SLR Backlight Photography Skills

Lead: For new photographers, they hate backlight extremely, but for real photographers, backlight environment is the source of their inspiration. Let's look at some backlighting techniques.

What are the skills of SLR backlight photography? First, the shooting equipment:

Digital SLR (Quan Huafu is better)+large aperture fixed focus lens.

Quan Huafu's CMOS and RAW formats can help us to record more details, and also provide convenience for the later stage. However, the image quality of a large aperture fixed-focus lens is generally higher than that of a zoom lens with the same focal length, and at the same time, the large aperture can make the halo and spot more obvious, thus improving the light perception of the picture.

Second, the shooting time:

The golden shooting time of backlight is within 1 hour every day, and before sunset, because the light is soft and the color is warm, and the contrast between the characters and the background is small, it is easy to create a beautiful picture.

As far as the season is concerned, the light in winter is softer and brighter than that in summer, which is more suitable for shooting, basically suitable for all-day backlight shooting.

As far as the prime time of shooting is concerned: summer usually appears at 5 am? Six o'clock in the afternoon, five o'clock? 6 o'clock, winter usually appears at 7 o'clock in the morning? 8 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the afternoon? 5 o'clock depends on the time of sunrise and sunset.

As far as the weather is concerned, sunny days can shoot the obvious backlight best.

Third, shooting settings:

Backlight photography has two major difficulties:

The first difficulty is exposure. Because people are in the state of backlighting when shooting, the brightness of the background is often several times that of the main body, and the average photometry of the camera will take the background brightness into account, resulting in the subject being too dark or underexposed from time to time. Here are four methods for your reference:

Method 1: Evaluate photometry, and take the average of figure exposure and background exposure. Exposure value can be achieved by side flash and reflector for face.

Method 2: Spot metering exposes the face, and most of the background will be overexposed. At this time, it is necessary to choose a brighter background so as not to be too boring.

Method 3: Background exposure, underexposure of characters, and silhouette effect.

Another difficulty is focusing. When sunlight enters the photoreceptor, focusing becomes difficult, especially when using a large aperture, which is often difficult or slow.

The solution is to focus first, then finalize the design, and use a hood. Generally, focus on the center, focus on the subject first, and then move the picture to complete the composition shooting. By re-composition, the degree of backlight can be well controlled, so as to achieve the desired effect.

SLR Backlight Photography Skills II? 1. Built-in settings, make full preparations.

If you use sunlight? Feeling? It is undoubtedly warm and bright, used by photographers? Sunshine? When you are creating, you must make enough preparations. To highlight the picture? Warm feeling? We should start with color. Yellow, orange and red will make the picture full of sunshine. Can we use the camera in our hands at this time? White balance? Function: I use EOS7D MarkII. In the white balance setting, I use the manual white balance function to adjust the picture to make it yellow or orange as a whole according to my own picture requirements.

2. Make corresponding adjustments according to different environments.

Must pay attention to the picture when creating in the backlight environment? Contrast? Problem, if you encounter strong light, because the image obtained in this environment will have the characteristics of Gao Fancha, at this time, you should use the camera to adjust the contrast of the picture to the minimum, so as to avoid overexposure of highlights and lack of details in dark parts caused by huge contrast in actual shooting. Of course, if you encounter soft light conditions, you can adjust the contrast appropriately.

3. Aperture determines the picture. The choice of aperture is very important in backlight shooting. If you want to get the light scattered like a star, you must narrow the aperture at this time, and accordingly you need to slow down the shutter speed or increase the sensitivity appropriately to make the picture exposure accurate; If you like soft diffused light, you need to turn up the aperture at this time.

4. Adjustment of composition angle If the sun enters the picture and becomes one of the picture elements when taking a backlight photo, the composition technique is very important, so we need to put? The sun? As a part of the background element, put it in a more beautiful position.

5. Contour aesthetics

Even in the backlight environment, we don't have to blindly chase the feeling of sunshine. Can we try it occasionally? Silhouette effect? Silhouette shooting can also achieve unexpected aesthetic effects. At this time, we can make adjustments through various channels as long as we return to a purpose? Just reduce the exposure, for example, we can use manual mode to reduce the aperture, reduce the sensitivity, and adjust the EOS7D MarkII in our hands? Exposure compensation? , according to the needs of personal pictures? EV value? To a negative value (such as-1EV) and so on. In addition, we should pay attention to one thing: our plane should be in the position where the subject blocks the light source as far as possible to increase the contrast of the picture.

6. Dindar phenomenon in backlight.

In some special cases, more unexpected photos can be taken by using the backlight angle. For example, in some foggy places in the morning, the Tindal phenomenon can be photographed by grasping the sunlight at this time (when a beam of light passes through the colloid, a bright light can be observed in the colloid from the vertical direction of the incident light? Visit? This phenomenon is called Tindal phenomenon). At this time, the key point of backlight shooting is to choose the position of side backlight as far as possible, and the light is roughly 45 degrees with its own position. Do it.

Five shooting techniques for backlit portraits 1. Backlight spot

The light spots under the backlight are round, diamond-shaped, dotted and atomized, which is very beautiful!

Shooting opportunity

To produce the effect of facula, a powerful "point light source" is needed. At this time, it will be beneficial to have a light source with hard light quality and strong light quantity. For example, the sun is in a relatively high position, or the light emitted by the light is directed at the lens, which is the case. Sometimes the low-angle sun also has the opportunity to form a light spot, but the amount of sunlight near sunset will be weak, which will easily weaken the light spot into white fog.

