Creative night photography skills

Lead: Shooting night scenes is not an easy task in itself. Light is the soul of photography, and the light conditions at night are complex and changeable. It is not easy to control the light accurately and reasonably, and it is even more difficult to innovate and change on this basis. In fact, creativity is not difficult, and you can get different night scenes with more care.

What is the basis for shooting creative night scenes? Night exposure is the key

Preserve image details by exposure

Exposure can be described as a technical activity of photography, so when doing this step, we must treat it carefully. Adjust the exposure parameters according to the requirements of different light, different scenes and different themes.

Simple and feasible method for beginners? Use scene mode

Complex light factors increase the difficulty of accurate exposure.

If you are a novice photographer and don't have much experience and grasp in shooting night scenes, you can adjust the night scene mode to shoot. Some cameras also provide more scene modes, which you can adjust according to the lighting conditions at night or late at night. When adjusting the scene mode, pay attention to the flashing lights. For most novices, this method is simple, feasible and very safe.

If you already know something about exposure, you can pay attention to the following details to get more ideal photos.

If the night scene is underexposed, the outline of the scene will be unclear and the whole scene will lack a sense of hierarchy. Except for the brighter lights, the rest will be covered with black tones. If the night scene is overexposed, the over-bright part will spread around, which will make the contrast of the picture too large and destroy the light and shadow effect and atmosphere of the night scene.

Don't let the night shine dark.

In general, the exposure time for shooting night scenes is more than one second, and in some special cases, the exposure time is longer. To ensure the picture quality, a tripod is naturally essential.

Adjust the exposure time according to the lighting effect.

When mastering exposure, we can separate scenes such as light intensity, so that the darkest scene is exposed more first, and the brightest scene is exposed later and less, which can make up for the uneven exposure.

In some cases, because the light is too strong or too weak, this problem cannot be avoided when shooting, and it can be balanced by blocking later.

How to create? Fractional exposure

Technically speaking, multiple exposures will only be used if one exposure cannot complete shooting. In addition, multiple exposures are also a good creative way.

By controlling the image presentation later

When shooting at night, the ambient light is weak and the picture elements are in great contrast, so it is difficult to unify. Due to the characteristics of electronic photosensitive elements, it is technically limited, especially in the performance of dark details. Multiple exposure is undoubtedly a good way to solve this problem. If you can't master the technology of multiple exposures in the early stage, you can also complete it in the later stage.

Post-synthesis of multiple exposure results.

Multiple exposure portrait works

Simply put, take a photo when the light is still good before nightfall, keep the original focal length unchanged, and take another photo when the parameters are unchanged at night, and the two photos will be combined. In this way, it is convenient to obtain high-quality night photos. Using this method in portrait shooting at night can make you get beautiful and excellent works.

How to create? Autonomous white balance

Compared with traditional cameras, white balance is a new skill of digital cameras, which can adjust the color of the whole image through built-in programs. Do not underestimate the white balance function. Custom white balance is a good weapon for creative pictures.

Change the color in the impression

Adjust white balance

Because of the light at night, the color is far less abundant than during the day. If you use automatic white balance adjustment when shooting, you will lose the gorgeous color of the scene. Custom white balance not only solves this problem, but also opens up a broader space for creation.

The color of the night scene? Timing is very important.

The light conditions at night are very dark, but there is no lack of color because of the dark light conditions, so it is very important to record the colors and details in the night sky.

Keep the night view of the city at night.

When the light just came on.

Urban night scene

Evening is the best time to shoot. During this time, the sky will show a strange color, and the contrast between the sky and other objects will not be so strong, so it looks more harmonious. If you are in a city, it is easier to seize such a shooting opportunity. Seeing the lights on the street and the light boxes upstairs lit up, I started shooting.

Turn concreteness into abstraction under light and shadow.

Light and shadow are undoubtedly the necessary conditions for creation. When night comes, in addition to natural light, artificial light should be added. Compared with natural light, artificial light lacks a softness, but it has more colors and expressions.

Abstract expression of light reflection

Light and shadow cooperate with water surface to produce multiple changes.

Give up real-life shooting

There are many wonderful elements in the seemingly similar night scenes. We can try to get rid of the large and comprehensive framing method and make the framing range smaller. For example, we can abandon the mirror image effect of the city night scene recorded in the past and the reflection of the water surface, leaving only colorful small halos on the water surface to present different deformations, giving viewers unlimited reverie.

In addition to making full use of the existing conditions, adding simple additional conditions can bring a unique and wonderful image.

The stimulation of extra light

Night is a lack of light for filmmakers, but it can simplify the background, get a simple and unified background, and make the details of the foreground subject more fully expressed. This contrast effect can not only fully express the beauty of the details of the subject, but also make the whole image look more layered.

Keep the details of potential customers.

The way to achieve this effect is also very simple, a high-power flashlight will do. Compared with the flashlight, the light effect of the flashlight can be adjusted in time, and the projection angle and intensity of light (which can be achieved by adjusting the distance from the object to be photographed) can match the foreground. If you can, you can try to use multiple flashlights with color cards to project light from multiple angles, so as to obtain a unique light and shadow effect.