How to shoot the lotus?

Where there is water, there are many lotuses. In midsummer, the branches and green stems of lotus flowers stand on the mirror-like water with their noble and straight posture; For example, on the green leaves of umbrellas, patches of lotus flowers, such as snow clouds and rouge, suddenly appear. It's a strange pink with pink in white and red in pink. Flowers in bud always have a feeling of shame, which makes people happy when they see them. Flowers in bud always have a sense of shame (source: eLong blogger Li Zhonghai). Flowers in bud always have a sense of shame (source: eLong blogger Li Zhonghai). Flowers in bud always have a sense of shame (source: eLong blogger Li Zhonghai). When I saw the lotus flower on TV as a sign to bid farewell to summer, I felt a little bit. It is still a good season to shoot lotus flowers, and you can also see photographers with red circles and white guns in the park. How can we make this proud lotus more beautiful? What else can we shoot later? Just take out the film taken in Yuanmingyuan two days ago and share it with you. There are many kinds of lotus flowers, and their flower shapes are different when they bloom. Observe them carefully before shooting and make a careful and meticulous idea. We can't shoot them when we see them. As a result, I took a lot of photos, but not much useful. In the choice, you can choose the bud in bud and stop standing; You can also choose to shoot when it is in full bloom; You can also choose a flower shape with petals falling off. Sometimes the residual lotus is more artistic and interesting than the blooming lotus. You also need to pay attention to the shooting angle when choosing. Generally speaking, there are low-angle pitching, high-angle pitching and horizontal-angle pitching. Using low-angle backhand can show the high-purity quality of lotus. Using high-angle aerial photography, green lotus leaves float on the water, and lotus flowers decorate them, which can well show the number of petals and the shape and color of the flower core. When shooting horizontally, we should pay attention to the arrangement of the picture. If there is water, it is best to take the reflection of the lotus flower into the picture together. The reflection and lotus flower are symmetrical up and down, which set each other off into interest. Shooting lotus flowers can show the whole picture of a lotus flower, give the audience a direct and complete visual impression, and also let the lotus leaves cover some petals, which can arouse the audience's association and be more interesting. In the determination of picture format, vertical frame format is often used to show the noble character of lotus; Sometimes the horizontal frame format is also used. When using horizontal frame format, we must pay attention to the shape of lotus leaves and stems, otherwise it is difficult to get good results. 1. Before the use of light, the light side backlight shoots lotus flowers. The inverted light is better, and these light levels can well show the noble and exquisite charm of lotus flowers. Pay attention to the adjustment of light ratio when shooting, and its light ratio should not be too large. One way to adjust the light ratio is to make full use of the reflected light in the shooting environment; The second is to fill the dark part of the lotus with a reflector or an electronic flash. 2. Pay attention to the shooting time. Shooting lotus flowers during the day is better in the morning. In the afternoon, the flowers began to shrink gradually, and in the evening, they shrank completely. It is difficult to shoot the ideal lotus at this time. Advanced skills of lotus photography 1. Make full use of leaves. Lotus is not only beautiful, but also leaves are quite aesthetic, so we should make full use of leaves to make a composition when shooting. Take the leaves as the leading role and arrange the flowers in the appropriate position for artistic creation. In order to achieve a more concise composition, with the help of the huge leaves of lotus, safflower is the finishing touch in the picture. This kind of scene can be exposed according to the brightness of leaves, and better color reproduction can be obtained. 2. Keep the background simple. The line of the lotus itself is very simple, whether it is flowers, leaves or stems, it is simple, so it should be simple according to its characteristics when shooting. Often the simpler the composition, the better the picture effect. Generally, the purpose can be achieved by choosing the right background. When backlighting, you can use the shadows of trees or other lotus leaves by the pond to get a dark contrast effect. If the photographer is convenient to get close to the lotus, he can also squat on the shore and shoot with the sky as the background, then he can get a faint background effect. But as far as digital photography is concerned, while considering simple composition, we should also arrange the content we need relatively completely, because the redundant content can be trimmed and removed in the later stage, and it is more troublesome to find that the content is incomplete when it needs to be modified. 