How to take a good-looking portrait with a digital camera

Besides taking pictures of scenery, our main role is people. The following is my sharing of digital camera portrait photography skills, let's take a look.

Digital camera portrait photography skills 1. Keep the camera stable.

Many novices don't take this to heart at all, and as a result, the photos taken often appear blurred. Maintaining the stability of the camera is a necessary condition for obtaining clear photos. If the photo is not clear, no matter how delicate your lighting and composition are, you will only get a piece of scrap iron.

Tripod can be used to keep the camera stable, but it lacks flexibility when shooting, and we seldom use it except at night. There are some tricks to keep the camera stable. First of all, of course, you should hold your camera steady. In addition, take a deep breath before pressing the shutter, and then hold your breath until the shutter is released. This method is very useful and can effectively reduce hand shock. This is a photo taken at the auto show. Although the illumination is poor, it maintains good stability because of this method.

Some consumer digital cameras have the function of image stabilizer, such as Panasonic's FZ 10 and FX5, Canon's S 1IS, Minolta's A 1 etc. Their image stabilizer performance can help you effectively reduce camera shake.

Two. expose

Accurate exposure is one of the most difficult factors in photography, and it is also the key to the success or failure of photos.

Fortunately, all digital cameras now have automatic metering function, and the metering of general digital cameras is also very accurate, which can make photos get accurate exposure in most cases. However, some situations are still worthy of attention. For example, when the light is strong, it is necessary to consider that the photo may be partially overexposed, because in most cases, the light intensity of people is uneven, and some places are always dark and some places are very bright. Generally, digital cameras use the average photometry method, which measures light according to the average brightness of each area of the picture, which is why some novice photos are overexposed locally, such as the picture below, which is caused by too strong light.

In this case, we can expose the photos according to the principle of "less than better", because even if the photos are underexposed, we can make appropriate adjustments in the computer. On the contrary, if the photo is overexposed, it is difficult to save.

Exposure control can be achieved by camera exposure compensation. In addition, some cameras also have spot metering function, so it is easier to get accurate exposure photos by mastering spot metering skills. However, the spot metering technique is not easy to master, otherwise other photos will be seriously overexposed or seriously underexposed. Here, it is suggested that beginners adjust the exposure compensation appropriately when encountering strong light to avoid overexposure.

Three. depth of field

Photographs with large depth of field can blur the background and highlight the main body of the person. However, the CCD sensor of digital camera is too small, usually between 1/2.7 inches and1/0.7 inches, so it is difficult to obtain a blurred depth of field even with a large aperture.

But don't forget, the depth of field is not only related to the aperture, but also to the focal length of the camera. The longer the focal length, the shallower the depth of field. If you use a hand-held digital camera with large zoom, which is 18 times or even 12 times, it is not difficult to get a good depth of field. Of course, many consumer digital cameras only have 3x zoom function, so you can choose a relatively empty background to shoot. Leaving enough space behind the characters and shooting with the telephoto segment of the digital camera can also achieve good results. The following is a picture taken by telephoto king FZ 10. You see, consumer digital cameras can also get satisfactory results!

The above mentioned are just some solutions to the shortcomings of consumer digital cameras. Mastering this knowledge can build a good photographic foundation for you. Of course, to take good photos, you can't do without excellent photography technology. For beginners, you need to practice in composition, lighting, shooting angle, interaction with characters and so on!

Precautions for outdoor portrait shooting Make good use of external flash.

Make good use of your external flash.

In fact, if you don't plan to shoot the silhouette effect, you must be careful to shoot in the backlight environment when shooting outdoors. In addition to using a reflector, we can also bring our own external flash, and then adjust the transmittance of the flash according to the light.

Ensure more accurate exposure and make full use of the spot metering of the camera.

Correct exposure is the most important thing when shooting portraits, and it is also the most important thing in photography. Therefore, in order to better ensure the correct exposure when shooting portraits, we can try to use spot metering. Although there is a certain difficulty coefficient, you will find it very convenient if you master it.

Spot metering with a camera

For many portrait photographers, it is a common shooting skill to measure the skin by using the spot metering of the camera and then focus on the eyes. So we can try this method more often when taking portraits.

When using spot metering, we can choose to spot metering on the model's face, and then press the exposure lock button on the camera to ensure the correct exposure, and then focus and compose.

Is the photo too bright or too dark? Remember to add/subtract exposure compensation.

