Summary of photography skills course

Let a professional photographer help you perfect your photos.

Shoot in the morning or at night

Q: I just bought a SLR camera, but I found that the photos taken by the SLR camera in the morning or at night are not as good as those taken by my card machine. What is the reason?

A: Most card machines have a special sunrise/sunset mode, which can highlight the rich color changes in the sky in the morning or evening. In fact, a few digital SLR cameras have similar functions. However, using the camera's built-in shooting mode, on the one hand, deprives us of the fun of control, on the other hand, it can not achieve the best shooting effect.

One hour before and after sunrise and sunset, the sky is colorful and the city is brightly lit. In order to achieve the best shooting effect, we should first choose a low sensitivity setting to reduce the noise of the picture, and then use a smaller aperture to ensure the depth of field and the clarity of the picture. So the shutter time becomes longer, and a tripod must be used. The automatic metering system of the camera has little effect in this case, so it is best to set the camera to manual mode, start shooting with the shutter for 30 seconds, and then increase or decrease the shutter speed according to the shooting result on the LCD screen. When the shutter speed is greater than 30 seconds, you must use the B door to shoot. At this time, in order to avoid camera vibration, you must use a cable releaser or a remote control. Cloudy or cloudy white balance settings can enhance the golden light at sunset or dawn. When the sun is below the horizon, incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps can better display the blue of the sky.

Optimum aperture

Q: What is the concept of the best aperture of the head? How should I use it?

A: It is difficult for the lens to shoot things sharply at the maximum aperture, but the sharpness will be affected by diffraction in the extremely small aperture range of f/ 16 to f/32. The best or sharpest aperture of each lens is always different, but it is generally around f/8. By switching the camera to the aperture priority mode, the aperture value of the camera can be set to the corresponding optimal aperture size.

Optical image stabilization

Q: I just started an optical anti-shake lens. But some of the photos taken are clear and some are blurred. Why?

Answer: the anti-shake function can effectively eliminate the vibration of the fuselage, but it can't do anything about the movement of the subject. Suppose you take a hand-held photo of fallen leaves with a low-speed shutter. Static objects such as tree trunks are very clear, while floating leaves become blurred. If we want to solidify the dynamics of fallen leaves, we must improve the sensitivity of the camera and ensure a higher shutter speed.

Full frame or APS frame

Q: I want to buy a SLR camera, but I am hesitant between a full-frame camera and an APS-frame camera. What are their advantages and disadvantages?

Answer: The size of the photosensitive element of a full-frame camera is equivalent to the conventional 135 film, while the size of the photosensitive element of an APS-frame camera is designed according to the film format of the APS system, which is smaller. What kind of camera to choose depends mainly on your main subject. Under the condition of the same equivalent focal length, the depth of field of full-frame camera is shallower, which is most suitable for objects such as portraits that need to blur the background and highlight the main body with large aperture.

At present, there are still more wide-angle lenses available for full-frame cameras than APS cameras, which makes full-frame cameras the favorite of landscape photographers. But now there are more and more wide-angle lenses designed for APS cameras. For photographers who mainly shoot sports themes, top APS format cameras such as Canon EOS 7D or Nikon D300S are their best choice. The cutting factor brought by the frame can greatly expand the equivalent focal length of the lens, such as expanding the maximum equivalent focal length of a lightweight 70-300mm zoom lens to 480mm or 450mm, which is especially valuable for photographers with limited budget.

Why is my photo gray?

Q: I bought a Canon 550D, and I am satisfied with most of its shooting results. But some photos I took in the big sun look gray. Why?

A: This is probably because of Canon's automatic exposure optimization function. This function can compress the dynamic range of the picture, ensuring that there is no dead white in the highlights and no detail loss in the shadows. At present, it seems that this function on most Canon cameras is overdone by default. Because of its obvious effect of high light suppression and dark part brightening, it seriously affects the overall contrast of the picture.

If you want to use this function, it is best to set the effect to weak, or simply turn off this function to obtain a more stable shooting effect. The ideal solution is shooting in RAW mode, so whether the automatic exposure optimization function is turned on or not and the intensity setting will not have any actual impact on our final shooting results. We can use Adobe amera RAW or other raw processing software to control the highlights, dark parts and overall contrast of photos. Because the RAW format stores the original image data recorded by the photoreceptor, the internal parameter setting will not affect this information.

Machining space

Q: I read in an article that "RAW has more processing space". Can you explain to me what this concept is?

