Lighting technology of outdoor portrait photography

Lighting technology of outdoor portrait photography

Although this pose is one of the commonly used techniques in tourism photography, as long as the pose is distinctive, whether it is a single photo or a group photo, it will be very distinctive and memorable. The following is my information about lighting skills and composition skills of outdoor portrait photography for your reference!

Lighting technology of outdoor portrait photography

Always focus on your eyes.

The eyes are the windows of the soul, and you will find that the eyes are an element that can not be ignored in any good portrait photo. Of course, the decisive factor that constitutes an excellent portrait is not only the eyes, but also the strong feelings conveyed by the eyes. So when you are shooting, you should make the subject's eyes the clearest point in the photo. And when you focus the model's eyes with a large aperture, the lens will blur the background and make people's skin look softer and smoother.

Use a large aperture to obtain a shallow depth of field.

There are many reasons to buy a large aperture lens. The most important reason is that it can help us get a shallow depth of field when shooting. You can use the large aperture lens of F2.8 or F4 to get the soft natural light needed for portrait shooting, and you can naturally blur the background.

Try not to shoot portraits with a focal length less than 50mm, and use a focal length of 70mm or longer.

You may always hear the subject say, "Why does my face look so big?" You know, any focal length below 70mm will cause the distortion of the subject more or less, although it will not be obvious before 50 mm, so it is best not to shoot portraits with a focal length less than 50 mm. The compression effect of telephoto lens can increase the blur of the background, so most of my portraits are shot with a focal length of 120mm to 200 mm.

Shoot in RAW format

I've said this sentence more than a thousand times, and I'm sure I'll say it again ten thousand times. RAW format is an unmodified data compilation recorded by camera sensor during exposure, which is the original digital source of photos. When you shoot in JPEG format, it looks no different from that in RAW format, but when you edit the image, you will find that the image shot in JPEG format is missing a lot of data, and the image in RAW format allows us to edit the photo to a greater extent. You can recall that when the white balance of the camera is set incorrectly, you must spend a lot of energy and time trying to adjust it later to eliminate the color cast. At this time, if you shot in RAW format before, you can easily save the photo because it allows you to restore the original color of the image.

Carry a gray card with you to adjust the white balance.

When you open Adobe Camera Raw or other raw image editing software, there will always be one. Option for you to choose a custom white balance in the application. It is usually a dropper-style icon. You can adjust the white balance of the image by clicking the neutral gray that you think is correct.

Imagine that you took nearly 800 photos in four scenes at a time, but those photos were all taken with the automatic white balance set by the camera for you. 800 photos have 800 different white balance values, which is a nightmare in the later period. If you can set the white balance of a gray card in each scene according to your shooting theme during the first shooting, you will save a lot of later time. As long as you open your most satisfactory photo in the later software, and then use the dropper to select the white balance, you can adjust the white balance of the remaining photos synchronously, thus saving a lot of precious time. If you plan to make better use of time, the smartest thing to do is to set the white balance every 30 minutes, or set the white balance with the change of light when shooting. )

Bring a sheet and some clips from home.

Are there any old silk sheets in your storage room? Go find it. Of course, you can also choose to buy the cheapest white sheets. An extra-large sheet can make a magical and cheap soft light cover. The way the sheet becomes a sun cover: wrap the edge of the sheet and clip it on a branch or rope to filter the direct sunlight, especially the light from directly above the subject. Note that the bottom of the sheet is tied with stones with ropes to prevent the sheet from being blown into your shooting picture by the wind. )

Choose your own focus

When you choose the autofocus option of the camera and let the camera help you choose the focus, your shooting is on a road of lack of opinion. The autofocus function of a camera is usually designed to focus automatically on the object closest to the lens. Like my 1DS Mark III, it will automatically select the group as the focus, and then calculate an average distance among all the selected focuses as the "best focus", which is completely child's play. So choose the right focus when taking pictures, because you are the ultimate decider of your photos.

