Photography is the art of light, this sentence. But the question is how to utilize the film lights properly to achieve the best results? From the photographer’s perspective, in a sense, is the use of studio light. Instead of long pontificate how to use up, how to talk about how to enjoy a photographic works of light application will be faster. It is important that in everyone to play photography, if not formal photography professional out, perhaps in the study of photography will be more confused, I personally think, or to lay a good foundation, although the photography is still to shoot the main, but no basis for the blind shoot is also a waste of time. So I am bored to write so many may have some boring theory, I believe that if you and I have no idea of photography, the patience to read this article, and then go back to their own film-must practice to their own results-I think it will certainly help. First of all, I think need to master three basic, one is photography on the classification of light, the second is hard light and soft light, the third is three point cloth light method.
Table of Contents
Classification of film lights
According to the famous photography magazine that our photographers admired, it was divided into four categories. I simplified him and classified it into three types. In natural light, there is only one light source, the sun. Then there are sunny days, cloudy, cloudy, rain, snow and so on, which affect the sun’s rays on the ground. Then the moonlight is considered natural light, but I personally think that for portrait photography, only the portrait of the daylight seems to have no “moonlight portrait”. Ambient light, indoor and outdoor lighting, other than the light produced by the sun, such as indoor lighting, outdoor neon lights, street lights, and even searchlights, as long as it is artificial, glowing, but not for photography-specific lighting The light belongs to ambient light: artificial light, which is the light produced by photography equipment. The difference between him and ambient light is that artificial light can be controlled by the photographer. Such as flash, led shooting lights and so on. How to appreciate the first portrait photography, you have to shoot the three-dimensional. How to represent a three-dimensional thing in a flat photo – Everyone has learned how to sketch. If you represent a geometry, you must have five major tune–light tone, gray tone, light and shade, reflection, and projection. In short, it is through the presentation of bright and dark surfaces to achieve a characterization of a geometry, photography is the same, what is the person’s bright and dark side, or how to make people produce bright and dark side, which is what we say The “light and shadow” – of course, PS can draw light and shadow, you can not make it out of light and shadow, but I think this is not our photographer’s direction.
When we return to three types of light, we must first pay attention to the direction of the light. So when a photographer goes to a place and shoots portraits, they first need to look at the light, what light they have, and from what direction. Because we all know that when I shoot people, I usually have to make my face clear. How do you show light and shadow? The face cannot be black. Therefore, people are generally placed in a place that can be fully exposed to light, that is, light. The same is true in the interior. For example, a spotlight shot down a beam of light. I had to find a good position for my model and let her face fully receive light. However, taking photos is not only about shooting people’s faces, but it is sometimes necessary to consider composition. I would like to make a choice between the front and back views, and the position of the model in the screen should be adjusted. At this time, it may appear that in the picture is beautiful, but it is not light. Or the light is OK, but the position in the picture is very strange. Then we have to use the third type of light – artificial light. Briefly summarize the basic idea of lighting for general portraits.
Give priority to natural light, ambient light, and then make use of artificial light to fill light, but it’s not finished yet. If everyone reads this thing in front of me and then happily takes their own camera and flash, they look for a girl and then send it. Appreciate online for everyone. So the complete sentence is given priority to natural light, ambient light, and then use artificial light to fill light. Then, in the case of using the roof flash, the subject should try not to face up with the top flash, but to the side. This is because when an experienced photographer holds the top of the camera and shoots on the camera, it will be called the side of the subject. It is to give him an angle to produce light and shadow effects. – This also explains why it is best to use off-cameras for the sake of us. If you agree with the above points of view and practice, you have already transitioned from a photography enthusiast who won’t use a light to a photography enthusiast who is willing to use a light. You won’t agree with the idea of taking pictures during the day without lights, and maybe In addition to the body and lens, you will include the lights in your “buy, buy, and buy” list. However, this is just an introduction! See here, many students may start to search for various flash devices and flash. Suddenly, a responsive student asked if I could use a flashlight – I was the classmate long ago.
Now let’s talk about artificial light: the characteristics of a photographic light First of all, the lights currently used in photography on the market include LED lights, hot shoe flashes, and studio flashes. These lamps have higher brightness, more accurate color temperature, and relatively uniform effective illumination range than ordinary indoor lighting lamps. The flash is brighter than the LED. The studio flash has more power than the hot shoe flash. The light quality of the flash is better than that of the normal light. In other words, the flashlight is weakly explosive. But a flashlight is also a small prop that a photographer can take with him. He can assist in focusing on dark nights with dark fingers, but he can also play with light paintings and scare people.