When you use a large aperture portrait lens, it is often easy to make the overall portrait too bright or too dark after using a large aperture. At this time, it is necessary to pay more attention to exposure compensation.

In addition, when you use other metering methods instead of spot metering, you also need to use exposure compensation. Especially when the model is wearing white clothes and the white in the photo is not white enough or gray enough, it is necessary to increase the exposure compensation. Because the camera often measures light with the center as the main body when it changes speed automatically, the white main body will make the camera mistakenly think that the environment is bright, resulting in underexposure.

Of course, under normal circumstances, the built-in metering system of SLR cameras can accurately measure the shooting theme, but in some cases, it is necessary to avoid false measurement, such as wearing all-black and all-white clothing in a large area, and at this time, positive and negative exposure compensation can be implemented, so exposure compensation is still very important when portrait shooting.

Please put your mirror on the model's face.

Photography is an art of light and shadow, so we should pay more attention to the change of light when shooting models. In order to better show the model's face and figure, we need to consider the lighting position. Generally, side light and side backlight are better. Because when the sun shines directly, the light quality is too hard, which will make the model's face show a nasty shadow.

Find the light position

The best lighting time for outdoor portrait shooting is before 10 am and after 3 pm. At this time, the light is not too strong, and the side light is suitable for portrait shooting. In addition, cloudy days are also very good weather for taking portraits.

With the reflector, the model can shoot well even in strong light.

So what should we do when the sun is too strong? At this time, we can bring a reflector. We know that strong light can easily lead to a heavy shadow on the model's face. At this time, the reflector can play an important role and can supplement the light on the model's face.

Be careful not to turn the model into a bad face by taking photos against the light.

In addition, when shooting outdoors, you need to pay attention to the backlight environment. Because in the backlight environment, it is easy for us to make the model's face a big black face, so how can we avoid this situation?

Outdoor portrait camera settings to understand the shutter

Shutter is a device that blocks light from entering the imaging system of SLR camera in front of the lens, mainly to control the exposure time of digital SLR camera. Through the aperture of the lens, the amount of light entering the photosensitive element inside the camera can be completely controlled.

Shutter speed refers to the time between shutter opening and closing, during which light enters the camera. The faster the shutter speed, the shorter the time for light to enter, and the clearer fast moving picture can be captured. The slower the shutter speed, the longer the light enters, and the more light the camera photosensitive original or film gets, and brighter photos can be obtained in the dark environment. However, if the camera shakes or the object moves quickly, the photo will be blurred. Of course, you can also take advantage of this to take photos with special effects.

Understand aperture

Aperture is used to control the amount of light entering the photosensitive surface of the fuselage through the lens, which is an extremely important index parameter of the camera. Its size determines how much light enters the photosensitive element through the lens. The expression of aperture size is expressed by f value, and the smaller the f value, the larger the aperture.

It will affect the level, detail and depth of field of the photo. The larger the aperture, the less layers and details of the photo, and the shallower the depth of field. The smaller the aperture, the more layers and details of the photo, and the deeper the depth of field. Generally speaking, a large aperture is more suitable for taking portrait photos, and a small aperture is more suitable for taking landscape photos.

Chest circumference is more suitable for large aperture shooting, and people can be highlighted after blurring the background.

You can take a full-length portrait with a smaller aperture, which will enrich the details and levels of the photo.

The use of aperture and shutter is either automatically adjusted by the machine or manually adjusted by our own experience. If each scene is different from the weather, the combination of aperture and shutter is different. I will introduce it slowly in later chapters.

Make good use of each focusing lens to create a better picture atmosphere.

Lenses with different focal lengths have different uses and tricks. Only by mastering the use of lenses with various focal lengths can we take better portrait photos.

Lens type

The biggest advantage of digital SLR is that it has a rich lens group, and you can choose the corresponding lens no matter what you shoot. There are several kinds of general SLR lenses: zoom lens: there is a rotatable zoom ring on the lens. By rotating the zoom ring, the lens can be expanded and contracted, and the focal length can be changed, so that different viewing angles from telephoto to wide angle can be obtained; Standard fixed-focus lens: The focal length of the lens is fixed and cannot be adjusted. The structure of fixed-focus lens is simpler than that of zoom lens, so the transmittance can be greater; Macro lens (MP-E): used for close-up and shooting distance of small objects; Anti-shake lens: The lens has built-in image stabilizer, which can eliminate the image blur caused by hand shake to a certain extent; Axis shifting lens (TS-E): The focal plane of the object can be controlled freely. By moving the front of the lens up, down, left and right, the focus range can be adjusted independently of the aperture value. Soft focus lens: the soft focus ring can be rotated to adjust the clarity of imaging. By moving some optical elements inside the lens, soft and detailed photos can be obtained. It has a unique fuzzy effect.