Avoid direct sunlight

Direct light is dazzling, which can easily cause your subject to squint and produce a thick shadow on his face. If you don't shoot in direct light, you can avoid shadows. I have always believed that only soft light can describe people's natural appearance, and proper exposure and correct white balance can make your photos more eye-catching.

Be more careful when shooting on cloudy days.

Clouds are nature's soft boxes. Clouds with the right thickness can enrich the color of your photos and reflect unexpected light.

Using reflected light

Learn to control the direction of light and try to simulate the lighting effect of photography studio by using reflected light. It is not a good idea to point the subject directly at the sun unless you want to get a clean outline. An effective way is to wait for the clouds to move to cover the sun, which can often produce a very obvious contrast effect between light and shade.

Using existing reflected light

For example, you can use a nearby white car as a ready-made reflector when shooting, as long as it is not painted with a layer of gray. You can change the tone of the photo white balance. )

Understand F 16 standard.

You must have a correct exposure benchmark in your mind, especially when there is a lack of metering tools at the shooting scene. The standard of F 16 is that when the aperture value of your camera is adjusted to F 16 in the case of sunlight shooting, the shutter speed will be the reciprocal of the current ISO sensitivity. For example, if your camera ISO is set to 100 and the aperture is set to F 16, the shutter speed should be one hundredth of a second. In cloudy conditions (or when shooting in shadows), you only need to use the F8 aperture. Of course, it is best if you have an exposure meter or a gray card to accurately measure the exposure. (Note: The process of measuring exposure with a gray card is different from setting a custom white balance. )

Composition skills of outdoor portrait photography

Pat the back.

When taking portraits, most of the time we care about the expression, movement and posture of the model, and then we are bound by these factors. Why not give it a try and shoot the background? Just a simple back. Very simple and pure, but more touching.

A compelling prospect

When we match the foreground, we should always pay attention to whether the proportion and clarity blur the subject and affect the picture. In fact, it is easy to shoot the same picture if you think too much. The black cat in the picture below is undoubtedly a "failure" to cover up the girl, but it just fits the loneliness of the whole picture and the slightly strange atmosphere, which can be said to be the finishing touch.

Inverted composition

Well, even looking directly at the picture, what she wants to express may not be fully expressed. So, by playing tricks, I turned the picture upside down and doodled with exaggerated and funny lips, as if I could see a rebellious girl expressing her confusion and disdain.

Chaoyuanjing

Strictly speaking, the picture below is not a distant view, because the neat trees are not far from the camera, but the characters in the picture appear far away at the end of the road. Such a special picture, as a portrait work, is somewhat indescribable humor and subversion!

Weaken the subject

When we take pictures, we always think about how to highlight the subject and how to express it, but the following picture is just the opposite. The model is in such an environment, but the clothes she wears are similar in color. The whole picture is seamless, but the main body is still clear. Therefore, even if the subject is weakened, as long as the environment is simple, it will not affect the performance at all but reveal a kind of harmony.

Mask game

Girls' dreams are always strange, changeable and bizarre. Let the reality restore the story in the dream, put on a mask and recall the dream trip that only the fairy tale world has. You killed her, but not her! How's it going? Interesting, isn't it? Do you want to have a try?

special environment

Find an unexpected environment and take an unexpected portrait! Does the model in the water make you feel incredible? In fact, it's just a shallow beach, but if you lower the lens, it looks like it's suspended in water. How beautiful!

Intentional virtual focus

Many times, we like to aim the lens at people's eyes, but now, let's assume that your camera is broken for a while. Try to aim at other small objects with human background, and you may get unexpected gains.

Look down

Generally, when shooting beautiful women, people will avoid looking down from the top, because they will make the beauty's head bigger and compress her body into a strange ball. But this angle is also very special. The girl in the picture below, with innocent eyes and red lips, did you remember her firmly? There is no bad perspective, only photographers who can't use it.

Cover your face

Models who shoot too many direct-looking lenses are a little tired even if their eyes are beautiful. It is better to boldly try to cover your face and exaggerate butterflies to fill the lens instead of the model. Isn't it a little fairy tale?

;