Flashlight application
Next we talk about hard light and soft light. When you happily bought the flash unit according to what I said, I found my sister and took a flash of a three-dimensional portrait with the camera. The Master appeared again, again in three words: the light was too hard. What is hard light, corresponding to it, what is soft light? Let’s come to events, make a shadow game, be an eagle, be a dog, and play. Open a table lamp first, put it against the wall, and then you put your hand out, do a variety of shapes. But you found it was not. You have to get closer to the wall to get a clear shadow. If you lean a little toward the light, you will find that the shadow you projected on the wall becomes empty. why? Because although light travels in a straight line, an unconstrained light source emits light in any direction and then refracts through an indoor wall-roof tabletop into your projected area. If your hand is farther away from the wall, then there will be more.
The ray of refraction enters the area where you project, making the originally well-defined projection appear as a transition from dark to bright. Hard light produces a sharp shadow, soft light produces a transitional shadow. Of course, this is not to say that hard light is not good. Use soft light. Okay, now how to appreciate toughness and appreciate portraiture photography. Second: The expressiveness of light and shadow. Hard-lit portraits often play an accentuating role. For example, a bodybuilder must use hard light to show his muscles and stiffness. Feelings, or the elderly, prominent wrinkles, reflecting the vicissitudes of life; soft light shooting portraits, often play a beautiful effect, of course, there are many skin problems that women are concerned about, wrinkles problems – so, shooting portraits with soft light is really more . Now I believe that many people are already eager to find a girl and then use the soft light to shoot the beauty of the United States, but how do we get soft light? Back to the previous one, review the basic idea of the use of light, give priority to the natural light , Ambient light, and then use artificial light to fill light.
When we compare the shadow games just now, it is not difficult to draw conclusions. It is near the light, easy to soft light, close to the wall, easy to hard light. If we are in natural light, we cannot be near the sun. Then is it natural light that cannot be softened? At this time, they appeared thick and told you that it was not okay to shoot light outside at noon. It was only in the afternoon. Many people may have heard this saying, “It’s the best light at 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” So although they are all right, they are half-emphasized, so I call them “evil old What is the difference between the sunshine of the noon and the sunshine in the afternoon? More than a cloud! OK, we continue the shadow game. It was followed by the lamp, the hand, and the shadow on the wall. We now make sure that the shadows on the walls are clear – this is the hard light. Then, cover the table lamp with a white cloth. No? paper napkin! No hands? Then we use one hand to do the action. We hold a napkin in one hand and cover the table lamp. Then you discovered two things. First, dimmed. Then, did the shadow on the wall become soft? Cloud, the “napkin” in your hand, and then pay attention to a detail that is the area where the original lamp shines. After covering the napkin, does the area of light increase? Similarly, when there is a large cloud between the sun and the subject, does the area of light increase? Therefore, the way to soften the light, in addition to close to the light source, increase the light emitting area can also achieve the effect, of course, will reduce the brightness – then you need to increase the exposure?
Okay, next, I want to tell you that if you understand everything I said before, then I started to teach you. I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to see a lot of professional photographers working on the scene, often there is a lamp of the boss, the lamp caps a white “cloth box”. Through my explanation before, do you see the doorway? It is the same as our previous shadow game. It is a lamp that is covered with a napkin. So this fabric box is called “soft box”. Increase the flashing light area, so as to achieve the effect of softening the light. First, you should give yourself a flash, a flash, and a softbox. Second, you know that when you shoot for sister, you need to use soft light, and then you need to use a little angle. She looks three-dimensional, and those professional-looking photo lights are actually the sun and the clouds – lights + light effects accessories. Of course, we must go to practice. However, even after fully understanding the above points, and then practicing it in person, I believe that everyone will find that how can I shoot less beautiful than those in advertisements and magazines?
