How to use flash when shooting portraits at night

Lead: Night shooting is a big problem for photographers who are familiar with flash. They often look for places with strong spotlights, and then rely on large aperture, high ISO and slow shutter, and then add noise and filters in post-processing to imitate the film taste. If you can use the flash, shooting at night will actually be more relaxed and enjoyable than shooting during the day. It won't be as hot as during the day, there is no influence of sunlight on the shooting scene, and no other factor makes it easier to control the flash. So this article will share some simple night shooting methods with you.

Common formations for shooting at night

This picture is usually the formation I will pose at the beginning of night shooting, that is, shooting a lamp with an umbrella in front of the model obliquely, and usually setting the output as116. Because the scene light is not strong when shooting at night, in order to balance the flash and the scene light, the output does not need to be too large.

Focal length 135mm_ 1/20s_ aperture f/2.8_ISO400_ manual mode _5 100K

This is the result of filming. Usually at this stage, the model is mainly familiar with the feeling of the night and warms up to adapt.

Then I hit a naked light diagonally behind the model, and the output setting is manual 1/8. Then I put an umbrella-shadowless flashlight in front of the model, and the output setting is 1/8, but after the soft light equipment, it is generally less than116, so the light at the back will be brighter. Then I put an orange filter on the flash in the back.

Focal length 135mm_ 1/30s_ aperture f/4.5_ISO400_ manual mode _5000K

Focal length 135m _ 1/50s _ aperture f /2.5_ I S O400_ manual mode _ 3 100K

This is the effect of shooting. Because the bulb at the back is orange, I used a flash filter to produce orange light, which not only echoed the light on the scene, but also made the model look more stereoscopic.

Focal length 135m _ 1/50s _ aperture f /2.5_ I S O400_ manual mode _ 3 100K

Of course, it is also possible to do the opposite. Put the orange filter at the back into the flash lamp with umbrella shadowless cover to make the front flash lamp emit orange light and the rear flash lamp emit white light. However, it is necessary to correct the white balance of the frontal portrait skin color, so manually set the white balance to 3 100K to get a normal skin color. But at this time, the light at the back is blue, there is a naked light at the back, and there is another filter in the flash with an umbrella in front, so the output gap between the front and rear flashes will widen, and everyone can easily see the difference from the photos.

Of course, you can also use large aperture, high I S O and slow shutter to shoot hard, but the success rate will be lower, and the skin color of the model is easily affected by the color of the live light. When the aperture is adjusted to the maximum, usually the dots in the background will be a bit like the shape of a football, which will not look beautiful, and often the background will be messy.

Focal length 135mm_ 1/80s_ aperture f/ 1.8_ISO 1600_ manual mode _5000K

Focal length 60mm_ 1/50s_ aperture f/4.0_ISO800_ manual mode _3030K.

Focal length 60mm_ 1/50s_ aperture f/4.0_ISO800_ manual mode _3030K.

The above is my shooting result after changing the height and position of the viewfinder under the arrangement of the same set of flash lights. Don't let the flash appear in the picture, and the shooting result is just like Figure 1. Let the flash appear on the edge of the picture, and the shooting result is shown in Figure 2. Generally speaking, you don't shoot like this during the day, but you can consider shooting like this at night, because the position of artificial light source is set casually at night, and you don't need to consider the position of the sun like during the day. In Figure 3, the flash is cut to the edge of the picture to form some brightness. I put three photos here. I hope you can understand that after fixing the position of the flash, the photographer can also use the terrain and composition to control the influence of the flash on the shooting results.

Use an external light source to help the camera focus.

This is another set of examples. I set up an umbrella-shaped shadowless flashlight in front of the model on the left, and lit a naked lamp behind it. On the left front of the screen, my friend holds an external light, but because there is no need for such a strong output here, I just use the external light to help the camera focus. At this time, the output of the flash at the back of the model is manual 1/4, while the output of the flash at the front is manual 1/8.

Focal length 135mm_ 1/50s_ aperture f/2.5_ISO400_ manual mode _3 100K