery and travel photography flash, but I focus on scenery and travel photography. Can I only rely on the weather to eat these two themes, and the lighting is completely useless? That's not necessarily true. When I went out to shoot, there were almost all flashlights and flashlights in my camera bag. Are they mine? Secret weapon? You can always help me when you don't expect it

When I went to Maine, I always wanted to photograph the lobster buoys with local characteristics hanging on the walls of fishermen's homes.

In a small town, I was surprised to find a big wall next to the hotel, which was covered with colorful buoys. However, due to the orientation of the house, it is all in the shadow, not only the color is greatly reduced, but also the texture of buoys and tiles is not shown (see the picture below). The best light in such a scene is that the sunrise or sunset shines from the side, and the warm low-angle light can show the color and texture of the object to the maximum extent. However, unless this wall happens to be parallel to the light angle of sunset or sunrise in that season, it can only be a dream.

Well, nature didn't give me the light I wanted, but I can imitate the first ray of sunshine in the morning with a flash. But flashing directly is not enough. The flash is pale, while the morning sun is warm orange. The flash illuminates the scene in front of the camera, and the rising sun should be tilted from the side at a low angle.

I added an orange color filter CTO (color temperature orange) of 1 and a half CTO to the flash, so that the pale flash with high color temperature becomes the warm color of the sun at the first rising moment.

But what about the direction of light? We can use the off-plane flash.

I used a Canon EX580 flash to manually push the focus as far as possible (to avoid light scattering and make the shadows clearer). The lamp is equipped with a Pocketwizard) FlexTT5 wireless transceiver, and the 5D Mark II camera is equipped with a Pocketwizard MiniTT 1 wireless transmitter. MiniTT 1 Triggers FlexTT5 and flash remotely through radio signals. Compared with infrared trigger, radio signal has strong anti-interference ability and can work in the sun. The biggest advantage is that the transmitter and receiver are invisible to each other and can trigger stably.

I put the camera on a tripod, and then walked to the wall. One hand pointed the flash at the wall from the side, and the other hand pressed the camera remote control and took the following photo. Is there a big difference between light and light?

Authors who often shoot travel films know that editors like photos of accommodation very much, while authors generally hate such boring things as shooting hotel rooms.

A few years ago, when I took my parents to the Caribbean for a cruise, I thought about gaining weight every day and did nothing, so I took photos of the cabin.

In terms of composition, it is difficult for such photos to have anything new. Of course there are exceptions. For example, Karnow, a photographer of National Geographic Traveler, once asked the receptionist to put on a bathrobe and walk around the room when shooting. The effect seems random, but in fact it is carefully arranged and random.

Technically, this kind of photo seems to be taken at will, but it is actually much more difficult than taking scenery. It really needs careful planning to get the effect. The most important thing is that the light ratio in landscape photos is very small, even if there is a little, it is easy to control with GND. But indoor photos are different. During the day, the indoor light ratio is very large, and it is common that the difference between light and dark exceeds 8- 10. If the indoor exposure is normal, the scenery outside the window must be completely overexposed. Under the complex optical structure, it is impossible to control with GND. Of course, you don't care about overexposure, but if you want to show the scenery outside the window, you must find a way.

Professional photographers usually have several indoor shooting methods:

Light up the room with several high-powered flashlights and soft boxes. Obviously, this method is not practical for travel photographers who pursue lightness.

Stick a dimming film on the window. This method is very inconvenient and ineffective for open windows or doors. Few people use this method if they don't shoot videos.

HDR. But it is very troublesome, and the effect is often unsatisfactory, and the light penetration at the dividing line between light and dark is also difficult to deal with.

Sooner or later, when the sky is dark and the inside and outside are almost the same. This method is the most convenient, but it takes a lot of time, and it only takes about 20-30 minutes to get results, and the action must be quick.

I decided to use the last method until it was dark and the light ratio inside and outside the cabin was not much different.

The problem is that at this time, either the sun has set, or the direction of the boat is not suitable, and there is no sunshine on the balcony, the romantic atmosphere will be lost and the effect will be much worse. What should we do?

I decided to use a flash to simulate sunlight. I installed 1.5 CTO the EX580. This time, I'm not going to cook a particularly warm "The Last Sunset". If CTO adds the white balance of sunshine, the problem will be solved. But I'm facing mixed light. You need to use a color temperature close to the white balance of incandescent lamps, and the indoor color can be basically correct, but the light of the flash is still too cold. So I added a half CTO to the lamp, with a total of *** 1.5. Of course, the Puwei wireless trigger mentioned above is necessary.

I asked my father to stand on the balcony with EX580, hiding behind the curtain, and slanting the light in the direction of the hatch. He also blocked the light with his hand to prevent the balcony railing from being too bright. When I pressed the shutter indoors, the outdoor flash came on. Note that the camera and flash can't see each other, and the ordinary infrared trigger doesn't work here.

The warm light of the flash looks like the light of the sunset. This small picture can only be seen roughly, and the printed picture has a good effect. In particular, the armrest of the chair and the wine glasses on the small table sparkle in the light.

The picture below is another example of street shooting. It was cloudy and the light was dim, but I wanted to make the result more dramatic and separate the characters from the background. So I put 1/2 CTO on the EX580 flash to imitate the color of the sunset, holding the flash in one hand and the camera in the other, and grabbed the following one. Why not put the flash on the fuselage? Because I really don't like the effect of frontal flash. That's why I almost never use the overhead flash.

When shooting scenery films, the flash can also be used to fill the light for natural scenery. The following photo of the Mona Lake fire is an example.

Even if the fire started in the afternoon, the clouds formed by the smoke were spectacular, but I knew I had to wait until dusk to let the fire show before I could really start taking pictures. The one below? Lake of fire? I waited until it was completely dark. It was so dark that I could hardly see anything around me. The raging fire became the only light source at that time. At dusk, there is no interference from the blue sky light, and the sky is reflected red. This may be the best time to shoot the fire. The photo itself is exposed for 2 minutes. Because it is a backlight, in order to show the texture of the foreground, Canon 580EX+ 1/2 CTO filter was used for manual flashing several times during exposure.

Set fire to the sky

The flash is suitable for filling the large-area foreground with light. If you want to fill a small area with light accurately, it is more convenient and appropriate to use a flashlight than a flash. The starfish and rocks in the foreground in the following "Star of the Sea" and "Heart of the Sea" are painted with small hands. Note that this technique can only be used during long exposure, because you need to carefully control the irradiation range of flash light during long exposure.

In addition to the above themes, flashlights or flashlights can also show their talents when shooting night and starry sky scenery. For example, the tent under the starry sky below (my first photo of the picture worm) used a flash and a warm color filter in the tent for lighting during the long exposure.

This is the basic idea of using flash in landscape and tourism photography. As long as you master the basic methods, the rest depends on your imagination.