Detailed explanation of sunset landscape photography skills

Lead: For photographers, when they encounter beautiful images, they especially want to take them as a souvenir. Sunset and sunrise are the most beautiful, so of course, we need to take these beautiful images as a souvenir. Let's teach photographers some sunset photography skills.

1 Find the right scene

The silhouette must be backlit. Take the sunset, the most commonly used silhouette, as an example. The position of the sun needs to be behind the subject. We can use backlight at sunrise and sunset, because the light is the softest at this time, so we should choose the position and angle in advance. The principle of shooting with other light sources is the same except shooting with the afterglow of sunset. Simply put, it is to find a backlight position and turn the subject into a shadow. This work was taken the day before the typhoon came. There was a red cloud in the sky, just as a group of pigeons flew by.

2 Manual mode and semi-automatic mode

In general, the shutter speed increases and the aperture decreases. In this way, the subject can be almost completely black as far as possible, and the background can show the best silhouette effect with color. Use manual gear (M gear), speed 1000-4000th of a second, aperture10 or above, ISO200-400 (see the light at that time for specific values), because I shot these films with D40, and the minimum ISO of D40 is 200; Exposure should follow the principle of underexposure rather than overexposure, and exposure measurement should be made according to the background. Using semi-automatic mode (such as aperture priority), we can set the camera to? Focus on metering? (or spot metering) mode, metering with the brightest background, and pressing AE-Lock key can lock the exposure value and easily show the silhouette effect.

3 Highlight the main body through the black silhouette.

When the proportion of the subject in the picture is too small or the picture is blank and monotonous, silhouette can be creatively used as the foreground. Black silhouette can not only oppress the audience's vision of the subject, but also not distract the audience. We can even use the silhouette as the main frame to form square, round or varied shapes, so that ordinary scenery has a unique sense of form and increases the depth of the picture.

4 brightness selection and fill light

At 5-6 pm, the sun is located in the west, making an angle of about 45 degrees with the horizon. Sunlight is softer and more transparent than morning light. Of course, according to the different seasons, the time of sunset will be different. We just need to make a choice according to the specific sunshine height. Most of the light levels we choose to use are sidelights or backlights. If it is pure backlight, the picture needs to choose a dark background, because shooting pure backlight basically needs to be exposed according to people's faces, which will make people's skin look clean and transparent. If the background is not dark, the background will be completely overexposed when the person is accurately exposed, and the whole picture will have no sense of hierarchy.

Generally, two reflective plates will be used to fill the light, one as the bottom plate to eliminate the shadow of the chin and eye bags, and at the same time play the role of eye light; A painting forms a three-point line with the sun and the figure, which is full of the figure's face and body, but the light ratio should not be too large, taking the elimination of shadows as the standard, otherwise the light of the figure will appear more rigid. Sometimes you can deliberately let the sun eat into the lens, adding a sense of obscurity to the picture.

5 color temperature control

At sunset, the color temperature has basically reached more than 5000K K, and the yellowish color will give people a warm feeling. What we need is not to reduce the color temperature of the camera to balance, but to enhance the softness of the picture with a setting higher than the color temperature of the scene. Generally, I will set the color temperature around 6500. However, be careful not to use. The reflector on the golden surface reflects the light, otherwise the yellow tone of the face of the person will feel out of the picture, and the color temperature of the whole picture should be controlled within the normal range.

6 color adjustment

When shooting, I usually set different color temperatures in the camera to lay a good foundation. You can make post-adjustment through optional color adjustment, and monochrome can be adjusted one by one. For example, adjusting the sky, you can choose blue and cyan adjustment among the optional colors, and you can choose yellow and red adjustment at sunset. Finally, I added some particles to some films that need special effects to increase the texture. Remember to pay attention to the degree of addition, not too much. (Note: The details of some films cannot be fully exposed when shooting. For example, the trees and branches in some films are very complicated. In order to make them see more clearly, I use painting to trim them, and I use the sketchpad tool. )

Experience: adjust the brightness of the whole picture, you can adjust the dark tone/highlight in PS, and some underexposed places can also use this step to widen the distance between the subject and the background.