Photography Practice of Various Themes —— The most complete introduction of shooting skills (7)

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Photography Practice of Various Themes —— The most complete introduction of shooting skills (7)

# Photography Skills # # Photography Creation Group # # Photography Group # # Photography Tourism Group #

Fireworks shooting skills

Bright fireworks have always been one of photographers' favorite shooting themes. Fireworks usually appear in festivals or celebrations. Colorful fireworks are blooming in the night sky, and we often record this wonderful moment with excitement and joy.

Fireworks are the most moving and difficult subject in landscape photography. Fireworks are beautiful and difficult to shoot, which may be everyone's greatest feeling. If you lack experience, it is difficult to grasp, and the probability of scrapping is relatively high. Fireworks photography is a challenging but not impossible task. In order to take a good photo, we usually have to make full preparations in advance. First of all, we should know the place where the fireworks are set off, the characteristics of the surrounding environment, the weather and so on. , so as to choose the appropriate shooting position.

When setting off fireworks, we should pay attention to the following points:

1. Thick smoke has a great influence on fireworks, because it will produce smoke that is not easy to disperse after fireworks are set off. If the smoke does not disperse as soon as possible, it will reduce or even block the effect of the next fireworks display. So you have to wait for the first batch of fireworks to be discharged, and immediately seize the best opportunity to shoot, which will be conducive to the performance of fireworks.

2. The weather conditions on the day of shooting will also have a key impact on the shooting of fireworks. Pay attention to the wind direction and wind conditions on the day of shooting. Windy weather is good weather for setting off fireworks, but if the wind is not enough or too strong, it will affect the effect of setting off fireworks. When shooting, you should also pay attention to avoid the tuyere, and don't shoot in the headwind and downwind. When the wind blows against you, the smoke from fireworks will float in front of you, which will affect your sight. If the wind is downwind, white smoke will become the background behind the fireworks, which will affect the effect of the fireworks.

3. Fireworks photography can be taken at a distance of tens of meters or a kilometer. The choice of position and angle depends on your own preferences. If possible, it is recommended not to get too close, because setting off the ground will produce a lot of smoke, which will affect the line of sight and make the shooting picture unclear. Moreover, it is difficult to capture the whole picture of fireworks bloom at close range, but the vision is clear at a farther position. The above picture shows the effect of fireworks shot in different positions for your reference.

4. Shooting fireworks can be done vertically or horizontally. Vertical composition is mainly suitable for shooting the blooming trajectory of a single fireworks and the gorgeous effect of blasting in the sky, so when you want to show the flight trajectory of fireworks, vertical shooting is a better composition method in most cases. Horizontal composition is mainly suitable for shooting multiple combinations of fireworks or scenery, and the surrounding environment needs to be integrated into the picture when shooting. If you only shoot the moment when fireworks explode, or the effect of many fireworks exploding at the same time, you should also choose horizontal shooting.

5. In the face of fleeting fireworks, the focus of the camera may not be focused when using autofocus. At this time, you can try to focus the ground scene accurately with the same focal plane, and then switch the AF function to manual focusing mode (MF) to fix the focus. This focusing technique is a very common way to shoot fireworks. It should be noted that it should be played back immediately after shooting to confirm the focusing situation, so as to avoid accidentally touching the focusing ring and causing influence.

6. Due to the different types and sizes of fireworks, the time of their air discharge is also very different. From a few seconds to dozens of seconds. The choice of shutter speed will have a great influence on the formation of fireworks. If you shoot with 1/60 seconds or 1/250 seconds, the scattered fireworks will form a dot effect. If it takes 3 seconds or 5 seconds to shoot fireworks, the fireworks with a long discharge process will form an outward light effect in the picture, which is generally just right.

7. The shutter speed for shooting fireworks is the easiest to control when the shutter speed is set to B-door. Open the shutter at the moment of discharge, and end the shutter after discharge. Although the use of door B can control the whole process of fireworks rising and blooming more flexibly and accurately, it is not easy to control the exposure time during this period, which will cause the problem of inaccurate exposure. Too long exposure time will lead to too many overlapping fireworks beams in the meeting, which will lead to overexposure of fireworks. But for the shooting of fireworks, the accuracy of exposure is not too critical, and how to show a bright and warm scene is more important.

8. A lens with a focal length of 16-200mm is suitable for shooting fireworks, mainly depending on whether you want to highlight the blooming form of fireworks or bring the surrounding environment into the picture. In most cases, it is recommended that you use a zoom lens to shoot fireworks, because it can freely adjust the composition without changing the shooting location. Different focal lengths can be selected according to different shooting distances and viewing angles, such as 16-35mm, 24-70mm (commonly used), 70-200mm and so on.

9. It is recommended to shoot fireworks in full manual exposure mode, that is, M block. The exposure time is usually about 3-5 seconds. Try to match the time when fireworks bloom. Exposure can be adjusted by adjusting aperture size and fireworks type. For example, some fireworks are dark and some are bright, so they should be used flexibly when shooting.