3. Use decorations reasonably. When you shoot lotus flowers, you can often see dragonflies perched on them. In fact, the dragonfly lotus can be said to be a perfect match. With the embellishment of dragonflies, the lotus will appear more vibrant. Don't approach the dragonfly quickly if you find it. It is best to set the exposure of the camera in advance, adjust the focal length to the telephoto end, and then gradually draw closer. Once the dragonfly is frightened and flies away, don't be discouraged, just wait, because the dragonfly will fly back to its original habitat in the future. After watching a shot, as long as you have enough patience, it is entirely possible to shoot successfully. Of course, making full use of continuous shooting's functions will also achieve good results (such as snapshot king 7D and 1DIV). Some people like to take pictures of bees flying on flowers. When shooting such content, we should pay special attention to the position and proportion of bees on the flowers, because the lotus is very big and the bees are very small. If the position and shape are not suitable, it will give people a feeling that flowers are stuck with garbage, which is actually not beautiful. 4. Sprinkle water on the flowers scientifically. Some people like to sprinkle water on lotus flowers and take pictures of dew condensation on petals. In fact, the petals of lotus are very thin, and the blooming flowers will sink because of the weight of water, giving people a feeling of decline, but the image is not good. In addition to properly sprinkling water on the budding buds, sprinkling water on the petals may not be effective. In fact, lotus leaves can't stick to water at all. If you sprinkle water manually, it will roll down immediately. The only way to shoot the lotus leaf "like pearls pouring into a plate of jade" is after the rain. If it rains that night, you can pat the water drops on the leaves the next morning. 5. Shoot all kinds of "parts". Shooting lotus flowers is actually a natural composition of flowers, and it is a different combination of lotus leaves, buds and lotus buds. The advantage of using a digital camera is that you can shoot different "parts" according to your own needs, and finally integrate them into a satisfactory picture according to your own needs. Because flower photography belongs to artistic creation, you can completely let go of your hands and feet to achieve the effect that life is higher than life. People who are interested in collecting materials can consciously photograph some relatively independent and complete leaves, flowers that meet the needs, buds of various shapes, lotus, etc. When shooting, it is best to pay attention to the directionality of light, there is no messy ambient light, and at the same time, pay attention to avoiding the content of inconsistent light, and avoid problems such as shadows and uncoordinated projection. After you have a lot of material, you will feel comfortable when dealing with pictures in the future. 6. Don't worry about minor shortcomings. Natural growth of lotus is often difficult to achieve perfection, and sometimes it is inevitable that there will be such small shortcomings, especially lotus leaves often appear spots, small creases or insect bites of different colors for various reasons. If you used to shoot with a traditional camera, even if the other content was good, the photographer would try his best to avoid these defects and give up shooting. You don't have to worry about these flaws when shooting with a digital camera, because it is easy to modify these small flaws with a "rubber stamp" later. Therefore, friends who are transitioning from traditional cameras to digital cameras should pay special attention to changing their concepts. When shooting, they should not only consider the one-time success rate of pressing the shutter, but also consider the factors of later revision, and don't care too much about the defects that can be fixed, so that you will feel more comfortable when shooting. 7. About metering and exposure. Even if you use a digital camera, you should pay attention to accurate exposure when shooting. Generally speaking, there are big scenes, middle scenes, close-ups and so on. When shooting a big scene, you can automatically expose it according to the average metering of the camera, which is generally no problem, because the brightness of red or pink lotus flowers is similar to that of leaves. It is not a big problem to follow the camera instructions when shooting the middle scene, and relatively accurate exposure can be obtained according to the brightness exposure of leaves; If you take a close-up, you can directly measure flowers with the help of spot metering or central key metering (SLR cameras with better spot metering have them, while top-class machines like Canon 1D/ 1DS series also have multi-spot metering, which is more convenient to shoot with ambush focusing), and the exposure effect is better according to the brightness of the subject. Be flexible when shooting complex objects. 8. Use light flexibly. Experienced photographers attach great importance to the use of light in flower photography, and most of them like to use backlight or side backlight to express flowers, which is not unreasonable. However, the characteristics of lotus flowers are a bit like sunflowers, with obvious phototaxis, and the front faces the sun, so the good side of flowers is often illuminated by sunlight, while the flowers with side light or backlight can only capture the side or even the back of flowers, and the flowers with good light and shadow effects are often poorly shaped. Therefore, it is necessary to observe the scene in an all-round way and use the light flexibly according to the actual situation. Moreover, the lotus blooms most vigorously every morning. Near noon, the flowers will fade gradually, and there are almost no blooming lotus flowers in the afternoon. Therefore, when you see flowers with the right shape and light, you should shoot them in time and don't delay the opportunity. As long as you have enough power, you can constantly select good materials in the process of continuous shooting. 