Shooting method

There are roughly two kinds of "spot" effects produced by backlight. For example, small white bubbles are called "bubble type" and small white bubbles are called "diamond pattern". Whether it is "bubble type" or "diamond pattern", the shape of the light spot has little to do with the photographing method, but it is definitely related to the equipment. For example, a fixed-focus lens has a strong ability to suppress the facula effect. Zoom lenses are relatively easy to produce and will vary according to the coating and material of each lens.

The "bubble" and "diamond" spot shapes are formed by mechanical blades that control the aperture of the lens. The change between them is the size of the aperture. If we open a large aperture, we will produce a "bubble" spot. If we narrow the aperture, we will produce a "diamond" spot, but when the aperture is fully opened, it is not a "bubble" spot. It depends on whether the aperture of your lens is large enough and whether the mechanical blades can. Otherwise, it is a "diamond pattern" or a bubble point at the corner. The "diamond pattern" also has the so-called octagon and hexagon, which depends on the number of mechanical blades of your lens.

Tips:

But not as long as it is a fixed-focus lens. For example, Canon 50 mm F 1.2 L can also shoot the facula effect, depending on the characteristics of each lens.

Second, the general backlight

There are two kinds of backlight, one is "front backlight" and the other is "side backlight". In any case, when the sun is placed directly behind the model, I classify it as general backlight. If the sun is directly photographed in the picture, it is called "positive backlight", and if the sun is not photographed in the picture, it is called "side backlight".

Shooting method

The general shooting method is relatively simple. As long as you shoot against the light, you can use the "light and shade method" at most, and there is almost no difficulty. However, this type of backlight effect is easy to produce side light and head light. What is more difficult is that the position of the sun in a day is high or low, which will affect the shooting effect, and how to judge and choose the picture we want is the main point of general backlight consideration.

Shooting opportunity

When the sun is still high, you have to kneel down a little if you want to go against the light, but sometimes the low-angle picture is not so ideal and the atmosphere is not easy to control. It would be much easier if the oblique light appeared.

Third, the shooting method of side backlight

Although it is called "side backlight", it is not necessary to put the sun on the side, as long as it is not photographed, no matter where the light is, it can be called.

The application of "positive backlight" and "side backlight" is that if the contrast of positive backlight is too large, the subject will be too dark, and if the subject is photographed very bright, the background will be completely overexposed and turn white. At this time, the contrast can be controlled by "side backlight" to avoid overexposure of the picture. In addition, the side backlight does not need to be obsessed with avoiding light, but simply wants to reduce the excessive contrast between light and shade caused by direct sunlight.

Fourthly, white atomized backlight.

The phenomenon of white fog under backlight is also divided into two different situations, one is under strong light and the other is under weak light, and the effect of fog spots is slightly different.

Shooting method

The intensity of white fog is also related to the equipment, but it is not the lens itself, but the difference in focal length. Because this kind of backlight is the result of diffraction in the lens when the light source enters the camera, the longer your focal length, the more opportunities and times the light diffracts in the lens, the easier it will be. At this time, the greater the opening of the aperture blade, the best effect is to let the light source directly enter the lens. Because of the use of 35mm, 50mm and 85mm fixed-focus lenses, 35 mm lens is not easy to shoot, 85mm lens is easy to produce fog, and 50mm lens is easy to produce under direct strong light.

Because Xiaobai doesn't have a zoom lens at hand, the above conclusion still needs to be verified on the zoom lens.

When the light source is too weak, or the indoor window light is used to create a big contrast, the result will also be atomized, but the effect is different from that under strong light. Fogging in low light is produced when light penetrates into black objects with great contrast, so there is only a faint white fog, which is different from that in strong light. White fog under strong light actually needs a black object as the base, which is obvious, so you can choose a background with high contrast or use the model's body as the base. These are the techniques of using white fog to backlight.

Shooting opportunity

This kind of backlight has nothing to do with shooting time and light quality, but the color of light will have different atomization effects, such as white light will produce white fog and yellow light will produce yellow fog.

5. Sunset backlight

Shooting opportunity

Since they said it was a sunset, it must have been taken at sunset. Sunset backlight is actually a kind of general backlight, but why should it be separated? Because the sunset backlight focuses on the shooting opportunity, the sunset backlight may be the most beautiful of all backlight types, and it is also Xiaobai's favorite backlight type. When the sun is completely before sunset, there will be a period of soft light quality and slightly golden yellow temperature. At this time, the contrast will be smaller, so the shooting process is easier to control.

This prime time will last about 1 hour, and the time point and duration will vary from season to season. It is about 5 pm in summer and 4 pm in winter. There will be soft light in the morning, but this prime time will appear earlier, about 5 or 6 am in summer and 7 or 8 am in winter.

Shooting method

Sunset backlighting, like ordinary backlighting, is not too difficult, especially in prime time, and the situation will be better controlled. I just want to shoot a beautiful sunset, and it is very important to choose scenery and survey, but if you are happy with it, it is another matter. It's just that sometimes if we want to shoot a theme, the content is to use the sunset backlight to create a certain degree of comfort, then we should pay special attention to the time problem. On the day of shooting, we will wait at the shooting location before the prime time, so that we can do enough preparation and homework, and the result will truly present the picture we imagined.

As the sun gets closer to the horizon, the color temperature will turn yellow and the skin color will gradually darken, which is difficult for any powerful software to handle. At this time, if you don't want to call it a day, and don't want to shoot any more, you don't have to shine at the moment, so it's great to shoot a beautiful silhouette instead.