Tips for outdoor portrait shooting

Shooting portraits, especially on location, is not like shooting indoors. You can control the lighting, background, etc. You can ask the photographer to arrange how you like it and how to shoot it. The following are the tips I shared on location portrait shooting. Welcome to read!

Light articles?

Illumination facing light source

When shooting in some semi-indoor, sheltered or large glass windows, you can instruct the model to shoot facing the light source, which is more convenient for lighting shooting, and then use the reflector to fill the light for the model in a dark place, so that the contrast between light and shade of the photo is more natural.

In addition to facing the light source, you can also use the reflector to fill the light for the model, so that the contrast between light and shade of the photo is more natural.

Be careful of shadows when shooting in the shade.

Photographers should also pay attention to the fact that if they stand in the shade of a tree and shoot, the shadows of leaves can easily be projected on the model's face, resulting in the same bad effect as "painting a cat".

There is a shadow on the face-the effect is not ideal

After the model moves-the effect is ideal.

Use reflector to reduce contrast.

When shooting on sunny days or at time, such as at noon in summer, the light is usually hard and strong, which easily causes a strong shadow on the model's face. Moreover, it is easy for models to keep their eyes closed because of strong light, and their expressions will be very strange. Photographers may wish to shoot in some sheltered places, such as under the shade of trees. Photographers can even use reflectors to block part of the light, and even use some transparent shutters to disperse the light and narrow the model's face.

The sun cast a shadow on the face.

Shading aperture with reflector: f/ 4 shutter:1/60second sensitivity: ISO 200.

Photographers can use reflectors to block part of the light and reduce the shadow on the model's face.

The flash imitates the effect of sunlight.

Sometimes photographers have specially watched the weather forecast and intend to shoot the effect of sunny days, but the weather is always changing. When they arrived at the shooting location, the sky had become overcast and the light had become very diffuse and soft. Photographers can use the flash to adjust the output to a higher output, imitating the effect of sunlight.

In fact, this method is used in many commercial fashion shooting. It should be noted that the flash should be arranged at the same height as the natural sunlight, and it is appropriate to shoot downward at an oblique angle, so as to strengthen the outline of the model and adjust the zoom head of the flash to make the shadow more natural. Photographers can also cooperate with flash accessories to increase the flexibility of light control, such as soft masks, light collectors, flash color filters and so on.

Use a flash to imitate natural sunlight, and use a flash with higher output to illuminate from a high angle.

Luminous manufacturing special effects

Many times, if a model wears dark clothes, it is easy to be separated from the same dark background. It is best to shoot in another place or instruct the model to put on lighter clothes. Photographers can also shoot the camera directly with the flash behind the model. Photographers can manually adjust the flash output to produce a luminous effect, which separates the model from the background and highlights the model. In addition, you can also use the reflector to fill the light for the model at close range, reduce the shadow, form a beautiful eye, and look more energetic.

With reflector

Use a reflector to fill the light-there is beautiful eye light.

Use the reflector to fill the light for the model at close range, reduce the shadow, form a beautiful eye, and look more energetic.

Calendering solves the backlight problem.

When shooting portraits of beaches, sunrises and sunsets, photographers often have to choose between giving up the sky behind them and giving up the protagonist. If you choose the sky, it will give a silhouette effect to the portrait; If you choose portraits, you will overexpose the sky or scenery behind you and lose your sense of detail and hierarchy. At this point, the photographer can use the flash to fill the light for the protagonist, and then use the calendering technology, that is, use the flash of the flash and camera settings to cover the background light, and can shoot portraits at the same time, retaining the color and details of the background, killing two birds with one stone!

There are two main methods of calendering: directly shrinking the aperture to control the calendering effect or using high-speed flash synchronization. The method of directly reducing the aperture is simple and does not need special equipment requirements; The method of high-speed flash synchronization requires high equipment. By using a high-speed shutter to control the exposure length, the shooting can be combined with a large aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field effect. Therefore, it is necessary to use a flash with high-speed synchronization function to shoot. At the same time, if the external flash is used for off-board lighting, a synchronizer that can use TTL is needed.

No flash-overexposed background

Shrinking aperture calendering-highlighting the sky color

High-speed flash synchronous calendering-can shoot large aperture

Composition?

Composition, avoid clutter, passers-by

In addition to the difficult control of weather and light, another equally difficult place in location shooting is the background! Shooting locations are mostly public places, of course, there will be passers-by and different sundries, such as billboards and fences, which are the most common in urban landscapes, and there may be garbage in the suburbs. Many times, photographers are too focused on shooting models' expressions and actions, so it is easy to ignore these idle people. Although they can be removed in post-production, it is laborious and time-consuming, so it is best to use the method of composition at the beginning of shooting to avoid idle people and highlight the models without destroying the atmosphere to be presented in the photos.

There are passers-by in the background

Use composition to avoid

Just move the camera slightly, you can avoid the lighter body and passers-by behind and attract the viewer's attention to the model.

On the background full of green, seeing brown sundries somewhat distracted the viewer's attention. As long as the ingredients are also used to avoid, the effect will be different.

Large aperture and shallow depth of field cannot be less

Shooting portraits, of course, a large number of large aperture lenses are used to shoot shallow depth of field and blur the background, making the model more prominent. In addition, the shallow depth of field of large aperture shooting can also avoid the problem of background confusion, but photographers should also pay attention to whether they use too large aperture shooting to make the depth of field too shallow, so that the model may only be partially clear, which will have the opposite effect, so photographers should carefully choose the appropriate aperture shooting and control the depth of field.

The background is too messy, so you can shoot with a large aperture to blur the background and make the model stand out.

abstract

In fact, taking a good photo, whether it is interior or exterior, portrait or landscape, is not just as simple as pressing the shutter, but requires the photographer's control in many aspects. For example, the control of light and composition requires great efforts. Although the post-production software is powerful, it can almost turn decay into magic, but it takes time and effort. It is better to take a good photo after careful consideration, and then draw a dragon point with post-production software.