A: When a camera records photos in JPEG format, it usually enhances the contrast of the photos to make them look brighter, which may cause some losses to the highlights and shadows of the picture. But the RAW file saves this part of the details, such as the details of sky highlights that may be lost in JPEG format can be found in the RAW file.

Limitations of polarizer

Q: I bought a circular polarizer and tried to darken the sky with it, but it seems to only work on a small part of the sky in practical use. Why?

A: Circular polarizers are very sensitive to the direction of light. When shooting the sky, it is best to make an angle of 90 degrees with the sun. For an ordinary lens, it should be able to cover the whole picture when achieving the best effect. However, if you shoot a large area of the sky with a wide-angle lens, there may be a more obvious phenomenon in a certain part of the sky.

Is it necessary for me to use photo style settings?

Q: After shooting, I will do a lot of post-processing operations on the computer. Is it necessary for me to use portrait, landscape and other photo styles?

A: If you need to do post-editing on your own computer, it is really unnecessary to use photo style settings, but you can't ignore their advantages. For example, portrait mode usually optimizes skin color slightly, while landscape mode emphasizes blue and green in the picture, and increases the clarity to make the picture clearer. This will save you a lot of post-editing work.

The best solution is to shoot in RAW format, then open the file with the camera's own RAW software, and decide whether to open the photo style option in the editing stage. Adobe CameraRaw 6.x included in Photoshop CS5 has similar functions, but compared with the original software, it is purely plagiarism.

Ensure accurate photometric determination.

Q: When I focus in advance and then adjust the composition of the plane, there will always be exposure errors.

A: If you focus on the dark foreground first and then aim the camera at the sky to shoot, it is not surprising that this problem appears. The end result must be serious overexposure and death. Canon's digital SLR camera will lock exposure value while locking the focal length, while Nikon's digital SLR can adjust the exposure value after locking the focal length, but to a limited extent.

In fact, this problem is very easy to solve. First aim the camera at the picture to be shot, and then press and hold the AEL button to lock the exposure value needed for shooting. Then adjust the camera, half press the shutter button to focus, and finally adjust the camera position to re-compose, and release the shutter to shoot. This can ensure that there will be no problems in each exposure. If the result seen on the LCD screen is still bright or dark, you can also change the exposure compensation and shoot again.

Stripe phenomenon in printing

Q: There are ugly stripes in the photo. How to avoid this phenomenon?

A: Occasionally dim lines or scratches appear in the photos, which are mainly caused by the blockage of the print nozzle. Generally, there are two situations that can lead to nozzle blockage. One is that the ink has not been dried for a long time, blocking the nozzle; Another situation is that the surface of the paper medium used is not smooth enough or paper scraps are easy to appear when cutting. The best way to avoid this situation is to clean the nozzle regularly to achieve a good working condition, while maintaining a clean environment and a certain humidity in the working environment.

Now high-end printers basically have automatic mode to solve this kind of problem. For example, Epson Stylus Pro 99 10 large format printer, its automatic nozzle detection and cleaning can ensure the printing quality. Automatic nozzle detection system uses advanced ink drop charge detection technology to eliminate printing errors caused by nozzle blockage. It only takes less than 15 seconds to check the nozzle, without any medium, and only consumes a very small amount of ink. In order to avoid nozzle clogging, the printer can be set to automatically detect the status between tasks when unattended printing. If blockage is found, even if it is local, the nozzle will be automatically cleaned.

Five unconventional techniques to take photos full of year flavor

Chinese New Year has come again, such as eating a hearty dinner, visiting relatives and friends to celebrate the New Year, watching movies, visiting flower markets, setting off fireworks and firecrackers, and the Lantern Festival. The holiday is not long, but it is enough to arrange some programs. Among them, taking pictures is naturally normal. As a photographer, do you prefer to make these scenes more perfect? However, many people often leave a lot of regrets when they look at the photos taken during the holiday after the Spring Festival. Either it is underexposed and dark here, or the shutter is not enough, which makes everyone a virtual shadow. Many wonderful moments just slipped away.

What should we shoot in the face of those jubilant scenes? How can I get a unique New Year picture? Here are some scene shooting techniques that best reflect the flavor of the Spring Festival, hoping to help you shoot the Spring Festival.

Scene 1: Spring Festival Temple Fair

Spring Festival Temple Fair is held every year, and this year is no exception. Visiting the temple fair is nothing more than tasting snacks, scouring gadgets and having a good time. Every booth is decorated with lanterns, and the streets are bustling and crowded with people. In this scene, you can choose some activities with folk characteristics or themes with Chinese New Year elements to shoot, and it is also a good choice to shoot lively people.

