Flower shooting skills introduction

Whether in the spring and summer blooming season, the wild flowers blooming on the hillside, or the annual large-scale flower show, we will also have the opportunity to see beautiful flowers. What should a novice do to shoot flowers? What skills do you need to pay attention to? Now let's take a look at these 15 tips!

(1) It is recommended to bring flower equipment.

Lens selection

In fact, wide angle, medium distance and telephoto can all be used to shoot flowers, because various lenses can also shoot different effects, but if you have the following lenses and accessories, remember to bring them!

Telephoto lens: such as 70-200mm, 100-400mm, etc. , used to eliminate messy background and facilitate composition;

Macro lens: it will be used when shooting close-ups of flowers, and the recommended focal length is100 mm; ;

Close-up ring or tube: If you don't have a macro lens or a telephoto lens, you can also buy a close-up ring or tube and put it on your other lens to shorten the shortest focusing distance, so that you can enlarge the flowers.

If shooting outdoors, flashlights and tripods are not really needed, but they can also be used for creation. If necessary, you can bring a reflector to fill the light.

A telephoto lens can not only avoid crowds, but also create a shallow depth of field.

(photo by Lotte Grnkjr)

Camera selection

The camera is not really important. Even a mobile phone or a small DC can take beautiful photos, but of course DSLR can give you better control.

Key points of camera setting

(2) Control your depth of field.

We may enlarge the flowers when shooting. Please pay close attention to your depth of field. If the depth of field is too shallow, a small part of the flower will be clear, while other parts will fall outside the depth of field, resulting in blurring. Remember that a large aperture will lead to the depth of the scene (another is the distance between the focal length and the background, see this), so if you find that only the middle part of the flower is clear, please shoot a smaller aperture.

Be careful not to have a shallow depth of field, or many parts of the flower will fall into the bamboo range with a shallow depth of field.

(photo by Sam Yili)

(3) Watch out for the breeze!

Especially when shooting outdoors, in addition to its own stability, we should also be careful that the breeze blows the flowers, resulting in blurred photos. Pay attention to your shutter speed. If possible, use shutter priority or manual mode to ensure that the shutter speed is kept above1100s-1/250s. If necessary, please upgrade ISO. If you hold a telephoto lens, you must also pay attention to the "safety shutter" to avoid hand shock.

But you might as well try to slow down the shutter and let the flowers move slightly in the wind, and you will find that the photos taken will become very dreamy!

(4) Note that white flowers and yellow flowers will affect the light guide, resulting in underexposure.

If you use semi-automatic modes such as aperture priority or shutter priority, please note that when shooting white flowers, the camera's metering may be misjudged, resulting in underexposure. At this time, you should correct EV according to the formula we have taught before: "Brighten in case of light, darken in case of darkness", so you should add EV to compensate for underexposure.

Be careful that white flowers will misjudge the camera and lead to underexposure. At this time, increase the exposure or +EV.

(Photo by percy Tower)

(5) Be careful about the details of safflower loss.

When shooting red flowers, be careful not to overexpose the flowers and lose details, and don't excessively increase the saturation.

(6) Set your own white balance to avoid affecting the color of flowers.

When you shoot when the light color changes greatly in the morning and sunset, we can choose whether to choose white balance to correct the color of flowers. If you don't set your own white balance, the flowers taken at sunset may lose their warm colors. In addition, by setting the white balance by yourself, the color of flowers can be completely restored. Learning: white balance skills-the important influence of color orientation on photos

(7) Use CPL polarizer to eliminate reflection.

When the light is sufficient, flowers may reflect light, which makes the contrast of photos insufficient. At this time, you can try to add a CPL polarizer to remove the reflection of flowers and leaves and improve the contrast and saturation.

Selection of light

(8) Make good use of soft light, side light and backlight to avoid shooting at noon.

Light is very important for taking flowers. It is best to have clouds that day to form a natural soft light box, or to take pictures after sunrise or near sunset. When the light is soft, it is easy to take beautiful flowers. Avoid shooting at noon when the sun is overhead, or when the sun is strong.

At sunrise and sunset, it will be reflected as sidelight, when flowers and darkness can produce dramatic effects; Backlight, that is, the camera shooting at the sun, can clearly show flowers, leaves and other textures, which is another common shooting method.

Side lighting can produce dramatic photos!

(photo by jasohill)

Backlight photography can capture the texture and perspective of flowers, which is particularly beautiful under the blue sky.

(Photographed by Craig O 'Neill)

Photographing and composition skills

(9) Shoot at the flower level

When shooting flowers, please lower your height and shoot at the level of flowers, so that you can enter the world of flowers more; Sometimes it sticks to the ground and shoots upward, which makes people look like they are in a flower and shoots a special perspective effect.

(10) Take close-ups of flowers and small insects.

Don't just shoot the whole flower! Try to shoot a small part of a flower, such as stamens and petals, with a macro or telephoto lens. Or adding common insects such as bees and butterflies will also have a decorative effect.

Take a close-up of flowers

Photo by Ricardo Coupigny

(1 1) makes flowers stand out.

Don't shoot a lot of flowers greedily (of course, sometimes). It is best to find one or two of the most beautiful and distinctive flowers among the flowers and shoot them with telephoto and large aperture, so that the background will be blurred due to the depth of the scene, so that the protagonist flower will stand out from the photo and avoid being affected by the messy background.

Highlight one of the flowers with a shallow depth of field.

(Photographed by jose maria Cuellar)

(12) Choose a high contrast background.

Although we can use shallow depth of field to get rid of the messy background, we can also pay close attention to the color of the background and try to find a background with obvious contrast with flowers (such as red flowers on the edge color background) to make the flowers stand out!

(13) use a variety of composition methods to shoot flowers.

In addition to the most basic golden section, filling composition, diagonal and S-shaped composition, you can also make good use of the "frame map" to shoot. The shooting method is simple. First find out the target flower to be photographed, and then make a "frame" with the stems and leaves in front to shoot in the gap. This will not only bring a little mystery, but also make readers pay more attention to flowers. Different flowers can use different composition methods, such as diagonal composition.

(Photo by Rona Proud Foote)

The golden section method is simple and effective. It is a necessary composition method for picking flowers.

(Photo taken by Joe Anthony Fortugaleza)

Use the flowers in the foreground as a "frame".

(taken by Silentmind8)

Creative photography

(14) Take a special photo-double exposure.

Using the "double exposure" function in the camera, you can shoot the same flower many times, which can change the focal length and shape, or deliberately lose focus, or bring interesting photos. Try more anyway! Double exposure of pink and white flowers.

(photo by Khánh Hmoong)

(15) abstract effect

Using a telephoto or macro lens, only a small part of the flower is photographed and the picture is filled. In the right light (such as side light and backlight), you can often take photos with abstract significance, adding more artistic sense to your flower photography portfolio!

Shooting a small amount of flowers can produce an abstract effect!

(Theophilos Papadopoulos Photography) Try to shoot with shallow depth of field and large close-ups!

Annie

postscript

Taking flowers is an easy-to-learn but difficult-to-master photography skill. Through the above 15 tips, you can start to learn how to shoot beautiful flowers and make the shooting theme richer!