How to express texture and details in photography

Every object has its own unique texture and surface details. Indeed, this is often the most striking feature of an object. The successful performance of this texture in photos can greatly enhance the effect of photos, especially the fascinating and eye-catching effect. How to express texture and details in photography? The following is my experience sharing, let's have a look.

It is not difficult to show texture, just be good at observation. The key is to know what light works best for different subjects. Once you know the required lighting effect, you can be half sure of taking an excellent photo.

In order to express the texture, the most obvious and commonly used is side light, which illuminates the surface of the object at a low angle. This will have an excellent effect on wood, stone tools and textiles. But you need a point light source, sunlight for outdoor photography, and a flash for indoor photography. If you look carefully, you will see that every tiny skinny surface has a long, contrasting shadow, which has a strong effect.

Sunny weather is an ideal time to practice shooting. You can practice observing the subject from different angles and changing the shooting position to achieve the best results. In order to take unusual photos, it may take several hours until the sun is in the right position, or come back the next day. Nine times out of ten, it's worth it.

However, sidelight is not always effective. When the side light is just right, the effect will be good, but sometimes there are too many shadows, which is also messy. When the effect is too strong, this phenomenon will occur. Choose an outdoor scene and observe the effect when the sun moves. First of all, when the light angle causes more and more shadows, the texture becomes more and more obvious. But when the shadows began to grow long and occupied most of the picture, the problem came out and the effect was destroyed. Part of the skill of using sidelight is to be able to judge when the light angle is the most suitable.

If there is a deep depression or a complex shape on the surface of the subject, another difficulty will appear. Side light can not only show the texture of the object surface well, but also project a huge black shadow from the rest of the object structure.

However, despite its shortcomings, sidelight is still a convenient and useful weapon for photographers. You don't have to use sunlight, but you can provide side light for indoor photography without installing a flash on the camera.

Even better, if you have a slide projector, you can use it as a light source. With this light source, you can adjust the light angle and the position of the camera until you are completely satisfied. The light of the slide projector is strong and clear, and it is an ideal light source. This light is also very bright, and the exposure does not need more than a few seconds.

When shooting with sidelight, the depth of field is an important issue worthy of consideration. If the subject is parallel to the camera, you can use a large aperture to blur the messy background without losing the clarity of the subject. This will make the subject look clearer and make the subject more eye-catching. If the single-lens reflex camera has a depth of field prediction button, it can be used to determine the best aperture of the subject.

Besides sidelight, there are other ways to express texture. For example, backlighting can be particularly effective. When this light hits the surface of an object and reaches the camera, details and nameless things that have never been thought of will appear.

In some cases, backlight can achieve a good effect similar to side light, but let the camera face the light instead of letting the light shine from the side. The real beauty of backlighting is shooting wet or slightly glowing surfaces-the light will reflect thousands of small bright spots, which is very eye-catching.

Because there is a lot of bright light, you must be careful in exposure. The bright light part enters the sidelight instrument, which will cause underexposure and half silhouette effect. If you want to achieve that effect, of course, it is better, but you should remember that if you want to achieve a more normal effect, you should increase the exposure by one or two files. In this case, the backlight control buttons on many automatic cameras are very useful.