Although the taste of the year is indeed getting weaker every year, people are increasingly hoping to find the taste of China during the Chinese New Year. You can see many products with China characteristics at the annual meeting: Chinese knots, dough figurines, paper cuts and so on. Generally, the stall owners of these booths will be more willing to let photographers take pictures, and the rest is to choose the angle.

In the annual meeting, there will be some special booths every year. In the early years, people who kneaded dough and played with Tang Hua attracted more attention. The effect and atmosphere when shooting at night are relatively strong. But pay attention to the effective selection of flash. Slow flash should be used for synchronization when shooting. When shooting with the built-in flash, the subject should be close to fully illuminate the stall personnel and foreground, and shoot the whole scene with a wide-angle lens.

Abortion is also a good theme. The reasonable application of slow shutter can effectively lengthen the moving portrait and form a virtual shadow. Contrary to static field environment. Pay attention to the choice of exposure time here. The longer the better. Overall control in 2 seconds. At the same time, pay attention to the position of the tripod.

Scene 2: Spring Festival Flower Market

The popularity of the Spring Festival flower market is increasing year by year. Programs that used to be broadcast only in the south are still popular all over the country. The flower market usually lasts from day to night. Choosing a different time to go will have a completely different feeling. According to different regions, the flower market in each place is also very different.

Flower Street is dominated by flowers and new year's goods, the types of flowers will increase every year, and the patterns of new year's goods will be different every year, which is a good opportunity for macro shooting. If you want to take a good macro photo, you must be closer to the subject. There are many precautions in macro shooting, and the shooting during the flower market is similar, but if you simply follow the usual macro shooting method, you will lose the significance of visiting the flower market. Therefore, if you want to take more pictures of successful flowers in the flower market, you must cooperate with the surrounding environment and pay attention to the actions and communication between people.

Users who use DC, it is best to use telephoto macro models, because many gears are designed in depth and there are many flowers in them, so the macro at the wide-angle end is not easy to shoot. Only users with wide angle and macro should give priority to the flowers hanging on the periphery of the booth and placed on the ground, and communicate with the stall owner in advance, mainly not to damage the flowers when shooting. Users who use digital SLR will be better off with a telephoto macro lens, which can better control the distance from flowers. When shooting, you can open your eyes, one eye takes pictures, and the other eye pays attention to the changes in the environment.

There is a problem that must be paid attention to in flower market shooting: white balance. This has nothing to do with the weather, but with the color of the tent at the flower market booth. In addition to the traditional bamboo shed with red, white and blue tape, there are many tents with red or yellow. Shooting objects in this environment during the day will have a considerable color cast. Photographers are advised to take a piece of white paper with them to calibrate the white balance, or shoot in RAW mode and adjust it later. If a large number of photos are taken before the color cast is found, the post-processing capacity will be quite large.

Scene 3: Spring Festival fireworks

With the coming of the new year, fireworks display is one of the indispensable celebration projects in various places. I believe that you not only want to experience this exciting and beautiful moment in person, but also want to record this unforgettable moment in person. In fact, shooting fireworks is much easier than many people think. The simple point is the choice of shooting time and the setting of exposure time. However, if you pay a little attention to the details, you will take a unique photo of fireworks.

One of the difficulties in shooting fireworks is to decide the shooting direction of the camera. The challenge you have to face is to find the shooting direction before the fireworks start-anticipation is the key. Here are some tips for your reference.

Familiarize yourself with the scene in advance: planning is very important. You should arrive at the scene in advance and find a good and barrier-free shooting position. Predict the foreground and background of the photo in advance to ensure that there will be no heads of a group of people in future photos. Pay attention to the place and time of fireworks display-ask the staff for some information. At the same time, you should also consider which lens to use in advance, and it is best not to change the lens during shooting.

Check the level: During shooting, always pay attention to whether the camera is level. This is especially important if you use a wide-angle lens and there are surrounding scenes in the picture. Since the camera is equipped with a tripod, it should always be horizontal.

Horizontal shooting or vertical shooting: In all types of photography, there are two main ways of composition, horizontal shooting (landscape) or vertical shooting (portrait). When shooting fireworks, you can use both. Personally, I think it's better to shoot vertically-especially when the trajectory of fireworks in the vertical direction is long. If you want to take more scenes, or if you want to take photos of multiple fireworks blooming at the same time, then horizontal shooting is also possible.

Remember composition: I find it easy to ignore the viewfinder and look directly at the sky in actual shooting. At this time, you must have a concept of composition in your mind, and remember where your camera is pointing. This exercise will also help you to predict the location of the fireworks' trajectory.

