Slow-door landscape photography skills

Lead: In the photographer's view, fine weather is not sunny, but a necessary picture element-at least a bright spot. Let's take a look at the slow door scenery photography skills!

Ok, cut the crap, and now sum up the main points of shooting, equipment:

Body: Nikon D700- full-frame machine has first-class noise control performance.

Lens: Nicole 16-35/4 VR- super wide-angle lens can make the picture full of tension, which is necessary for shooting large movies.

Filter: Subtractor ND8 (slow down the shutter speed), gradient gray GND 0.9 (reduce the light contrast between the sky and the sea).

Cable release: color timing cable release (timing function is very important)

Tripod: Admiralty 640A (a stable tripod plays an extremely important role in the clarity of the picture).

Others: clean cloth (dry fog and water drops at any time), flashlight (check the terrain), non-slip shoes (be careful when the rocks are slippery after rain), umbrella (in fact, if it really rains heavily, leave quickly! )

shoot

Step 1: Composition

It's very important to find an angle. Even if your technique is no matter how good, without a good composition angle, everything will be useless! My composition principle is that the picture conforms to the golden section law-there is nothing more beautiful than the golden section ~ Of course, some people like to shoot a little non-mainstream, which is a matter of opinion!

So I found a low angle, and the lens was slightly downward to get more foreground, while the sky only occupied 1/3 or even less. But the change of clouds in the sky is a bright spot this time, so I took more pictures of the sky.

At this time, a problem will arise. Because the lens is distorted, the sea level will be somewhat distorted. This early stage is inevitable and can only be corrected later. Pay attention to the sea level when composing music. If you can't see the sea level clearly because the light is too dim, you can turn up the sensitivity ISO a little, then turn up the aperture and take a quick shot.

Step 2: Focus.

In fact, most scenery lenses are manually focused, because we need photos with large depth of field, so the cooperation between aperture and focusing is the key.

According to the depth of field theory, there is a conversion relationship between the appropriate aperture value+foreground framing+focusing, but it is not so complicated here. After a long conversion, the opportunity and inspiration for shooting may be gone, especially the children's shoes with poor math, which is estimated to pass out directly! In my experience, it is the best way to accumulate shooting experience and form shooting intuition.

Here I use F 16 as the aperture, and focus manually (come back from infinity, don't hit infinity).

If you must use autofocus, you can use a flashlight to illuminate the foreground and then focus.

Step 3: Exposure

Exposure is the key point of the whole shooting technology.

According to the exposure standard of landscape photography, highlights and dark tones are not allowed to overflow on the histogram, that is, they cannot be overexposed or underexposed. Like many beginners' scenery, white clouds turn into pieces of paper, and the dark parts die black, which are all unsuccessful works.

Therefore, controlling exposure is to control the contrast of details between highlights and dark parts, so that the two ends of the histogram do not overflow, which is our shooting technical purpose.

It is estimated that there are children's shoes to ask at this time. Why is it necessary? This is? Eye-catching is determined by two words. Do you feel dazzling when you see a piece of white death? And see the dead black, will you feel depressed? The beauty of a painting determines its quality. I don't need to explain this truth!

Well, at this point, the children's shoes that are not dizzy can continue to look down: in order to get perfect exposure, the technical experience accumulated in long-term shooting is essential, and at the same time, when shooting in the early stage, we must consider what the later result will be.

Photometry is the key.

Photometry is to measure light to see what combination of aperture and shutter value is needed for shooting. Here, I intuitively observed it based on the intuition of long-term shooting. In dim light, photometry is very difficult, and experience has become a precious secret. Here, I didn't use the ND filter, but added a 0.9 GND gradient gray. The exposure parameters are as follows: ISO 100, F 16, 98 seconds, automatic white balance.

As you can see, due to the long exposure time, the accumulation of time has turned waves into fog and clouds into wire drawing, which has produced a dreamy effect-this is the charm of the slow door! Now look at the movie in its original format.

It can be seen that the exposure control is very successful. (In fact, it often fails. )

Matters needing attention when shooting

(1) The tree wants to be quiet, but the wind will not stop. If it vibrates slightly, all previous efforts will be in vain, so it is better to fix the cable and release it (it is a better way to tie it to a tripod with adhesive tape);

(2) always guard against the sneak attack of the waves. The wave is a good opportunity to shoot, but the wet body is small and the wet machine is big!

(3) It is more appropriate to press the shutter after the big waves recede. At this time, the waves will be filmed as filaments, instead of the slow door turning the picture into glistening when the big waves come;

(4) Prepare a cleaning cloth at any time to wipe off the water drops on the filter screen, otherwise the post-treatment will be uncomfortable;

(5) Try to make the dark part brighter, and the highlights should never overflow;

(6) Pay attention to safety and don't let the plane crash!

In addition, it should be mentioned that some photographers like to shake black cards as an exposure method, but in my opinion, long-term exposure means drawing clouds and turning waves into fog. Shaking the black card will reduce the exposure time of the sky and interrupt the drawing of clouds, which will not achieve good results. So filter+long exposure is the best way to shoot the sea slowly.

Speaking of photometry, many children's shoes have questions to ask. In fact, I only have one suggestion, make the histogram to the right, but don't overflow the highlights and try to reduce the contrast. Here are a few histogram references:

That's the truth. If the early stage is in place, the later stage will be relatively easy. If the early kung fu is not in place, it may not work in the later stage. A clever woman can't cook without rice! Therefore, shooting good materials is of great help to post-processing!

Late key points

Now I have a good material. When I open it in PS CS6, I will jump out of the camera raw data control panel and make simple adjustments:

(1) Correct the picture distortion. Methods: Filter-lens correction-user-defined (rotation, distortion. . . )

(2) Remove the stains on the picture. Method: stain repair brush tool (delete it at a point)

(3) Control the tone of the picture (contrast, sky brightness, highlight details in the dark). Methods: Copy the current layer-set it to soft light blending mode-adjust opacity-adjust image shadow highlights and adjust details.

If necessary, create a new layer, gradient gray and soft light, and adjust opacity.

(4) color matching. Method: Adjust the layer with optional colors and increase cyan.

(5) sharpness. Methods: The definition of original image (number 80, radius 1) and thumbnail image (width 1000 pixels, number 300, radius 0.2).

If necessary, use a mask for local sharpening.

Final work completed: