Basic skills of flower photography

Beginners of photography usually start from practicing landscapes, flowers, still life and so on. Now, let's talk about some common flower shooting skills. Compared with photographing people and scenery, photographing flowers is also the easiest photographic subject to use.

Since it is a flower, it is natural to choose the right flower. Or delicate and charming, or in bud. In a word, only flowers can take exciting and good photos. But there are exceptions, such as "residual load" means loneliness and "withering" means a dead heart.

In addition to choosing a good subject, the timing of shooting is particularly important. Because flowers are the most beautiful in nature only when they are in full bloom, we mainly rely on natural light for outdoor shooting. And with the different time, the form of natural light is also different. It is best to shoot in natural light within two hours after sunrise. At this time, the lighting is ideal and the modeling effect is good.

Generally speaking, we don't choose to shoot flowers at noon, mainly because the light at noon is vertical, and the light is projected on the top of the flowers, and the front side receives less light, resulting in large contrast, lack of layering, poor color reproduction effect of flowers, high color temperature and easy to take blue photos.

From the perspective of lighting, the lighting angle of natural light is usually divided into five types. Namely front light, side light, back light, top light and scattered light. Scattered light and backlight are more suitable for taking pictures. Shooting with scattered light is because it is flexible, not limited by the directionality of light source, with uniform light receiving surface, soft color tone and moderate contrast. If you choose astigmatism after rain, the flowers look fresh and attractive. Using backlight photography, the objects illuminated from the back can be eliminated and the outline of flowers can be clearly outlined. The modeling effect of light is good. If the petals are thin, they will be transparent or translucent, which will show the texture, hierarchy and texture of flowers more delicately.

For scattered light shooting, photometry is generally not a big problem. For a machine with a little metering, as long as the metering point is placed on the subject, you can basically get the correct exposure. For some machines that have no point metering but can only use average metering, the following measures can be taken:

Close measurement: Get close to the subject to fill the frame as much as possible. At this time, it doesn't matter whether the subject is in focus or not, because it has little effect on the photometric value. However, it should be noted that when measuring near, don't block the light that illuminates the subject, which will cause the change of illuminance and the error of luminosity.

Substitution method: a medium gray object is placed next to the subject or under the same lighting conditions as the subject to replace the subject that is too small to measure light. Kodak 18% gray board is the first medium gray object (but the price is higher, a set is about 180 yuan, made of cardboard). The first alternative is the back of the hand, or you can rush the back of the hand to the camera to measure the reflected light of the back of the hand.

If you want to shoot special effects with backlight, you must use a machine with spot metering to measure the shooting theme. When using this light source, you should pay special attention to the fact that flowers must be full of light and set off with a dark background, so as to show the image of flowers more prominently. For us DC, we should pay more attention to the adjustment of EV value when shooting such works. This basically follows the principle that the background is too bright, the EV value is increased, the background is too dark, and the EV value is decreased.

In composition, flower photography is the most exquisite type of photography. Generally, shooting follows the golden section rule, such as dividing the whole picture according to tic-tac-toe, and putting the points of interest at an intersection. However, because of different needs, and even different aesthetics, everyone will have different preferences in composition. Appreciating other people's excellent works and watching more movies can quickly improve your composition level.

Two important considerations in composition:

Imaging size: a flower photography, the position of flowers in the whole picture, belongs to perspective and contrast in composition. The configuration of the picture and the choice of flowers depend on the photographer's creative intention. Whole or close-up photography occupies different positions in the picture, which should not only highlight the main body, but also be sparse and dense to prevent distraction and confusion.

Angle: Angle refers to the angle formed when the straight line between the camera and the flower is associated with the horizontal line of sight or vertical line of the political party. Prone shooting, back shooting, left-leaning shooting and right-leaning shooting all form different shooting angles. A slight change in the angle will also have an impact on the composition, so in order to choose a suitable shooting angle, we will spare no time and energy to elaborate. Generally speaking, flowers are photographed in flower beds or flower beds that are easy to watch, and they are photographed from colorful angles. But sometimes it's not easy to choose the angle to shoot the red cotton on the tree, the lotus in the water and the water lily on the lake. But the more difficult it is to shoot, the more we should try to find the most ideal angle, so as to make a breakthrough and innovate.

A work with excellent composition is not enough to be an excellent work. How to highlight the shooting theme is also a top priority. The contrast between light and shade, the contrast between truth and color, can make photos more exciting by using these harmonies. Among them, the premise of contrast between light and dark is to choose the subject with strong contrast between foreground and background, and use the function of spot metering to accurately measure the subject and accurately judge the exposure of the subject. More importantly, because the subject of this kind of photos is generally outstanding, we should choose the subject with a good sense of situation as the shooting object, otherwise it will not be worth the candle. The contrast between reality and reality is the blur of background. This should be said to be the advantage of digital cameras.

Flowers win by color and by shape, so we should pay attention to the treatment of color in flower photography. A picture of a flower, the tone should be harmonious, not chaotic. Each flower has its own color characteristics, and the hue to be adopted is determined according to different themes, different lighting conditions and different backgrounds. Bright red and green, although dazzling, but handled well, but also gorgeous and pleasing to the eye; Understatement, though plain and properly used, is also elegant, naive and pleasing to the eye. A pair of flower photography must have a main color, whether it is cold or warm, as long as it is used properly, it can be "heavy makeup and light touch".

In fact, these technologies are not complicated and do not require very high-end cameras. As long as you master these skills, plus some care and patience, I believe that even novices can shoot amazing works.