What are the skills of portrait photography?

When it comes to portrait photography, many friends will feel that they often take pictures in their daily lives. However, it seems that when I finally look at my own PP, I always feel something is missing ... Here, I dare to write some personal experience in portrait shooting to share and discuss with you. (mainly for digital computers)

Equipment items

First of all, let's look at the following PP:

The depth of field of PP below is controlled, which effectively blurs the background. Thereby highlighting the portrait part of the subject. To achieve this effect, I suggest not to use an ordinary fool machine. That is to say, use a machine with manual function. The aperture of the lens is preferably more than F2.8, and it is best to have a large zoom of more than 5X. ...

In fact, many DC machines now have many manual functions, which provide us with a lot of convenience for getting started and learning. Why do you need so much equipment? It will be mentioned in our "Technology Application" below. Finally, the machine had better have some focusing and spot metering functions. The purpose of this is to make people's faces easier to be clear and exposed correctly (this is the key to whether your PP can achieve higher quality, of course, this function is generally not available in ordinary consumer-grade DC).

If the economic conditions are better and friends who especially like photography can consider SLR digital SLR cameras. Then choose some lenses with good quality ... this will make the machine completely surpass ordinary DC in function and lens quality (but this is only my personal opinion, whether to use it depends on my own needs and situation)

Shooting skill

Man is the soul of the universe. Different environments, clothes, moods, movements, hairstyles and even light will make the effect fundamentally different ... and the choice of background is also an important part. Try to make the color contrast with the color of the person being photographed, so as to highlight the main part! This is more important!

If you highlight the eyes of the characters, you need to keep the lens at the height of the human eye in order to show charming eyes and charming smiles. However, it is worth mentioning that some friends often like to let the people who are photographed look at the camera. In fact, this is not necessarily the case, and the effect is not necessarily good in many cases. An effect like the figure 1 will produce a more attractive effect and make the photos more attractive.

How can we blur the background and highlight the characters? First of all, we set the camera function key to AV or A (aperture priority) in the manual setting. Then choose F2.8 aperture (if some machines can't reach F2.8, try to increase the aperture); Then it is important to select the functions of spot focusing and spot metering. Then adjust the corresponding focal length (optical zoom part), and then aim at the person's face and press the shutter between the eyes, then you will hear the sound of focusing; At this time, let's stick to it and do the most crucial step-composition. Finally, press the shutter to complete the shooting process.

The parameters of DC must be set correctly. We found that there are many DC white balances and color casts (when using automatic files). If the photographer's color deviates, the whole PP will be ugly, even if we know some digital darkroom skills, it will add a lot of trouble. In addition, some colors are not harmonious, so the later adjustment may not be so easy. Therefore, it must be set before use ... If we know that the DC white balance we are using is color cast, we can use the "white paper" setting method. Detailed reference to the DC specifications of various brands will generally make the color temperature accurately reappear.

As we all know, photographers need the cooperation of light to achieve the best results. In order to choose a beautiful background, it is inevitable that there will be backlight. What should we do at this time? There are several ways to solve this problem: hit the reflector to supplement the light to the person's face or the place where it is photographed; Turn on the flash (it is best to control the flash with TTL or add a soft mask), so that the facial effect of the character will not be too good; Or do this special effect if the character is suitable for the silhouette effect (a photographer with a certain level can consider it). Of course, as a beginner, it is best to avoid shooting against the light, which requires us to fully observe the light source and judge the position before shooting.

Try to use vertical composition method. As can be seen from the PP above, vertical photography makes the characters more expressive! Therefore, it is recommended that beginners learn to use vertical composition more.

Reasonable use of shutter speed. Sometimes we shoot some dynamic PP, but when many friends shoot with AUTO or P files, indoor PP is often blurred. That is, our shutter speed can't keep up ... because the indoor light is seriously insufficient, in order to have enough light to pass, the shutter speed will be extended, so PP is easy to be empty. Generally speaking, the best shutter speed we suggest is1125s, and the indoor shutter speed is above 1/60S. However, when shooting indoors, many DC automatic files or P files often do not have this parameter.

What if many friends don't know how to tune? There is another way for us to improve the speed of ISO. Generally, we use ISO50 or 100, so we can improve the ISO accordingly. In this way, the photosensitive sensitivity of CCD will be improved and the shutter speed will be improved. On the contrary, you can use a lower ISO value, which can slow down the shutter speed and increase the dynamic effect of moving objects. It should be reminded that the higher the sensitivity or ISO number of the camera, the greater the possibility of "noise" in the photo.

If you want to highlight the expressive force of the characters in shooting, you must master the distance between yourself and the characters. To achieve this effect, you should be as close as possible to the people. Take up the space of PP as much as possible. Robert capa, a famous war photographer, once said, "If your photos are not good enough, it is because you are not close enough." . This statement is correct for portrait photos. And we found that many friends like scenery, accounting for the majority, so the priority is not obvious. ...

Character action film

Many of our fans often find their movements a little unnatural or too stiff when shooting for friends. This is that as a photographer, he didn't communicate effectively with the characters and didn't grasp the timing of photography well. In fact, we can let the photographer watch some good people's PP before shooting, and let them find some inspiration and simulate actions.

At the same time, we should pay attention to the guidance when shooting. At the same time, the key is to give each other confidence and add some praise and praise sentences to encourage each other, so as to stimulate their enthusiasm and state. In this way, their status will often appear later. Don't hurt their confidence, so it will be difficult to shoot good PP again ... If you move slowly, their POSE looks a little hard. Then let's not just press the shutter. Because even though you did.

However, the effect can be imagined. We can say to him, "Relax, take a deep breath, keep your head down, and have a better one …" in order to achieve better results. If you don't think it's vivid enough, you can try to make them move. You just need to take a snapshot from the side. Introduce a simple and old-fashioned method: let the characters stand on one foot. Because imbalance is easy to move, such action will be more natural. ...

Concluding remarks

I think it is difficult to take a good portrait photo because there are too many factors to cooperate with. And the lack of one of them will make PP not be perfectly reflected ... Interested friends may wish to practice by shooting eggs, because the color of eggs is close to the characters. If we can shoot many different expressions (including running out) from ordinary eggs, it means that we have made progress, and it will be much easier for you to shoot people then.

These are just some of my experiences in portrait shooting. Please forgive me if there is anything wrong. Finally, I want to add that the most effective way to improve technology is to try more. If you know from practice, you will naturally learn a lot from it. Finally, I sincerely hope that you can use some of my experience to make a perfect portrait PP.