How to take good-looking photos on cloudy days

Although summer is a good season for photography, sometimes the weather changes suddenly, with lightning and thunder and heavy rain. Sometimes it's cloudy, and you can't see the sun, especially in the south of China. Entering the rainy season, it is more difficult to see sunny days. So, how to take good-looking photos on cloudy days?

1. What film do you choose on cloudy days?

There are two basic problems in cloudy photography. One is dim light, which causes the shutter speed to decrease. The other is because the light is dark, the color of the film is not restored well, and the color of the photos taken is not beautiful.

You can use a tripod to prevent hand shaking when shooting on cloudy days. In addition, high-sensitivity film can also be used to improve shutter speed and prevent hand shake. Which method to use depends on the specific situation at that time. Generally speaking, tripods can be used to shoot fixed objects such as landscapes. You can use high-sensitivity film to capture. These two methods have their own advantages. The scope of using a tripod for photography is limited, and sometimes even using a tripod can't completely avoid subject jitter. Using high-sensitivity film also has disadvantages. The particles of high-sensitivity film are coarse and the imaging is not very delicate. Take the reversal film as an example. At present, except Fuji PROVIA 400F and TREBI 400 are fine-grained ISO400 films, the grains of other high-sensitivity films are relatively thick.

In addition, high-sensitivity color negatives also have a tendency that color reproduction is not very bright, especially on cloudy days. Therefore, even if it is cloudy, it is best not to use high-sensitivity film. Try not to shoot moving objects on cloudy days. In addition, Fuji VEIVIA is a low-sensitivity film, and its color reproduction is quite bright, so it can be used to obtain bright and beautiful images on cloudy days.

Second, how to use the flash on cloudy days

Another way to solve the problem of poor color reproduction caused by insufficient light on cloudy days is to use a flash when shooting. The light property of flash lamp is similar to sunlight, which can make the color return to normal. However, the use of flash photography is only suitable for shooting people, flowers and other subjects that are close to the camera, but not for shooting distant subjects such as scenery that flash light can't reach.

Take shooting a bust of a person outdoors on a cloudy day, the light quantity, aperture and shutter speed of the flash should be balanced with each other to obtain satisfactory results. Therefore, it is best not to use aperture priority AE when shooting with flash on cloudy days, but to use program AE.

Even with the new machine with multi-zone metering and flash dimming functions, when shooting a bust of a character on a cloudy day, the flash shines on the character very conspicuously, and the character looks very unnatural.

Why is the flash so conspicuous? One reason is that the flash is too strong. Another reason is that the background behind the characters may be very dark, and the dark background sets off the brightness of the flash more dazzling. If these two phenomena exist at the same time, the photos taken are definitely not ideal.

Under the above conditions, in order to take good photos and make the subject get proper exposure, it is necessary to compensate the dark background with exposure of 0.5 ~ 1EV. At present, many AF SLR cameras above the mid-range have the function of setting flash and exposure compensation, which is very convenient to use.

If the flash amount is too strong, you can set the flash amount to 0.5 ~ 1EV minus the exposure compensation. However, it should be noted that some models only use the built-in flash, and some models can be equipped with an external flash.

When the background is dark, it is usually 0.5 ~ 1EV more than that in sunny days plus exposure compensation. However, some camera exposure compensation mechanisms are linked to the dimming of the flash. When exposure compensation is added, the light quantity of the flash becomes stronger. Pay special attention to this point. Some cameras are designed with the function of "No flash during exposure compensation", so you can choose this option. If the camera doesn't have this item, it's better to set it to 1.5EV when using the flash to compensate for the exposure reduction of 0.5 ~ 1 EV.

When shooting with exposure compensation and flash dimming, it may be difficult to judge whether the flash is too strong or the background is too dark. At this time, it is best to take more photos of different combinations, choose the most satisfactory one, and sum up experience from it. If you are too troublesome and afraid of wasting film, the result will be farther and farther away from success, and more film will be wasted in the future!

Third, what should I pay attention to when composing music on cloudy days?

A common problem with films made on cloudy days is that the first half is a gray sky, which is equivalent to taking out the "soul" of the picture, so that the audience doesn't know what to show. It is an important principle of cloudy photography not to let the gray sky occupy a large area of the picture when composing. To this end, try to keep the camera at a slightly higher position and angle when shooting, and use the canopy to block the gray sky.

However, it is generally difficult to keep the camera in a high position. It is easy to shoot models, flowers and other subjects, but it is difficult to do this when shooting scenery. It is a simple way to block the gray sky with a canopy. If the crown behind the subject is close to the camera, you can put the crown at a slightly higher angle above the picture to block the sky. If there is no crown behind the main body, you can look for it in the distance. It's best to use a telescope at this time. Wide-angle lens is relatively difficult to do this.

Fourth, shoot like this on cloudy days.

On cloudy days, because of the dark light, the scenery looks gloomy, which is generally not suitable for photography. But sometimes in order to express a strong atmosphere, you can also take scenery as the theme of cloudy photography.

The most suitable subjects for shooting on cloudy days are ancient buildings, dead trees, temples and stone buddhas.

Pay special attention not to overexpose when shooting. A camera equipped with multi-zone metering function can also take bright pictures on cloudy days. When composing a composition, the sky above the picture can be set aside appropriately. If you want to show a strong atmosphere, you can make appropriate exposure reduction compensation. However, it should be noted that if the compensation amount of underexposure compensation is too large, it will become a silhouette effect.