What are the tips for indoor photography?

Whether it's a class dinner or a family gathering, you should take photos as a souvenir. At this time, you need some indoor shooting skills to get more praise for your photos. I have prepared some indoor photography skills for you now.

1. The wider the light source, the softer the light.

Conversely, the narrower the light source, the harder the light. A wide range of light sources can weaken shadows, reduce contrast and suppress textures, while a narrow light source has the opposite effect. This is because the wider the light source, the more directions the light shines on the object, which will increase the lighting in the scene and reduce the shadows.

Tip: Arrange the portrait theme next to a big bright window to avoid direct sunlight. Windows can play the role of soft boxes, and the studio does not need special equipment.

The closer the light source is, the softer the light is.

Conversely, the farther the light source is, the harder the light is. This is because the closer the light source is to the subject, the bigger it is, and the wider it is; The farther the light source is from the subject, the smaller it is, that is, the narrower it is.

Take the sun as an example. The diameter of the sun is 109 times that of the earth. It's a fairly wide light source! However, the sun is 93 million miles away from the earth (about 65.438+0.5 billion kilometers), accounting for only a tiny part of the earth's sky, so the light is very hard when the sun shines directly on objects.

Tip: When you shoot a portrait indoors with existing lighting, you can change the distance between the light source and the subject to make the light of the photo more moving.

3. Diffuse reflection can disperse light, making the light source wider and the light softer.

The essence of using diffuse scattering to disperse light is to broaden the light source, so as to achieve the purpose of softening light. When clouds block sunlight, the shadow on the object will be obviously reduced, and if there is fog, the shadow will disappear. Clouds, gloomy skies and fog will diffuse light, and diffusion will spread light in all directions. On cloudy and foggy days, the whole sky will become a very broad light source and a natural soft box.

Tip: materials such as translucent plastic or white fabric can be used to diffuse strong light. You can add a soft mask in front of the artificial light source, such as a studio flash; If you are in bright sunlight, you can also use a hood or soft box to soften the light. .

4. Reflect diffused light

Shooting a narrow beam on a large frosted surface (such as a wall, roof or frosted reflector) will spread to a wider area when reflected.

But if you use a smooth reflector, the light will still be narrow after being reflected. A mirror is an extremely smooth reflector. The light it reflects is almost as narrow as the incident light.

Tip: Knead a large piece of aluminum foil into a ball, unfold it and wrap it on a piece of cardboard, and a soft light reflector will be made. Although the diffusion effect of this self-made reflector is not as good as that of the white matte reflector, it can add shiny spots to the photos.

5. The farther the light source is, the faster the light decays and the darker the subject is.

This law points out that the illumination of an object is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. It sounds complicated, but it's actually very simple. For example, if you increase the distance from the light source to the subject by 1 time, the light falling on the subject is only a quarter of that before increasing the distance. In other words, the light will decay rapidly with the distance from the light source. We should remember this rule. If you want to move the light source or the subject, you must change the quality of the light.

It should also be noted that even if a smooth reflector is used, the distance traveled by the reflected light will increase.

Tip: When shooting portraits outdoors in bad weather, you should use a flash (hot boots or pop-ups), which can eliminate the shadow on the face of the person and will not affect the exposure of the background, because the light emitted by the flash can be ignored when it reaches the background.

6. Light attenuation can be used to change the relationship between the subject and the background.

If the light is close to the subject, the illumination between the subject and the background will be more obvious; If the light is far away from the subject, the background will light up accordingly.

This principle also applies to side light: when the side light source is close to the subject, the light attenuation of the whole picture will be more obvious than when the light source is far away from the subject.

Tip: If the front light of the subject is the light outside the window, then putting the subject close to the window can darken the indoor background. If you want to make the indoor background brighter, you should keep the subject away from the window and close to the background.

7. The front light will weaken the texture of the subject, while the side light, top light and bottom light will enhance the texture of the subject.

Portrait photographers usually keep the light source near the lens axis to weaken the wrinkles of the subject's face, while landscape photographers prefer to emphasize the textures of rocks, sand and leaves with sidelights. Generally speaking, the greater the light direction and the angle of the subject, the more obvious the texture of the subject.

Tip: To highlight the furry hair of pets, it is best to put the light source on the side instead of using the front light source.

8. Shadows create a three-dimensional sense.

Shadow is a means for photographers to describe the three-dimensional properties of objects, which can make objects show a sense of space in photos, not just the projection of objects on the plane.

Similarly, side light, top light and bottom light can cast deep and long shadows on objects, thus creating a three-dimensional sense. Therefore, still life, commercial products and landscape photographers like to use angled light.

Tip: You can try to use the "Hollywood Lighting Method" to shoot dramatic portraits. Place the dome light slightly above the main body and adjust the lighting angle so that the shadow of the nose falls slightly below the person.

9. Backlight can be used as a highly scattering light source.

There are very few objects that are only backlit, that is to say, there are almost no pure silhouettes without illumination on the front. If a person stands in front of a bright window, the opposite wall will reflect some light and fall on him. If a person is outdoors, even if the background is bright sunshine, there will be light from the sky on the front. In either case, in order to record the light falling on the subject, it is necessary to increase the exposure, and these lights will reduce the details of the face and weaken the three-dimensional sense of the subject.

Tip: When shooting a backlit portrait or silhouette, try to incorporate the light source into the composition, but this will lead to inaccurate reading of the exposure instrument. You can try to use the enclosed exposure method.

10. Light is colored.

Although sometimes light looks "colorless", it is actually colored, which we call color temperature. It's just that the "computer" composed of our eyes and brain can adjust our perception and adapt to changes, which is difficult for us to notice. But digital sensors and film will record the colors we can't see.

The sunshine in the morning and evening is warm, and the shadow cast by the sunshine at noon will become very blue. The light of tungsten filament is obviously yellow, and the surface reflecting this light will also show the corresponding color.

For digital cameras, you can use the white balance function to eliminate or emphasize the color of light. For example, warm colors can be added to landscape or portrait photos. Film film shooting, you need to choose the appropriate film according to the shooting environment, or use filters to compensate.

Tip: Landscape photos taken on sunny days, especially the shadow parts, will be very blue. At this time, setting the white balance of the camera to cloudy days can add gold to the photo, which is equivalent to adding a warm color filter in front of the camera.