9. Use macro to shoot details (my Budweiser and New Budweiser are good choices for this kind of shooting). As far as popular digital cameras are concerned, they may not have greater advantages than traditional photography when shooting lotus flowers with long focal length, because most photographers of traditional cameras have 200mm telephoto lenses. When the popular digital cameras reach the focal length equivalent to 200mm, almost all of them enter digital zoom, which obviously affects the imaging quality. Therefore, we should pay attention to foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, and may wish to use macro shooting more. As long as you are close enough to the lotus, it is also very effective to take close-ups of details such as the stamens and water drops on the stamens. In particular, the stamens of some lotus flowers are very bright in color, such as light yellow, light green and light pink, which are quite distinctive. In addition, the vein of petals can also be carefully described, reflecting the beauty of lotus flowers in all directions. 10. Pay attention to the performance of individuals and groups. General photographers often only pay attention to shooting local scenes when shooting lotus flowers. The close-ups of flowers are the most, but there are few middle scenes and fewer big scenes. In fact, to express the scenery of the lotus pond, we need some content that combines point with surface, because the lotus pond green like this has special aesthetic value. If the photographer is interested, he can find a shooting spot and take four different photos at different times of the year, which will be very interesting. Try to shoot the lotus from multiple angles. Generally, shooting lotus flowers is carried out at a long distance, and it is often necessary to use a telephoto lens. This is because of the growth environment of lotus. In fact, we should broaden our thinking and constantly seek new ideas when shooting lotus flowers, and we must not be limited to shooting close-ups. 1. elevation shooting has a unique flavor. In order to get a simple background, put the camera under the lotus leaf to take a picture. To prevent exposure errors, you need to set the camera to spot metering. When shooting, aim at the lotus for photometry and focus, and then move the camera to re-compose. According to my own experience, in order to prevent the influence of the sky on the exposure, the shooting mode is generally set to "M". If normal exposure is followed, it will definitely lead to underexposure. In fact, this composition with the sky as the background also has its own advantages. For example, you can decolor it and make it into a black-and-white photo, then arrange appropriate inscriptions and seals in appropriate places, and then use various special effects to form an ink effect of Chinese painting. 2. Macro photography is finely carved. When you are very close to the lotus, if you carefully observe the lotus, you will find that the color in the stamens is quite soft, the structure is very complicated, and each stamen is elegant and warm. Using macro mode, the lens of digital camera can shoot the flower bud directly. This is difficult to meet when shooting lotus flowers. As can be seen from the lens, there are delicate tissues and rich subtle colors in the hollow buds. Due to the refraction of petals, the inside of the bud is warm orange-red, and with yellow and white stamens, the color is harmonious and full of vitality. Because the depth of field of macro photography is very small, you can only choose a certain range when focusing. Conditional friends can also spray some small water drops on petals or buds according to their own needs, which will give people a more nuanced feeling when enjoying macro photography. 3. Reflect the wild interest with a wide angle. Take some outdoor photos of the lotus growing environment, and it is best not to make people think that they were taken in the park with a strong salon flavor. Because the general photographer's mind will take big close-ups and other photos, in fact, those photos that can reflect the wild characteristics of lotus growth will also have very good results. In the shooting, a medium-focus lens and a wide-angle lens are used, and the lotus leaf and the overall ecological environment characteristics are the main performance objects. At the same time, properly decorate weeds such as duckweed and Alternanthera philoxeroides on the water surface. When shooting, we should also pay attention to avoiding the reflection of people on the water and try to achieve the effect of shooting in no man's land. From the picture, there is indeed some wildness. Usually, the lotus leaf is mainly the lotus flower. In fact, it is also very interesting to shoot lotus leaves, because lotus leaves are ever-changing and have various customs. Therefore, it is suggested that you shoot them with a wide-angle lens when necessary, and you will definitely have a new feeling. (Author: Xiaoji, blogger of Yilong) Recommended place to enjoy lotus: Shanghai, * * * Green Forest Park There are not many kinds of lotus in the lotus pond of Shanghai * * Green Forest Park, but it attracts many passers-by to watch, smiling faces, bursts of admiration and laughter echoing over the lotus pond. When the lotus is in full bloom, the south wind slowly sends bursts of lotus fragrance, and the fragrance is refreshing. Shanghai Qing National Forest Park is located at No.2000, Simon Road, Yangpu District, northeast of Shanghai. The park is divided into North Park and South Park. Besides sightseeing, tourists can also ride horses, barbecue and fish in the park, which is a good place for holiday travel.