Taking landscape photos by superposition method

The superposition method is a common post-technique used by landscape photographers. The superimposed scenery photos can obtain a larger light ratio than the single shot, and the noise of the photos has also been greatly improved. The following is a tutorial on how to take landscape photos by superposition method, I hope it will help you!

Advantages and disadvantages of taking landscape photos by superposition method

Stack implementation slow gate

Compared with using a reducing mirror:

1. Save money: high-quality filters are expensive, ok? ...

2. Save space: Other necessities can be placed in the place where the filter bracket of the camera bag was originally placed (how to choose the camera bag).

3. Better effect: No matter how expensive the filter is, it is often troubled by color cast. With an extra piece of glass, the degradation of image quality is certain. The morning sun is prone to produce light spots when facing the sun, and long-term exposure will also produce thermal noise.

Stack realization of stellar orbit

Compared with long-time exposure to realize star orbit:

1. The whole process is more fault-tolerant. Because it is necessary to shoot 100+ film for synthesis, if there are some problems, the final result will not be unacceptable, so the success rate of shooting is greatly improved.

2. The image quality is greatly improved. Because long exposure time is no longer needed, the amount of thermal noise is greatly reduced.

3. Long-term direct exposure, it is easy to appear that the star orbit is not very bright but the background is too bright.

4. Direct exposure for a long time, once the camera has no electricity or strong light passes by, it will fall short. More Zhang Hecheng only wastes one film, and the overall impact can be ignored.

It's easy to create photos later. Because it is a synthetic orbit, it is easier to apply different styles and add creativity (such as comet star) in the process of synthesis.

Superimposed noise reduction improves the quality of dark image and realizes high dynamic.

Several traditional methods to realize high dynamics have various shortcomings. Let's look at the traditional method:

1. Gradient gray filter

Huge terrain restrictions will accidentally hurt irregular prospects (such as mountains and tall buildings). The use of filters will reduce the anti-glare ability of backlight (such as the appearance of light spots), reduce the image quality and appear color cast.

Shake the black card

Limited to long-term exposure, it is difficult to control accurately, and it is easy to accidentally injure the irregular shape of the foreground. If it is exposed for a long time, it will be too tired and the operability is not strong.

Fill the foreground with light.

The artificial light source has limited power and can only be used to take portraits. In landscape photography, it is extremely difficult to fill the light evenly for larger objects. The color temperature of artificial light source is not easy to match the environmental color temperature, which easily leads to the abrupt foreground of compensation light.

Surround exposure

When using lightness mask synthesis, if the transition region is not handled properly, it is easy to appear false bright edges. If the layers are not completely aligned when stacking, the sharpness of the transition area will be obviously damaged. The late stage of mask mixing requires a lot of work and high level.

In contrast, it is realized by superposition, which is not limited by terrain and has strong operability in the early stage. It doesn't need any additional equipment except a tripod. In the later stage, most of the work is handed over to the computer, so it is no longer necessary to mix by hand. Use a mask to erase different exposures, just brighten the dark parts. In the later stage, the labor cost is greatly reduced, avoiding the unnatural bright or dark edges at the joints that are easy to produce during synthesis.

However, the limitations and defects of this method are also obvious.

1) Using stack superposition, you can only shoot the slow door effect for high-speed moving objects, and you can't use the high-speed shutter to condense the moment.

2) Multi-Zhang Hecheng has the same alignment problem as method 4 "mask synthesis after exposure".

3) It requires high computer skills and takes a long time (you can have a cup of tea when the computer is slow ...)

Therefore, this is a good supplement to the large light ratio treatment method, and it can be used in combination with other methods according to the specific situation.

Preliminary preparation for taking landscape photos by superposition method

First, please look at the original and final drawings.

For landscape dogs, the sunrise and sunset in the morning and evening, the night view of the city and the flowing car river are all the most fascinating magical moments of the day, except, of course, foggy days. Unfortunately, the illusion is always short-lived, the wonderful light is fleeting, and the large light ratio is easy to make our works seriously overexposed. So, how to break it? How to balance the light ratio to make it more in line with what you see is what you get?

As a novice using the old equipment that moved the Party, I have been worried about invincible rabbit's endurance. Fortunately, last year, I accidentally saw Mr. Yunman's North American god post in the dark shadow, and I came into contact with starstail, a stack masking tool for the snowman on the peninsula to benefit countless photographers. After repeated practice, I gained a little experience. However, for many people, this is still a difficult operation process. ......

Fortunately, Adobe recently released new versions of' ACR9.0 and Lightroom, which directly helped me solve the big problem of exposure synthesis. Powerful post-processing software greatly reduces the processing difficulty of exposure synthesis and improves the processing speed, which is worth recommending. Now, I'll give you an overview of my current process of processing this kind of photos, hoping to help you.

Note: Don't spray the old mage. This article is only for the reference of young novices who are trying to climb higher. The Dafa party can be ignored, and Sonny's CMO definitely stimulates us to move the party. Great gods who are seriously critical of image quality should also avoid neglect. ...

Let's talk about the previous shooting and the tools used:

1, tripod: everyone knows this; If not, it doesn't matter. Later, ps can be used to automatically align layers.

2, focusing: I generally like to focus manually. If it is a zoom lens, I will use the telephoto end to slowly adjust the focus ring through real-time viewing to make the picture reach the clearest state, and then adjust the zoom ring to adapt to the composition;

3. Exposure: M file, according to the color display of the LCD screen, the exposure time is increased step by step, and the shutter is pressed once at each level, so that the picture does not appear dead black or seriously overexposed; Take six shots, for example, and the exposure time of each shot is 1/200,1100, 1/50, 1/25,1/3, respectively.

4. Wired release: Needless to say;

5, post-software: Photoshop ACR or Lightroom, pay attention to the new version, otherwise the following content will not go on;

6. Other plug-ins or filters: stratal of Peninsula Snowman, Nik software Color Efex Pro4.