Light skills for family pet photography

With more and more friends keeping pets, many pet owners also like photography. They often take photos of their pets with their mobile phones or cameras and share them with everyone through high-tech means. There are many friends who like to take pictures of pets, but not many people take good pictures because pets have their own particularity. In this article, we will discuss some tips on how to take photos of pets in poor light, hoping to help you take photos.

Preparation for family pets before shooting.

First, frequent communication with pets, touching them with your hands and playing with them will soon establish close friendship with them, which will help you master the pet's personality characteristics, behavior habits and emotional disposition as soon as possible.

Second, treat pets with enough patience and love. Small animals are very spiritual, especially kittens and dogs. They can judge your attitude towards them from your expression, tone and eyes. Attitude directly affects the pet's mood and reaction to things.

Thirdly, it is also important to choose photographic equipment suitable for shooting pets. If you shoot quiet kittens and puppies at close range, you can choose to use medium focus, wide angle or standard lens. If you shoot active pets from a distance, you can consider using a medium telephoto lens, or even a super telephoto lens or zoom lens.

Fourth, you must dress up your pet before shooting, such as combing your hair, cleaning your eyes, taking a bath, and preparing some clothes and toys for your pet.

The theme of photography is light and shadow, and the use of light is very important to the success or failure of a work. It is important to master the skills of photographing pets. Shooting skills can not only save your physical strength, but also save shooting time. Photographers should be good at observing and grasping the characteristics of pets, shooting with appropriate props, waiting patiently, leading their manners and letting nature take its course, so as to take beautiful, imposing, vivid and interesting photos.

1, natural light is always the first choice for pet photography.

(1) The best time to shoot a pet on location Sunlight as a light source in location shooting directly affects the quality of pet shooting. During the day, the position of the sun in the sky is constantly changing. If you want to shoot a good quality work, don't miss two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset, because the incident angle of light is low at this time, you can clearly shoot the facial details of the pet and create a natural and vivid pet image. If you choose to shoot at noon when the sun is the highest, stand as high as possible to prevent the direct light from leaving a shadow on your face when your pet looks up.

(2) The shooting skills of running out in different weather are different at any time. The light intensity in clear sky is high, but weak, and the light intensity is the highest at noon. It's best to take pictures in the morning and evening when it's sunny. Taking pictures in the morning can make the whole picture very soft and highlight the spirituality of pets. When the sky is cloudy, the light belongs to diffuse light, and it will not leave any shadow for pets when shooting. It will be better if you choose bright colors as the background.

(3) Skills of shooting pets in three lighting directions: the pet is in front of the photographer, the sun is behind the photographer, and the light shines on the pet from the front. This shooting technique is simple and easy to master, and it is a common lighting method for beginners. The photos taken in this way lack natural light and shadow, and the performance of the works is relatively unremarkable. If you look for a unique shooting angle with your heart, or pay more attention to composition and color, you can also shoot good works. Side light shooting: the pet is in front of the photographer, the sun is on the photographer's side, and the light shines on the pet from the side. In this way, the shadow appears on one side of the pet's body, which further highlights the texture and three-dimensional sense of the work. This shooting method is not easy to master, and it is easy to arrange the pet's face into a "yin and yang face". In order to avoid the excessive contrast between light and shade under the side light condition, you can fill the pet's face with reflector or artificial light, or you can fill the light with white walls, glass windows and other objects. Backlight shooting: the pet is in front of the photographer, the sun is behind the pet, and the light shines on the pet from behind. In this way, the light produces obvious edge lines around the pet, and a beautiful halo will appear on the pet's back hair. But the disadvantage is that the exposure is difficult to determine, and pets are easy to get too tanned, forming a silhouette effect. If the pet is in a neat shape, especially the photo of the silhouette effect of the short-haired pet with strong figure will be very colorful.

2. Skills of using indoor light in pet photography.

(1) If there is no natural light for indoor photography, all indoor lights should be turned on, and high sensitivity (such as ISO 800 or above) and large aperture photography should be used to reduce the jitter and blur of the picture.

(2) When using a flash to shoot a pet, it is best not to flash the pet from the front. Before flash shooting, pre-flash the pet, or set the flash direction to sideways flash. You can also use flashlights and other lighting objects to attract your pet's attention and narrow your pet's pupils. You can also use the method of jumping lights to reflect the light source to the pet, or hit the light of the modeling light on the ceiling. At this time, shooting with flash can reduce or avoid the phenomenon of "red eye" caused by direct flash of pet eyes and lens reflection. If you add a soft light device to the flash, you can make the light source softer.

(3) When using the built-in flash to shoot pets, it is best to keep yourself in a position with a light source. At this time, excellent shooting results can be obtained by using flash photography. When using the flash, be sure to consider the brightness of the background light and avoid taking pictures of pets at night. It is difficult to focus when shooting pets in the dark, and long exposure will blur the picture. It should be the best choice to fill the light with a flash.

(4) Light source is an important factor in indoor pet shooting. It is easiest to shoot in the daytime by using natural light, and lighting by using natural light outside the window shows a very natural effect. In order to take good photos when the light is insufficient, photographers must fill the light for pets. Flash is the best choice when there is no available light source. Experienced photographers usually flash their flashlights on light-colored surfaces, such as reflectors, white towels, sheets, white foam boards, walls and ceilings. Using its reflective flash to fill the light for the subject can reduce the backlight shadow of the pet. What you get in this way is scattered light, which can vividly show the sense of body, texture and space of pets. Just fix white cardboard or plastic foam on the flash.

There are the following skills to fill the light with an external flash.

(1) Pay attention to control the direction and angle of the flash lamp holder, and use the reflection law to calculate the approximate landing point of the reflected light, so that the reflected light can fall right on the subject. When flashing, be sure not to point directly at objects with smooth surfaces, so as not to cause reflection. Such as glass, mirrors, etc. , can avoid changing the angle.

(2) When a flash fails to achieve the expected effect, a synchronizer can be used. By increasing the number of flashes and supplementing light from different angles, a better shooting effect can be achieved. If one flashlight hits the reflected light from the ceiling and the other flashlight hits the reflected light from the side wall, the photos taken are full of three-dimensional sense. You don't need too much investment to use external flash, but after using external flash to fill the light, you will have more photography fun and create more and better photography works.