Three-point lighting method
In fact, the history of the three-point light is very long, and the big point that is being pulled is the theory that has been passed down by artists since they were passed down to human perception of natural light for centuries, but I can tell everyone that this “three-point lighting method” “Not just for photography, but also for movies, painting, lighting design, and so on. Of course, this theory is very simple to introduce: it is divided into three kinds of light into the subject: 1. key light; 2. fill light; 3. background light I extend it here, in some foreign teaching video A kicker light is also mentioned, which is to highlight some special areas, such as human hair, which will also be called “light.” Why does it take such a complex light to take a photo? One of the core ideas is to use light and shadow to make the photos of the plane visually layered and three-dimensional. No matter what light is used or what themes are taken, it is important to remember this sentence and do it well. The work is also on a level. I directly extract the definition: The first point of light, called the main light, defines the direction, angle, and range, and specifies the illumination axis and the illumination angle. Plays the main shape and determines the role of light and shade. The second point light, called the secondary light (also known as auxiliary light), plays the role of assisting the unlit area of the main light and adjusts the light ratio by the secondary light, softening the shadow formed by the main light. The third point of light, known as backlighting (also known as profile light), is completed after the first two degrees of light are completed, and the object needs to be separated from the environment to create a depth and level. We should pay attention to the definition of auxiliary light, review the methods we mentioned earlier, and get soft light: approach the light source or increase the area of the light source.
Now we see that there is a third way. Using auxiliary light, we now re-reconstruct it. How do we get a soft light? First: Near the light source Second: Increase the light source area Third: When using the auxiliary light but using the auxiliary light, we must remember the phrase “the sun only has 1”, what it means is that everyone knows if there are two directions After the light hits the subject, his shadow will appear in both directions, especially during the daytime and outdoors. If you use the auxiliary light to fight from another direction and weaken the shadow, you need to pay attention to the Does the shadow appear as a second shade that is not in the direction of sunlight? This is where people who use lights often show off “use lights but they don’t see lights.” Even indoors, if your screen does not give you a light source, you shouldn’t let the person you shoot have shadows in both directions. Keep the shadow of the main light, because there is only one main light at first, and if the shadow does not come from the main light, we will take over the Lord. – In fact, the artists passed down for centuries and summed up the human perception of the light of nature. It tells us that if we see the shadows in two directions, we will feel bad. Why use contour light, or when to use contour light? For example, if the model is black under the black background, then the photographs are easy to distinguish between the background and the hair. But if I make a light to the hair, I can tell the background and his hair clearly. This is the so-called separation of objects from the environment. Of course, the auxiliary light and contour light to the subject generally cannot be stronger than the main light, and the main light is the light that is the brightest. But how to allocate their strength.
When shooting with the ttl mode, if you find that people are too bright when shooting a character with a flash, you may wish to lower the flash exposure compensation, which can effectively reduce the brightness of the character. TTL mode is suitable for those situations. First, if you only have one hot shoe flash and only place it on the top, it is highly recommended that you use TTL mode. Second, if you use all the original flash, you can rest assured that Bold TTL mode for multi-lamp flash. But pay attention to the multi-lamp flash in the TTL mode. After all, it is a kind of flash method that relies on receiving the flash signal from the main lamp to achieve the flash, so he is still “light flashing”. Its range of use is limited by the hot shoe. Whether the sensor on the lamp can receive the flash signal from the main lamp. The difference between light flashing and TTL flashing is actually saving everyone the cost of buying a flash device. Nowadays, most of the inexpensive flashing lights on the world support light flashing and ttl flashing. Light flashing is an extremely old method of flashing. When I haven’t yet come to this world, it is necessary to achieve multiple flashes of light, relying only on light flashes. I have met someone who tried to use the current flashlight to try to get a flash. It may happen that it flashed but he did not participate in the exposure. The specific situation is this: everyone in the camera should have a roof flash and then buy a heat. Boot flash, then we can not have two lights involved in exposure it? This is indeed true, but he does not know how light flashes and ttl flashes work. It’s wrong to set it wrong (I’ve done it before) The working principle of TTL is to flash at a very fast speed, then receive the incident light from the exposure subject through the flash sensor, calculate the appropriate output, and then flash again Participate in exposure. ——It’s a bit stupid, right? In simple terms, TTL is two flashes, and the first one is not involved in exposure. However, if you have a ttl flash on the top of the camera, the flash to be flashed is switched to the light flash mode. The first flash that does not participate in the exposure is received by this flash. The results of the second participation in the flash will not flash. Here are some of the students to ask, and now the flash is not very expensive, light flash so old you have to talk about what? In fact, if you buy all the original lights, this paragraph can indeed be ignored, but light flash can achieve different brands of hot shoe flash mix. This is a skill that must be mastered by a shy photographer. Since all of this is said here, I sent Nikon party members a benefit. I think the best body supported by the hot flashes in the hot flashes is Nikon. They call themselves the CLS flash system. A special feature is that the top flash can be used to flash but not participate in the exposure.