Selection of different types of light angles

Lead: Generally, only on cloudy days do you need to consider the horizontal angle of light. The light on cloudy days is scattered from thick clouds, and the angle is extremely uneven. This kind of light is generally defined as soft light in photography. Under the brightness that can meet enough exposure, the contrast between light and dark of the picture obtained at any time point is equivalent.

The choice of different types of lighting angles is completely different between sunny and cloudy days. As mentioned in the last chapter, when the subject is a person, the lighting should at least consider whether the bright sunlight will hurt the eyes of the subject. Even at dusk, normal light will lead to a dull picture level, and it is easy to blend the photographer's shadow into the picture with a wide-angle lens; When the sun changes to the side, the characters will appear distinct; People with their backs to the sun can get good outline highlights, but the brightness of the front is a problem?

First, I want to analyze the horizontal angle of photographic light based on the definition of angle calculation. In order to better describe the relationship between the light and the picture, the angle is defined as the included angle between the light direction and the lens optical axis. This definition is more scientific. We always habitually think that the subject's back to the sun is backlight, ignoring the choice of the photographer's position, and can completely regard backlight as side light.

Optical bitmap

When the optical axis of light and lens is 0? By 30? The angle is defined as smooth. Sunlight provides sufficient illumination for the surface of the object facing the lens. The contrast of the picture is small and the details are clear.

Portrait of Guang Shun

Guang Shun scenery

If photography only pursues detailed records, it is undoubtedly the best angle light. In fact, it is indeed the most widely used in investigation and forensic photography. However, in his creation, Guang Shun's meaning is extremely weakened. There is no denying that entertainment photography is also an art, and artistic requirements come from life and are higher than life. Using light to make photography more beautiful is the same as rhetoric to make articles more fluent, which you will soon see from the later modeling light effect diagram. Too objective image display can be described as mediocre in art, and the disadvantages of smoothness do not stop there. Due to the lack of contrast between light and shade and shadows, when the subject is a person, the three-dimensional sense of the picture can be enhanced by scheduling the ups and downs of the character's posture. If the subject is a landscape, this sense of flatness is hard to avoid. The problem of opening eyes mentioned above should also be considered when using smooth modeling for the subject. In the strong light, people often look like the ground, while in the flat screen, they just close their eyes.

Guang Shun is not without its merits. Thanks to sufficient illumination, its bright colors are well represented.

The optical axis of the lens is 30 with the light? To 70? Angle, defined as the front light. The light angle moves slightly, and the picture changes greatly.

Headlight portrait

Front lighting landscape

Slight shadows increase the level of the picture, and the bright part seems to be closer to the camera, while the dark part is the opposite. Under the illumination of this light level, the pattern is finer than smooth light. Because the front of the camera receives more light, the color of the picture is still gorgeous. The tune is as high as flat light. Note: Tone refers to the direction of light and shade of the picture, with bright being high-key and dark being low-key.

The scenery of the front light has little change compared with the smoothness, but the shadow is like the finishing touch. In fact, in outdoor applications, it is as difficult to open your eyes as people in the front light, and landscape photography also needs to rely on a larger angle to obtain a stronger visual effect.

As the angle between the light and the optical axis of the lens increases, it is called side light that is close to the right angle. Side light is characterized by obvious light and dark distribution, and the contrast is large without supplementary light measures (such as reflector) under outdoor strong light.

Side light portrait

Side-lit scenery

It can be seen that the characters' faces outlined by side light have a clear dividing line between light and dark, which is a new modeling element given to the picture by light. Many times, applying it can bring innovation to composition. When the subject is a person, the sidelight shows a strong personality, and when shooting a landscape, the sidelight shows an excellent texture. Of course, it should be noted that personality should not be deliberately used at all times. Photographers should pay attention to whether the contrast between the two sides formed by side light is too large and whether it meets the needs of the situation.

When the light forms an obtuse angle with the optical axis, we call it side backlight. Reach near 180? Or 0? Time is called backlight. Both the side backlight and the backlight are large-angle light, and both shape low tones.

Backlighting

Backlighting

The contrast is very large, and the dark details will be lost due to serious underexposure. Even if you use exposure compensation on DV to improve the brightness of the subject, it will not help, so the background will overflow with highlights and form a very high gray haze in the picture. But in many cases, great contrast is not harmful to artistic creation, which greatly strengthens the three-dimensional sense of the picture and opens the distance between video works and real life. Silhouettes are formed in this way, and exposure is reduced by exposure compensation, which is easy to obtain in the dusk backlight.

Backlight contour

The side backlight can obtain a beautiful outline of one side, and the outline of the backlight is more comprehensive. Photographers who want to preserve the details of the backlight surface must use auxiliary lighting equipment. Reflective plate and continuous light source with large lighting area are good choices. When using artificial light source, we must pay attention to the color temperature problem. Multicolor light sources often cause strange pictures, but at dusk, the light source with standard color temperature (about 5500K) is a good choice. It not only retains the warm color of the background, but also correctly restores the foreground color.

The angle selection of outdoor natural light depends on the photographer's adjustment of the subject position and camera position, but the best angle light can only be selected according to the waiting time of shooting the subject of the landscape.