Six Skills of Environmental Portrait Shooting

The skills of environmental portrait shooting include choosing the right lens, choosing the right position, being familiar with the shooting environment, capturing expressions flexibly, controlling exposure and post-toning.

1, select the appropriate lens.

When shooting portraits of the environment, it is best to use a lens with a focal length of 24-70mm to shoot a longer focal length, and the field of vision is too narrow to feel the "environment"; The lens with short focal length has the problem of image edge distortion, and the characters in the picture may be too small.

Step 2 choose a suitable place

Choosing the right place is very important. It is very important for environmental portraits to create the effect of "bringing people into the scene", that is, the characters should have a sense of connection with the background.

3, familiar with the shooting environment

After determining the general shooting location, the next thing to do is to get familiar with the shooting environment. You know, even in the same scene, the effects from different angles and places are quite different. Don't shoot as soon as you arrive. Be familiar with the structure and lighting of the scene first, and then choose the shooting location to make your shooting trip more smooth and complete.

Step 4 capture expressions flexibly

Taking portraits doesn't mean that people have to face the camera. The expressions of characters can be diversified, and the line of sight can also echo the background.

Some subjects are nervous when looking directly at the camera because they are inexperienced in facing the camera. You need to specify a target for her to see, which can distract her attention and make her expression more natural. Sometimes you can even find someone to stand outside the picture and chat with the subject to make her more relaxed, so as to capture more natural gestures and expressions.

Step 5 control exposure

Under backlight and side backlight, controlling exposure has become a problem to be considered. If you are not careful, your face will be too dark or your background will be overexposed.

At this time, spot metering should be adopted as far as possible. Using the real-time view of LCD screen, we can see the influence of different photometric values on exposure, and it is more convenient to choose the appropriate photometric point.

6. Late color matching

When shooting on cloudy days, exposure control will be easier, but the whole picture will have a gloomy tone. In addition, the digital camera itself has the characteristics of light tone, and the color of photos without post-toning will be dim. It is best to let the characters wear colorful clothes and highlight the main body appropriately in the surrounding dim environment. If you think the background color is too dim, you can try to use the built-in cloudy white balance of the camera to correct the picture color.