10. During exposure, in order to make the sky darker, the fireworks are more prominent and brighter. We can deliberately reduce the exposure of 2-3 files. Insufficient exposure will make the dark details inconspicuous and cover up the noise. In addition, intentional underexposure can better show the charm of fireworks.

1 1. We can use F8 F8-F 1 1+0 to adjust the aperture of shooting fireworks, and the blooming fireworks colors can be completely preserved without overexposure. If you use a larger aperture, not only the color of fireworks may turn white, but also the ambient light sources such as street and building lights are easily overexposed, and the shooting effect will not be very good. If we use a small aperture, such as F 16 or F22, we will have to set a long exposure time. If the exposure time is too long, the fireworks will be piled up too densely, which will affect the shape of fireworks and easily lead to overexposure of fireworks. If a small aperture such as F32 is used, diffraction will occur, resulting in a decrease in sharpness and poor image quality.

12. The fireworks in full bloom are very bright, and too high sensitivity may overexpose the fireworks. In many cases, ISO 100 to ISO400, with a medium aperture, is basically enough for most fireworks shooting. Due to the great contrast between the dark sky and the bright fireworks, please do not use the "automatic sensitivity" setting, which must be noted!

14. If there is a landmark building in the composition, the brightness of the building will be lower than that of the fireworks. If you want to take a picture with the same brightness as the fireworks, you can take a picture before the fireworks are set off at night, and then pay attention to the tripod and camera without any displacement. Take another photo when there are fireworks, and then combine the two photos later. This is a common way to shoot fireworks at night. It is worth noting that when shooting buildings on the ground, enough space should be reserved in the picture for fireworks to take off and unfold.

15. It is recommended that you use a zoom lens when shooting fireworks. The advantage is that you can try to turn the zoom ring when you are exposed, which will give you an unexpected and very visual impact. This operation must be well timed. It is suggested to put the blooming fireworks in the center of the picture and then stretch the lens. Pulling the zoom ring from the telephoto end to the wide-angle end can make the light produce an explosion-like effect. The faster the zoom ring rotates, the more beautiful the light trajectory will be. Besides, there is another way to shoot the special effects of fireworks. Use a telephoto lens to adjust the focal length from sharp to fuzzy. It is best to shoot close to the head. At the same time of exposure, adjust the manual focus ring to produce a dreamy effect. These methods belong to creative fireworks shooting, which is the sublimation of fireworks shooting technology and skills.

16. Shooting fireworks also needs to introduce the soul artifact of fireworks photography-black card. By covering the lens and simulating multiple exposure effects, many fireworks in the sky can be photographed. It's just that using black cards requires skilled experience. Briefly introduce the specific operation: set the camera to door B. When the fireworks are about to be set off, we can open the shutter and cover the lens with a black card (pay attention to remove the hood), just like the shutter is closed, but when the fireworks are about to explode, we will quickly take the black card away for exposure. Immediately after the shooting of this fireworks, cover your lens with a black card and move the camera slightly horizontally. When the next fireworks appear, take off the black card immediately. By repeating the same operation, multiple fireworks can appear in the same picture. But one thing to know! This method is only suitable for shooting close-ups of fireworks in the sky. If there are scenes in the composition, you need to pay attention to the overlap of ground scenes. However, this problem can be easily solved by post-processing. With the development of digital technology, although the method of "shaking black cards" is gradually replaced by the way of post-superposition, some photos synthesized in the middle and late stages of competitions are not allowed, so the method of shaking black cards is still valuable.

17. When shooting fireworks by hand, there is a risk of blurring when using an exposure time of more than 3 seconds, because it is difficult for the human body to remain still for that long. So when using a slow shutter, you must use a tripod to shoot. If the lens has anti-shake function, it needs to be turned off when shooting fireworks with a tripod. In addition to using a tripod, it should be noted that when shooting fireworks, the strong light of fireworks can easily cause random reflection of light between the filter and other lenses, resulting in ghost and glare. Therefore, when shooting fireworks, please try to remove all the filters including the UV mirror.

18. The most important thing in shooting fireworks is shooting in RAW format! The later adjustable range can be wider. Taking RAW photos is more conducive to the post-processing of fireworks photos. For example, properly restore the bright details of fireworks, more accurate color reproduction and so on. But when shooting, try to ensure the normal exposure of the fireworks subject. You should know that even in RAW format, the ability to repair highlights in post-processing is weak.

19. We can use Photoshop to superimpose multiple photos of fireworks to shoot fireworks, which can make the area of fireworks look bigger and more numerous. Photoshop selects file script statistics, opens the fireworks photos taken, selects the average value, and then clicks OK. Finally, you can get a satisfactory composite photo of fireworks, and there will be overlapping problems when overlapping, so you should pay attention to controlling the position of each fireworks when shooting.

20. Fireworks photography is a very challenging topic. The above fireworks shooting skills are just some constructive suggestions, which can be used as your reference for shooting fireworks, mainly depending on your shooting type and what you want to express. But excellent works come from constant trial and experiment, and you should explore constantly in practice and find out the solution to the problem. These skills are worth a try, hoping to improve your level of shooting fireworks.

to be continued ...