How to take beautiful portrait photos with neon lights?

The use of neon lights can make people have a fantastic sense of the future like photos. The following is our introduction to the shooting skills of neon lights, which can help to shoot beautiful people with neon lights, including suggestions on the most suitable settings for shooting with neon lights.

First, understand outdoor lighting.

"To be a good photographer using artificial light, you need to be a good photographer under natural light."

First, decide what kind of lighting to use in the shooting process-natural, LED, modified or mixed-all of which have their own unique functions and challenges.

Being able to assess the surrounding environment before shooting is the key to success. Before shooting, the first thing to do is to evaluate the environment.

Second, choose a neon background.

Nowadays, the ubiquitous neon signs can be seen everywhere. No matter where you look, it is hard to resist the temptation to photograph them all. Be careful when choosing your own background, so that you have a chance to pay attention to quality rather than quantity.

When we shot in a huge pink mirror ball background, we were very satisfied with the foreground shot-he separated it from the background. However, the green exit indicator in the background will destroy the color scheme, so it must be deleted in the final processing.

Please pay attention to the following points and concentrate on shooting:

Where should I shine the light?

Don't want the lights to fall?

What mood do you want to convey?

Can I realize my dream?

Third, reflect your intentions.

These photos show us some shooting skills and strike a balance between artificial light on objects and well-exposed external lighting in the environment. By using light to form different colors, we can reduce the spread of light in a wider range of people.

If the light falls on the floor, it may distract you if you try to highlight the object with a portrait. Correcting these details means that you can modify the light before you start shooting.

Choosing the right background for the model is a very important parameter for shooting with neon lights-the right clothes will help to create a harmonious color scheme. Sunglasses are an excellent accessory for shooting portraits with neon lights because they can capture reflections.

Fourth, pay attention to skin color.

Check the white balance first. When shooting with neon background, it is easy to be distracted by composition, and the model is too close to neon. This will cause facial reflection to be too bright. This problem can be avoided if you carefully consider where to place the model.

Another way to solve this problem is to use the color temperature of the indicator light. All Rotolight devices (NEO 2, AEOS and ANOVA Pro2) can easily adjust the color temperature by rotating the dial once, and accurately display it on the rear display screen. Depending on the situation, it is convenient to keep warm or vice versa.

This is especially effective for mirrorless cameras because the results can be seen in real time.

5. How to balance the exposure of neon lights to portraits?

Measure that external exposure first-this will provide the necessary aperture and shutt settings.

To control the power of drawing light incident on the model's face, it is only necessary to adjust the exposure or power of the lighting equipment, or move the lighting equipment closer to or away from the subject. LED can get close to the subject without overexposure-in this case, the scattered light from a large number of small bulbs will help.

A good way to get the required exposure on the light source is to turn the brightness to the maximum, but don't let the model squint. The human eye itself is a complex aperture. If the brightness is too strong, your model will not only look ugly and uncomfortable (which will affect your final shooting result), but also her face will be overexposed.

6. Separate the portrait from the background.

To separate the portrait from the background, we need to consider the distance, focal length and aperture to get the correct depth of field.

Shoot with Canon EOS R and Canon EF 85mm f/ 1.2 lens. After specially selecting the lens, the shooting effect of neon light can be obtained. The focal length of 85mm is very suitable for increasing the compression effect and helping to make the subject stand out from the background.

When shooting with neon lights as the background, the distance between the subject and the background can be changed according to the type of image to be obtained. For close-up portraits, a short distance helps to achieve a pleasant shooting effect. If there is no external light source, the distance from the light source can be shortened, but please be careful not to let the neon light emit strong color glare. This applies to shooting in the street, for example, in the background of a storefront.

Seven, the best setting of shooting effect

Of course, the final chord is the choice of aperture. Look at the photos below; We are all satisfied with the arrangement and composition, but because we chose f/5.6 shooting, the whole plot seems overloaded because the background is not separated enough.

The photos are all taken with the setting of f/ 1.4, which helps to achieve the desired shooting effect.

Neon light shooting process settings:

1, you need to know the surrounding light when shooting.

Before shooting, you need to know what kind of effect you want to achieve.

3. Choose the background to avoid confusion.

Step 4 consider skin color and white balance

5, balance the picture exposure

6. Shoot wide images and add compression to achieve excellent shooting results.