[Photography] Photography: How to shoot running water

"Flying down three thousands of feet, it is suspected that the Milky Way has fallen for nine days." Whenever we see a waterfall, we can't help but think of this famous sentence in the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai's Looking at Lushan Waterfall. In fact, there are not only waterfalls in nature, but also many types of waterscapes: or gurgling streams, or rushing rivers, or quiet lakes ... unconsciously, they all add a lot of beauty to our living environment. However, although natural waterscapes look very good in our eyes, it is not easy to photograph them well with a digital camera. Today, we will list the problems that need attention in shooting and give you targeted answers one by one. Many photographers often make some running water pure white, which seems to reflect the essential characteristics of water on the surface, but it is not. In fact, the color of water in the objective environment is influenced by the surrounding objects, and even the completely white part will show different tone transitions according to the different illumination of bright and dark light, that is to say, the water from white to gray is full of subtle details. When shooting, we should not only express the three-dimensional sense of water, but also interpret its inherent texture. The premise of achieving this goal is the need for accurate exposure control. How to realize accurate exposure control? The concept of "18% gray scale standard" is used here, that is, if the reflectivity of the subject is about 18%, then the digital camera can accurately measure light. The composition of natural waterscape shooting is full of various colors, including dark tones with low reflectivity and bright tones with high reflectivity. Therefore, when shooting waterscape, it is necessary to comprehensively judge the rich colors in the viewfinder. If the colors in the picture are combined, it is likely to become a medium gray scale, and the internal metering of the camera will generally be correctly reflected. However, in some cases, in order to show the evening atmosphere or meet the needs of special shading, the exposure can be appropriately reduced in units of 1/3EV until the required effect is achieved. Otherwise-1.5 ev ~-2 ev can meet the requirements, unless the picture contrast is very large. Take the following figure as an example. Before shooting, we should carefully consider the proportional relationship between dark scenes such as rocks and plants and bright parts such as running water and sky. In this composition, the dark part and the bright part are basically equally divided, and the whole picture is about 50% gray according to the gray tone, which greatly exceeds the gray standard of 18% for normal metering of digital cameras. The camera mistakenly thinks that the composition picture is dark, so it is necessary to make a decision to increase exposure compensation. Finally, we can see the result of Figure 2: Although dark scenes such as rocks and plants are normally exposed, bright parts such as running water and sky have been seriously overexposed, losing their inherent details and texture, and the three-dimensional sense of the front and back layers has disappeared, which is obviously far from what we want to express (Figure 1). The wrong exposure highlights rocks and plants, while the flowing water loses its original details. Nikon d1xf16.01/5s focal length: 20mmISO200 Multi-zone average photometry Question 2: Where is the best position of the horizontal plane? When taking landscape photos, it is inevitable to encounter a more intractable problem, that is, the horizon. Especially when shooting the sea or grassland with the sky as the background, a straight and rhythmic straight line passes through the picture, which will seriously affect the aesthetic feeling of the picture if it is not handled properly. Of course, taking scenery photos with water as the theme has the same problem. The usual solution is to use the golden section method to put the horizon on the golden section point, that is, to divide the picture into three parts roughly vertically, and the horizon is located on the upper and lower bisector. As for whether to go up or down the golden section, it depends on whether the focus of performance is the scenery above (sky, plants, etc.). ) or the scenery below (ground, water, etc.). Unless otherwise required, it is best not to put the horizon obliquely or in the middle of the picture. Putting the water surface in the lower third of the picture is very beneficial to show the rich levels of foreground and background. Nikon D 1X aperture: F 14.0 shutter: 1/250s focal length: 35mm ISO: 125 Multi-area average photometry Question 3: How to refine the essence of the picture? Many digital photographers are often deeply attracted and excited by the scenery when shooting natural water features, and then they have the idea of "catching the whole thing". But this often backfires. This "insatiable" thinking often leads to unsatisfactory