How to shoot a good-looking backlit portrait

Lead: Photography is the art of light, and the characteristics of light are divided into luminosity, light quality, light level, light type and many other aspects. For ordinary amateurs, natural light is probably the most common thing in daily shooting. Shooting in the sun has advantages and disadvantages. Strong luminosity can ensure sufficient color expression, but if you need a specific light color and light level, you need to choose the right time to shoot. Especially friends who like to shoot scenery will understand that the waiting time is often more than the shooting time. Let's take a closer look.

Photographer: The Bund has a bad impression.

First, the light source that people love and hate: backlight

Let's discuss with me how the photographer in the portrait section shoots good-looking backlit portraits!

Backlight shooting can produce dazzling contour light around the object and strongly outline the appearance of the object:

Photographer: The Bund has a bad impression.

Backlight, especially low-angle backlight at sunset, often brings strong shadow contrast on the subject, resulting in great difference in light ratio. There are always many details that can't be taken into account in the light receiving and backlight, not to mention backlight shooting (hint: silhouette is also one of the available skills). Even those high-end lenses worth tens of thousands of yuan have good anti-backlight performance, and glare and autofocus obstacles will inevitably appear in the case of complete backlight, which will be more serious for ordinary lenses. However, everything is not absolute. As long as it is used properly and combined with good composition, backlight shooting can also achieve beautiful results. When shooting wide-angle scenery, macro and even portraits, you can use the backlight level to obtain different effects.

Second, the influence of light on backlit portraits

Let's share with you the shooting skills of backlit portraits.

1, under the condition that the foreground is not filled at all, a strong silhouette effect and a good rendering atmosphere can be obtained by metering the bright background.

Photographer: the bath of Kunlun light

2. More details can be obtained by properly filling the foreground with reflector or flash.

Photographer: the poem of bin Laden's lover. young people

3. Backlight shooting can produce dazzling contour light around the object, which strongly outlines the appearance of the object.

Photographer: The endless sunset on the avenue is drunk.

In the backlight scene, the character's hair will be more obvious and beautiful, the edge line of the body will also be presented, and the whole character will become more three-dimensional. This is also an important reason why many people in the field of photography like backlighting.

4. When shooting subjects that are easy to transmit light, such as forest plant background, you can use the backlight level, and the subject will show stronger texture, and the feeling of light beam will make the picture full of mystery.

Photographer: Xiaofeng is better than me.

5. Pay attention to the composition when the lens has severe halo, and adjust the lens position slightly to avoid the halo covering the subject.

Photographer: Sharjah pursues a sunny summer.

6. Backlight shooting will affect the accuracy of autofocus, and you can focus accurately by manual method.

Photographer: The Afterglow of Bin Laden's Lover

7, to avoid direct sunlight completely into the picture, looking directly at the sun through the viewfinder for a long time may cause vision damage, people and background suggest separate metering, and choose exposure value according to the actual light ratio!

Photographer: Roger's forever white swan

Take a portrait as an example, the sun (or light) is behind the portrait, and the light distribution of the whole scene, the face and front of the portrait will appear darker.

Third, the actual operation of backlight portrait

The basic characteristics of backlit portraits are: from the light level, the total backlight is directed at the camera, also known as? Backlight? ; Is the side backlight around the camera 135? The light emitted from the back of the camera to the subject accounts for 1/3, and the backlight accounts for 2/3.

From the light ratio, the subject and background are both in the dark or 2/3 of the area is in the dark, so the light ratio between light and dark is large and the contrast is strong. From the perspective of light effect, backlight produces contour light for opaque objects; Generating transmitted light for transparent or translucent objects; Produce flickering light on liquid or water.

Photographer: Everyone calls me Ayin. She is always picking flowers.

Most cameras will preset all the framing pictures as the basis for metering. Due to the backlight environment, the light behind the portrait is stronger. After the average calculation, the camera will think that the front darkness of the portrait is normal, which is why the backlight environment will shoot a "big black face".

Photographer: The last flowering period of the Kunlun Valley on the Moon.

In terms of photometry, it is recommended to use spot photometry on the face and increase the exposure at least once, because even if the backlight faces the face, the photometry will not be very accurate, especially when the backlight is strong.

If you want a photo to have a light spot, the lens must include the sun when you take a view. It will be difficult to concentrate at this time. If it is necessary to use manual, it is a good choice. We suggest that the aperture value should not be too large, so as to avoid the sun burning the sensor, which will not be worth the loss.

