Indoor portrait lighting technology-scattered light

Lead: For centuries, painters like to use the sunlight coming in from the window to paint portraits, because this kind of light has strong modeling ability and good projection. Photographers often use this light to shoot portraits indoors in the future.

Sunlight entering through a window is usually scattered light. Its characteristics are: large lighting area, soft and uniform, which can not only reproduce rich layers and textures, but also better express the three-dimensional sense, so it should be an ideal choice for shooting indoor portraits.

This time we will introduce how to use scattered light to shoot indoors.

Control the distance from the main body to the window.

(1) When the subject is near the window. Because one side is directly illuminated by outdoor light. The brightness is very high. The shadow surface is very dark, resulting in a strong contrast between light and shade. It is difficult for us to take into account the details of the light and dark poles. It has brought great difficulties to the exposure. The shadow brightness of an indoor portrait cannot be the same as that of an outdoor portrait. It can only rely on the weak reflection of indoor walls, and these reflections are sometimes insufficient. The closer the figure is to the window, the greater the contrast between light and shade.

As shown above, the picture is close to the window, with great contrast. However, in order to obtain special lighting effect, only a small amount of supplementary light is used to outline the lines of characters and describe the texture of skirts.

(2) If the subject can stay away from the window and get close to the wall without a light source, it is actually equivalent to weakening the main light and strengthening the auxiliary light. The contrast of characters will be reduced, and the tone will tend to be dull, but the levels will be rich and the details will be well represented.

As shown above, the face contrast of the figure principle window is small, and the light-dark transition is even. It should be noted that when away from the window, the light intensity will decrease, the light will be weak, and sometimes even the shutter speed will be very slow. It's best to prepare a tripod in advance in case of emergency.

Subject positioning adjustment

When shooting portraits indoors, you can flexibly adjust the orientation of the subject according to different requirements.

(1) If you want to express the characters completely and vividly and form an ideal vision, you can make the subject face the window and use forward lighting to achieve it:

(2) If you want to emphasize the three-dimensional sense, you can make the side of the subject face the window and use the side light to form a sharp contrast. Highlight the three-dimensional sense:

As shown above: the profile of the character is illuminated, and the thick shadow blurs the boundary between the footsteps and the background, and outlines the perfect lines of the character.

(3) Of course, it is also possible to make the subject turn his back to the window, and use the backlight to create a silhouette effect to express a simple sense of form.

Understand the reflective ability of indoor reflective surfaces.

The natural light outside the window will affect the bright side of the subject. The reflective intensity of reflective surfaces such as indoor walls, floors and furniture furnishings directly affects the dark side of the subject, that is, the shadow part, and also determines the light ratio of the characters. The closer the subject is to the wall facing the window, the lighter the color of the reflective surface such as the wall and the ground, the higher the reflectivity, the brighter the shadow surface of the person and the smaller the light ratio. When using natural light outside the window to shoot portraits indoors, a small room with light walls will reflect more light than a large and dark room, so the whole space environment will appear brighter.