photos. Mainly because the composition is loose, it absorbs many unnecessary elements and does not highlight the main features. "Painting is addition, photography is subtraction", so we should be good at cutting the pictures we see drastically and extracting the parts that need to be expressed most and deserve to be expressed most. According to the water environment, the photos with special composition are obviously much better than the above picture. Nikon d1xf11.01/30s Focus: 200mm ISO 125 Multi-area average photometry Question 4: Horizontal composition or vertical composition? Vertical composition is better for running water with small horizontal amplitude, and the picture taken by horizontal composition will be dull if it is not handled properly, so it is better to put the main body in the left third or the right third. Vertical composition can shoot the front of running water with small lateral amplitude. In addition, some shooting scenes are more distinctive, so we don't have to stick to the restrictions of horizontal or vertical composition, tilt your digital camera, and sometimes we can take unique mobile photos. Oblique composition can easily blend the falling water curtain, streams and rocks into the picture, and the composition elements are rich. Nikon D/KOOC-0/XF/KOOC-0/6.0/KOOC-0//3S Focus:/KOOC-0/7 mm ISO 320 Multi-area average photometry Question 5: How does light affect the picture? The sun changes from east to west every day, and its height is constantly changing. The change of shooting position and different combinations of light angles can form forward light, side light, side backlight and backlight. In addition, the shadows generated by the scene will form different contrast and size changes, further affecting the depth and stereoscopic impression, and can be selected separately when shooting. For example, at noon and afternoon on a sunny day, the sun is high, especially when the sun is close to the top of the head, the light is quite strong and it is easy to produce stiff shadows. At this time, the wind may be strong, and the water surface is prone to ripple and looks chaotic. In contrast, the sunny morning has fresh air and high visibility, and the water features are photographed in the morning light, and the picture contrast is relatively large. The light shines from the left side of the picture, which is slightly smooth, and the branches on the water surface are very clear, so you can get a picture with clear texture and saturated color, which is the best time to shoot the reflection. In addition, the height and time of sunlight will also affect the color temperature adjustment of digital cameras. The sun is low in the morning and evening, and the color temperature is also low, so the photographed water is easy to show red, yellow and warm colors. Half an hour after sunset, the color temperature of the sky is high because of the reflected light, and the picture is easy to appear blue. The closer to the afternoon, the closer the color temperature is to the standard color temperature of sunlight, and basically, more realistic colors can be taken in sunny mornings and afternoons. In addition, when shooting, we will encounter such a situation: even if the ISO value and aperture are adjusted to the minimum, the shutter speed will not slow down. This is because the light is too strong and the exposure is beyond the camera's control range. At this time, adding a medium gray filter in front of the camera can solve the problem. Question 6: How can we shoot the satin-like water flow? Seeing some photographers' natural waterscape photos, they are often impressed by their majestic momentum and white gauze-like softness. But when I shoot it myself, even similar scenes, similar light and similar composition can't achieve that effect. What's the problem? Is it because the digital camera you use is too low-grade? Actually, it's not. Using different shutter speeds to shoot the same water, we can find that with the decrease of shutter time, the water gradually becomes a dynamic linear shape, which is what we often say is satin feeling, so it is very important to shoot the water with a slow shutter (of course, a stable tripod is also necessary). What is the best shutter speed? According to the actual shooting results, the falling speed of water will not be too fast, so the shutter priority mode can be set to 1/3s ~ 1/4s. Waterfall-like flowing water can be shot at a slow speed of1/2s ~1s. In this way, the flowing water is silky, coherent and rich in texture, and the water mist next to it can be better displayed. However, the water in the stream is relatively fast, so a little faster speed of 1/3s ~ 1/8s is enough, otherwise the details and levels will be affected. While choosing the angle, the position is also very important. We use the front shooting angle, but choose a slightly higher distance to shoot, so that the whole waterfall can be included in the fundus, and the panoramic view of the waterfall can be seen at a glance by using the mosaic function of the digital camera.