Scene 4: New Year's Eve dinner

Whether eating New Year's Eve at home or solving it in a restaurant, it is done indoors. In such an environment, the first problem may be that the shutter is not fast enough, and everyone cheers and laughs enthusiastically, so it is easy to produce virtual shadows when taking portraits. Or indoor light has a great influence on the white balance of photos. Whether it is a white flag lamp or a fluorescent lamp, the photos taken will have a color cast. If you want to restore the environmental color, then setting the white balance becomes a very necessary means.

If your digital camera comes with multiple scene modes, you can make full use of it. According to the setting of the scene, the camera has automatically set many functions accordingly. Users who don't know the aperture, shutter, white balance and sensitivity can also quickly master the use and shooting skills and directly take photos of the reunion dinner.

If you want to shoot food in manual mode, it is best to use spot metering to measure the brightest part of the food, which can clearly show the overall details. The best shooting mode is aperture priority, which can appropriately control the background blur or control the depth of field. Shooting angle, don't just shoot the front, you can shoot 7 or 8 shots from different angles at the same time. So you can choose the most beautiful angle.

Now basically, many cameras have added face recognition technology, which can be said to be of great help to the New Year's Eve. The camera can automatically recognize the face, automatically adjust the aperture shutter according to the lighting conditions at that time, and can also take bright and fully exposed photos of the face without adjusting the parameters. Moreover, when taking group photos, and at present, the face recognition function of some cameras can recognize as many as 10 people's faces, which saves a lot of trouble in metering. Let you easily get the ideal family photo.

Scene 5: Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival is different from temple fair. Temple fairs are mostly about humanities, while Lantern Festival is about lanterns with different shapes. The white balance and exposure compensation need to be carefully adjusted here. Not only professional SLR cameras can be competent for such an environment.

When we shoot with a digital camera, using the program automatic white balance mode or different white balance modes preset by the digital camera will produce different effects. As far as Christmas night scene and lighting shooting are concerned, if we use the automatic or preset tungsten white balance mode of digital camera, then the camera is likely to over-correct the color temperature when imaging, making the picture look pale.

Used for exposure compensation settings. Even if the digital camera you use has a more advanced metering system, when shooting a series of shiny bulbs, the metering system of the digital camera will still overestimate the brightness of the scene lights, making the final picture dark, that is, underexposed. Therefore, when shooting Christmas night scenes and lights, it is necessary for us to compensate the exposure of digital cameras to increase the overall brightness of the picture. As for the exposure compensation value, you can set it between+1EV and +2EV, and the exposure compensation setting within this range can meet almost all your shooting needs.

Photography Class teaches you to take beautiful reflection photos in four steps.

Shooting reflection can create amazing works, but it is often more difficult than expected. This article will introduce some simple and easy-to-use tips to help you cope with the shooting of reflection photos.

1. basis

There are many forms of reflection, from landscape photography to macro photography, but here are some general basic techniques that can help you do better.

For the sake of depth of field, try to choose a small aperture such as f/1or a smaller aperture. This helps to enhance the reflection effect.

The focus depends on the distance between the subject and its reflection. First, try to focus on the subject, and then try to focus on the reflection. The results of the two will be slightly different. How to choose depends on the part you want to emphasize.

Finally, consider the angle of light and its influence on reflection. In the studio environment, you can control these to emphasize the reflection, but in the natural environment, you need to try different perspectives to find the best shooting angle.

2. Water and scenery

The magnificence, colors and patterns of nature are amazing. The photo below shows the snow-capped mountains reflected on the silent lake. Such a scene is a photographer's dream, but how can we express beauty to the greatest extent and shoot beautiful works?

First of all, shoot at the best moment of light, in the morning or before sunset. Be sure to bring a tripod and use various filters. Polarizer can help you eliminate the reflection on the water surface, and nd mirror (medium gray density mirror) can prevent the sky from overexposure.

Use the shutter for as long as possible to make the running water appear smooth. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the depth of field, light angle and focus.

3. Reflective objects

Reflection photos are not necessarily scenery photos with water. In our daily life, there are a lot of reflective surfaces, such as mirrors, glass, metals, ceramics and even painted wood.

It is important to remember that the reflecting surface does not absorb light, so if you use artificial light sources, you must carefully consider the angle and the amount of light. You can try lighting from above or behind.

Make sure that the surface of the subject is clean, without scratches or fingerprints, especially in the reflective position. This plane is relatively easy to operate.