Application of zoom lens in various focal lengths

Ultra-wide-angle zoom lens: Generally, the focal length is below 24, which is called ultra-wide angle. Ultra-wide angle can shoot a wide field of vision beyond human vision and bring a very shocking visual impact. However, while pursuing visual effects, the ultra-wide-angle lens will have serious distortion at the four ends of the picture taken by the lens, so the ultra-wide-angle lens is the most difficult lens to use well among several zoom lenses.

It must be noted that the main body of the character must be arranged in the center of the picture to avoid the body part of the character appearing in a distorted position on all sides.

Medium focus zoom lens: focal length 24? The coke section between 65438 and 000 is called medium coke. Medium coke is the most widely used coke variety. Because this focal length is moderate, the general daily shooting is mainly based on the medium focus lens. This kind of lens is also the simplest to use.

It's not too difficult to take a portrait with a medium focal length. As long as you have a general shooting basis, you can freely use the zoom lens of the medium focus to shoot.

Telephoto zoom lens: A telephoto lens with a focal length greater than 100 is called a telephoto lens. The telephoto lens can create a fuzzy and soft Jiao Wai and depth of field, which is a common lens for portrait shooting. Because the telephoto lens has a long focal length, there is a minimum requirement for a safe shutter, but it is easy to blur people by hand.

When shooting portraits with telephoto lenses, people usually shoot busts, mainly using the blur effect of telephoto lenses to highlight the main body of the characters. Generally, when shooting with a telephoto lens, the shutter should be above 125/ 1 sec without camera lens or fuselage anti-shake. When there is anti-shake, try not to shoot below 60/ 1 sec to ensure clear images.

Make good use of the fuselage settings and take more perfect photos.

When we use any tool, we will know its performance and operation in detail, and digital SLR cameras are no exception. Please read the instructions carefully before using the digital SLR camera. It is a good habit to know every function and setting of the camera. Only in this way can the efficiency of your camera be maximized.

White balance setting of the scene

For many netizens who are new to digital photography, white balance is a very troublesome thing. The accuracy of white balance is very important to the color quality of photos, so it is necessary to master white balance skillfully, and sometimes many special tone effects can be shot by using white balance flexibly.

If shooting in sunny outdoor, you can choose automatic, outdoor and sunny modes, and the white balance function of the camera will enhance the yellow of the image to correct the color deviation.

If shooting in rainy days or indoors, you can choose indoor, cloudy and lighting modes, and the white balance function of the camera will enhance the blue color of the image to correct the color difference. In addition, when shooting indoor tungsten lamp, it can be set to indoor mode or lighting mode.

Because the technology of digital SLR is more and more advanced now, the white balance detected by the camera itself is more accurate, but manual white balance is still needed to get better results. In the next few chapters, I basically teach you how to use manual white balance in various scenarios.

Adjustment of sharpness, color saturation and contrast

Many people often ignore the adjustment of sharpness, color saturation and contrast when using digital SLR cameras. In fact, different settings of sharpness, color saturation and contrast will bring different effects to photos with different themes and different scenes.

Generally, when shooting people's subjects: choose standard or low contrast, standard or high color saturation and medium sharpness; When shooting landscapes, buildings, products, etc. , you can choose high contrast or high color saturation and sharpness. Strong sunshine, night view. When the ratio of flash to light is relatively large, you can choose a lower contrast; On cloudy and foggy days, when the indoor light is low, you can choose one with higher contrast.

Clarity, color saturation and contrast have great influence on the texture, layering and color sense of photos, so setting appropriate clarity, color saturation and contrast in different environments plays a key role in the texture, layering and color sense of photos.

Accurately grasp the influence of aperture and shutter on portrait shooting

The two factors that digital SLR cameras use to control whether photos are exposed correctly are shutter and aperture. Only by controlling the shutter and aperture well can we take a correctly exposed photo, which is the basic requirement for a photo to pass the customs.