If you use a reflector to fill the light, don't let the light reflect from the bottom to your face, because the shadow formed by strong sunlight on your face will be ugly. The correct way is to lift the reflector and let the sun shine obliquely on your face. Don't doubt its feasibility, just try it.

Actually, that's basically all I have to say. Finally, although photography is an art that runs out, I can think that people's thoughts are more important, just like writing when they are young. What's the use of flowery words if you don't know the central idea of your article? In addition, for photography, feeling? It's also important, especially the moment of touch.

Fourthly, the side backlight looks for the beauty of light contrast.

The quality of "light" in a painting can create an atmosphere, highlight the texture, weaken the details, affect our cognition of things, and hide or achieve dramatic effects. Try side backlight to find the beauty of light contrast, and then look at the shooting effect of side backlight!

Photographer: Phantom Knight's Suzhou-Hangzhou Nangong in the afternoon.

This photo shows the sharp contrast between light and shadow. A model without a shadow on her face is not necessarily a good portrait. Controlling the angle and range of shadows is also a good portrait. This feeling will also set off the environmental atmosphere at that time!

Main points of side backlight shooting:

Use the warm sunshine in the afternoon to find the existence of light and shadow, and use "spot metering" (strong light ratio) to focus metering, so as to truly grasp the correct exposure value when shooting, shoot in aperture priority mode (AV mode), measure the exposure value, and adjust the white balance (high color temperature) on cloudy days to make the picture appear warmer. Try bold composition and backlight shooting, control the exposure compensation (+/-EV) of the camera in time, and shoot outdoor portraits under natural light and shadow. Try it when shooting outside!

Clever use of flash in backlight

In the case of strong backlight, skillfully using forced flash to fill the subject can make the subject of the photo look clear, well-defined and more fashionable. If the weather is fine, the reflected blue sky effect will be bluer, such as filling the light with a flash during the day and enlarging the aperture to blur the background. If the flash synchronization speed is low, you need to use a medium gray (ND) filter to dim the lens.

Photographer: longer95 104 in the clouds

This backlit photo, in the evening, skillfully makes the sunset just at the edge of the picture by using the flash, which forms a strong cold and warm effect with the blue background of the sky, with a prominent theme and dazzling hard light. After turning on the flash, pay attention to the unity of artificial light and natural light. Often the sunlight in the background will be warmer, and the light output by the flash will be colder, so try to reduce the flash value, or use auxiliary equipment such as soft mask and reflector.

Hair glow effect-when shooting the light behind the object, the best thing is that the object will be surrounded by a halo. When light penetrates any translucent object, it will illuminate this person or thing.

Photographer: Take photos and bathe in the sunshine.

In this photo, the sun is behind the subject, and the model's hair is bathed by the sun. Photographers use high-speed TTL flash to fill the shadows of the model's head, face and hair, mainly to expose the model's face normally, and the soft sunset light creates a golden atmosphere for the whole picture. Sugar water big photo!

Photographer: It flew away.

You can see that this photo is in sharp contrast with the above. The photographer used a high shutter to freeze the sunlight and the model's fluttering hair. The model's face was not polished in the early stage, and the details of the characters' faces were properly brightened in the later stage, which made this contrast very strong and catered to the artistic portraits with the theme of "flying away".

Five, indoor natural light and artificial light backlight shooting skills

The above are all outdoor natural backlight photography skills. Let's talk about indoor natural light and artificial light backlight photography skills. When you plan to take a portrait in indoor natural light, your first thought may be to run to the window and use the window light to take a portrait with light, light or backlight. Light and lightness are not in this category, so we don't consider them.

1, natural light-shooting skills of window side backlight

Photographer: Petals fall on the Qingjiang River in summer.

In addition, generally indoors, we often take the following photos. This is a side backlight when the window light hits the model's face. There will be some high-light areas on the face to control the contrast on both sides of the face and make the picture more stereoscopic.

2. Artificial light-backlight shooting skills in the shed

In addition to outdoor, lighting the background paper in the shed with film and television lights can also create a backlight atmosphere. Most of the backlight methods are similar. Generally, two high-power naked lights (shed lights without lampshades) are used at the tail of the model, so that the light can not only hit people, but also hit the background. In addition, we add a shed lamp with radome in front of the model to brighten the face.

Dreamer

There are many ways of lighting in the shed. As shown in the above picture, playing with multiple lanterns is the goal of many people. After all, the situation of multiple lamps means that you should consider the situation of multiple lamps, in which case you should control more factors, but if you can accurately grasp the purpose of lighting each lamp, it is not far from this goal.