Once the shooting surface is selected, try different subjects to see what kind of reflection effect you want. You can try anything you like, but the more interesting the shape, the better the reflection effect.

Practice and enjoy.

Reflection photos are often described as abstract, which I think is quite appropriate, but when taking reflection photos, the style of the photos depends entirely on you as a photographer.

You may want to make a mediocre photo shine with reflection, you may want to shoot a real scenery, or you may want to create a work of art with angles and light. Every photo contains happiness, and you can capture them freely.

"Portrait photography" makes photos the eight elements of photographic works.

Are you interested in portrait photography? Then you must want to know what is the difference between commemorative photos and photographic works. The following are some aspects that I think are the most important.

light

Light is the most important aspect of photography, no one.

Pause and read the above sentence repeatedly until you remember it. Generally speaking, the essence of photography is to capture light and make artistic interpretation. When shooting real scenes, photography means painting with light.

Before photography and flash were invented, traditional painters would let models sit by big windows-just like a soft box in photography-to create the light they wanted to draw their emotions. Always pay attention to the light, and make sure there is the correct light anyway (wait, use the auxiliary light).

If there is no excellent light, don't bother to press the shutter-the photos you take with ordinary digital cameras will not be better than others.

theme

Light is undoubtedly the most important part and foundation in photography. But the theme is equally important. A strong theme is much more important than a beautiful model. Scenes, costumes, props, ornaments, postures and expressions are all together, telling the story behind the photos. The photographer's task is to ensure that the story is worth telling.

concentrate

Focusing is not only a question of where the focus is, but also a question of choosing the depth of field. How unreal do you want the background/prospect to be? Which parts of the subject should be focused? Using the lens correctly can control these aspects and produce completely different effects.

At the same time, don't neglect the function of changing the focus. Generally speaking, it is ok to focus on the eyes, but I often focus on my lips, and sometimes it is better to let the subject out of focus, such as pointing at my hand. In one of my favorite photos, I focused on the chessboard, while the protagonist was out of depth and his face was exposed.

background

Speaking of background, the general principle is to keep it simple. It is not impossible to take a good portrait of the environment (I have taken a lot), but a little carelessness may distract the audience from the main body. For beginners, the first thing to avoid is the fusion of foreground and background, such as the tree in the background seems to grow from the model's head, and so on.

composition

One of the differences between amateur and professional photographers is composition. A good portrait photography works, will take shape, line, picture, angle, space, focus and other issues into account in the composition, so as to obtain the strongest impact.

sense of reality

Photos are two-dimensional, so it is not easy to get a good texture. The best way is to use modeling, composition and lighting to reflect the texture of the whole scene.

colour

If you want to shoot colors, make sure they are in harmony with each other. If the colors are not harmonious enough, then change clothes and scenes ... until this is satisfactory. Painters don't just grab any color and paint. Why did the photographer give up the control of color?

Exposure; expose

Exposure means more than accuracy. For example, in some scenes in Gao Fancha, you have no choice. You can be accurate about shadows or highlights, but usually you can't do both, but it's a good thing. You can choose to take a high-profile or dark-tone photo to emphasize what you want to emphasize.

Remember, you can choose color, texture and exposure to emphasize the shape in the composition.

abstract

When you can fully grasp these factors and make them coexist harmoniously, miracles happen. Visual arts, like music, also rely on harmony (shape, color, exposure), rhythm (texture) and detail elements (scene, model) to tell a complete story.

Next time you pick up the camera, you should consider these aspects. Ask yourself, do you want to take a commemorative photo? Or take a picture.

Teach you four ways to create abstract photos.

This article contains four ways to abstract photos: by using focus, light and shadow, curves, textures and so on. The key is practice. The more you practice, the better you will become.

concentrate

Selective focusing is a simple and effective method. Choosing a large aperture makes the depth of field smaller, the focus is on the point of interest, and the rest becomes blurred, which can also make the picture intentionally out of focus.

There are two points to note here:

1. If the background color is different from the color at the focus, the effect will be more obvious;

2. Use curves.

shadow

The use of light and shadow can make the picture full of drama. We often mention the importance of using light, but never combine it with the product of light-shadow. Shadow is not a defect of light. On the contrary, the existence of shadow gives life to light, which describes the shape of light. The combination of light and shadow will produce amazing results.

The power of curves

The curve has a great influence. To some extent, using curves will make photos abstract.

Curves will form a combination of curves, and when this combination flows with power, the picture will produce a dynamic. Of course, a curve that flows blindly in all directions has no such effect.

Use of texture

Texture is often used with curves, which unifies the curve world and makes it harmonious.