Introduction steps of photography skills

I believe many novice photographers like to shoot night scenes. But at the beginning, it is often found that the effect is not ideal. In fact, as long as you master the tips, you can easily take high-level night photos! This article is my carefully edited introduction to photography skills, hoping to help you!

The first step of photography skill: bring your own tripod

It usually takes a long time to take a night view, so the camera should be hidden to take a clear picture. In order to avoid damaging the photo effect by vibration, it is best to use a tripod to reduce shaking.

Tip 2: Turn down the brightness (ISO)

I believe everyone knows that high sensitivity brightness can get faster shutter speed at the same aperture value to reduce the jitter problem when shooting, but it will cause noise in the photo. Especially when shooting at night, long exposure will make the dark noise particularly obvious, so if the environment permits, it is best to use tripod and low ISO value to get the best shooting effect.

Tip 3: Take photos with a large aperture lens.

When we put the lens on the fuselage, the aperture of the lens will automatically open to the maximum. In a dark environment, a larger aperture allows more light to enter the lens and makes the picture on the viewer clearer. For example, two photographers shoot night scenes at the same time and place. If a lens with the maximum aperture of f/2.8 and a lens with the maximum aperture of f/5.6 are used, the picture on the viewfinder of the photographer with the aperture of f/2.8 will be obviously brighter, and the photographer can see the clear details more easily.

Tip 4: shoot with a small aperture.

It may seem contradictory. Just now, the author said to use a large aperture lens. Why do you want to shoot with a small aperture now? There is a simple reason. The role of using a large aperture lens is to make it easier for photographers to see clearly when shooting, but the aperture is lowered for the following two reasons:

Small aperture can make the depth of field larger, so that the scene will not be blurred by the influence of shallow depth of field; If there is light at night, shooting with a small aperture can make the light star-shaped and the effect is more prominent.

Tip 5: Long exposure

One of the common methods for shooting night scenes is long exposure (shutter value as slow as 10 second, 30 seconds or several hours), which can be used to shoot car tracks, star tracks, waves and so on. Long exposure can not only smooth waves or record the trajectory of red taillights, but also make some light that is usually invisible to the naked eye appear. The effect is absolutely fascinating. You must try more!

Tip 6: Set the white balance.

It is not recommended to use automatic white balance when shooting night scenes, because in dark environment, automatic white balance can easily become inconsistent, leading to color difference in photos. You can use the white balance of "tungsten lamp" mode when shooting night scenes, but of course you should choose the most suitable mode according to the environment at that time. In addition, saving photos in RAW format allows photographers to adjust the white balance as needed afterwards, which is more convenient.

Tip 7: Beware of overexposure.

If you use automatic exposure (that is, Auto/P/Av/Tv/S/A) mode at night, it is easy to overexpose. The reason for this is that the camera will be misled by a wide range of dark environment, making the photos overexposed. So when shooting the night scene, we can use the full manual mode, or use the B shutter (the shutter is always open until the photographer tells it to close), so that we can set the appropriate shutter and aperture ourselves. Of course, it takes experience to find the right combination of aperture and shutter, and novices can take more photos to see the effect. If you want to know whether the photo is overexposed, you can observe whether the light spots in the photo are clear. In other words, the light spots taken under normal exposure, such as the most common lights, look very clear and distinct. On the other hand, if the photo is overexposed, the light spot will feel "melted" and the lines will be unclear.

Introduction steps of photography skills Part II Familiar with several gestures

The first problem that deserves our attention is to pay attention to "gestures", which is what we call "feel". Gestures will affect the quality of our photos. Is it really that serious? We can recall some things we are familiar with, and we will find ourselves unfamiliar: to write with a pen, we must be familiar with a pen in order to achieve the best learning state; When playing the piano, if you encounter a particularly hard or soft keyboard, the quality of the pop-up music will be greatly reduced; Even when my dad cooks, he will find it difficult to grasp the heat when he meets an unfamiliar pot and spatula.

Familiar gestures allow us to take pictures in a calm, stable and most comfortable way without worrying. According to our experience, we can be divided into three types to develop our familiar gestures purposefully.

Pose someone in front of the camera; Show photos

This is the most routine situation, the things to be photographed will not be fleeting, and the scene flow is relatively stable. At this point, hold the camera steady and press the shutter with your thumb. My own familiar posture is this:

When shooting horizontally, it is a camera with steady hands: the left thumb and forefinger firmly hold the mobile phone, and the mobile phone leans against the palm of the right hand. Thumb naturally clicks the screen to focus, adjusts the exposure, and presses the virtual shutter button.

Lose no time in taking a picture of ...

Familiarity with the gesture of grabbing a shot can help us shoot some unexpected scenes. Usually, the mobile phone is placed on the table in the underwear pocket, and the screen is locked. It is the key to enter the camera interface in the shortest time and keep your hands in the shooting posture. There are two main points: when picking up the phone, the thumb slides from the edge of the screen and quickly enters the camera interface; Quickly put on a pose of "posing". Usually this process will not take more than 2 seconds.

Grab the shot-1, take out your mobile phone and light up the screen.

Snap -2. Slide your thumb to the left to enter the photo interface.

Grab the shot -3, quickly adjust the posture and enter the photo state.

Continuous snapshot action

(of photographers) snapping photos in the street.

When an important event occurs at the climax of a trip, it is often used. There are several experiences to share: holding the mobile phone in your hand during street sweeping will give people a "curiosity-seeking" mentality; ? It is not recommended to open the photography interface at any time (it consumes a lot of power), but the thumb is ready to quickly enter the photography function by swiping the left screen lock interface at any time; It can be used as a shutter trigger in conjunction with the earphone volume key.

Here we will talk about one-handed operation alone. With the iPhone? For example, you need to "lock the screen and slide to the left to open the photography function" with your right thumb, and then press the volume button with your index finger as the shutter. If time permits, after the photography function is turned on, you can click on the screen with your right thumb to determine the focus, and even slide up and down to adjust the exposure.

One-handed operation trilogy. Although the above operation is not difficult, it still takes some practice to form a few familiar gestures.

One-handed continuous action

Stand up straight, stand up straight, steady.

The beginning of photography operation is not to find those inexplicable and crooked "innovations", but to put the mobile phone straight and take pictures honestly, easily, brightly and firmly. Because we observe the world, our heads are slightly tilted, and we don't feel that the world is tilted. For photos, a little tilt of the horizon will be sensitively perceived. Go and have a look? At least half of the winning works of IPPA 2065 438+06 follow this principle.

I just learned piano when I was a child and I like Chopin's music very much. I was fascinated by that kind of music that sounded a little "free and easy" (later I learned it was called rubato? The master's performance was imitated, but was later stopped by the teacher. He felt that the foundation was not good enough and flexible enough at that time. He insisted that I practice in a uniform, steady and rhythmic way. Sure enough, when I reached a certain level and learned some music, I naturally felt "relaxed". And most importantly, I found that even in the way of free expansion and contraction, it is built on a solid and stable skeleton, not at will. My understanding of this point is consistent with my view on photographic composition. We need to understand and stabilize a scene, and then push and pull.

This means that in most cases: make the horizontal line horizontal and the vertical line vertical, at least in the case that the vertical line cannot be vertical, ensure the horizontal line is horizontal. This also means that even if you look up and down, you should straighten your phone flat-unless you have enough reasons to get a diagonal composition.