Table of Contents
Portrait Photography Skills
③General steps and rules of studio lighting
Studio lighting is not like natural light. Photographers can use skilled lighting techniques to create wonderful light and shadow effects based on subjective ideas and performance needs. However, due to the large subjective and randomness of the lighting in the studio, it allows the photographer to maximize the effect of lighting on the one hand, and on the other hand, it increases the difficulty of lighting. . In order to improve the effect and speed of lighting, the following steps and rules should generally be followed when lighting.
- Determine the main light
The main light is the dominant light source, which determines the main tone of the picture. In lighting, it only makes sense to determine the main light and add auxiliary light, background light, and contour light. In the process of determining the main light, the lightness, intensity and coverage of the main light source should be based on the subject’s modeling characteristics, texture performance, light and dark distribution, the separation of the subject and the background, and the distance between the background and the subject, etc. .
For most of the subject matter, generally choose softer light, such as reflector, soft light and fog light as the main light. Direct floodlights and spotlights are rarely used as the main light, unless the picture needs to bring a strong contrast effect from them.
The main light is usually higher than the subject, because the most comfortable and natural lighting is usually the light effect that simulates natural light. The main light is too low, the subject will form an abnormal bottom light illumination, and the main light is too high will form the top light, making the side of the subject contrast with the top surface.
- Add auxiliary light
The illumination of the main light will cause shadows on the subject, unless the photographic picture requires a strong contrast. Generally, in order to improve the gradation and tone of the shadow surface, auxiliary lights should be added when lighting.
The auxiliary light generally uses soft light, and its light position is usually on the opposite side of the main light. When adding auxiliary light, pay attention to controlling the light ratio. The appropriate light ratio is usually between 1:3-1:6. The light ratio should be smaller for light subjects, and the light ratio for dark objects should be smaller. bigger.
When adding auxiliary light, you should also pay attention to avoid that the auxiliary light is too strong. If the auxiliary light is too strong, it will easily cause the light to be clamped and produce redundant and awkward shadows. In order to control unnecessary shadows, in addition to making the auxiliary light weaker than the main light when lighting, sometimes the method of appropriately lowering the light level or placing the auxiliary light as close as possible to the camera position is used to project the projection to the back of the subject.
According to the needs of the picture effect, the auxiliary light can be one or more. While using various lamps as auxiliary light, don’t forget to use reflectors as much as possible, which can often produce unexpectedly good results.
- Set the background light
The main function of the background is to set off the main body or render the atmosphere. Therefore, when dealing with the background light, it is necessary to pay attention to contrast and harmony.
When shooting small objects, it is often difficult to light the background separately because the subject is very close to the background. At this time, the main light doubles as the background light. In the specific control of the ratio of the main light to the background light, it can be controlled by selecting the appropriate lamp distance, orientation and illumination range, or using various translucent diffusers or opaque shading objects at the appropriate position on the main light and background axis Perform occlusion to get proper brightness.
When the subject is large and there is enough distance between the subject and the background, the background can be illuminated separately. The background light generally does not interfere with the lighting of the subject, and it is easy to control the coverage, brightness and uniformity of the background light.
In the specific lighting process, special attention should be paid to whether there will be a phenomenon of “merging” between the subject and the background with similar brightness, or whether the illumination of the center and surrounding areas of a large-area background with uniform brightness is indeed uniform.
In these two situations, don’t trust your own visual inspection too much. It is best to use a light meter for serious detection, because the human eye is often insensitive to small changes in brightness, but the film will faithfully record it.
In addition, when lighting the background light of frequently shot high-key or low-key photos, it should be understood that their background light is not as bright as we imagined, or the darker the better. If the background brightness is too strong, the diffused light produced will not only easily cause glare to the lens, but also affect the light effect of the subject.
It is not necessary to control the background too dark when taking low-key photos. Generally, it is more appropriate to control the background brightness to an EV value higher than the brightest part of the subject when shooting high-key photos, and to control the background brightness to one EV value lower than the darkest part of the subject when shooting low-key photos.
- Add contour light
The main function of the contour light is to produce a bright and bright outline of the subject, so that the subject is separated from the background. Contour light is usually projected back and forth from above or above the side of the background. Generally, there is one light position, but sometimes two or more are available as needed.
Contour light usually uses spotlights, which are strong and hard, and often produce heavy projections on the screen. Therefore, it is necessary to weaken or eliminate these messy projections when arranging the contour light. To eliminate or weaken these projections, in addition to adjusting the lamp position, sometimes clever use of reflectors for contour light projection will have unexpected effects.
When arranging the contour light, you should also pay attention to the light ratio of the contour light and the main light. Usually, the contour light is brighter than the main light. In addition, when lighting, you should choose hard light or soft light as the contour light according to the needs of the subject.
There are usually two ways to obtain soft light. One is to put umbrella lights, soft lights, etc. as close to the subject as possible, so that the brightness of the contour light is higher than the main light, but this is often more laborious. The other method is simpler, just use the diffuser in the spotlight to soften the light. It should be clear that contour light is not a necessary light for every picture. It is only added when the picture needs it, otherwise, it will be superfluous.
- Add decorative light
Decorative light is mainly used to decorate certain parts or details of the subject, and it is a partial, small-scale use of light. The difference between decorative light and auxiliary light is that it does not aim to increase the brightness of the dark parts, but to make up for the lack of image shaping of the main light, auxiliary light, background light and contour light.
Catch light, luminescence, key projection light on the bright part of the subject, and partial lightening at the edge are all typical decorative lights. Generally, the decoration of decorative light should not be too strong or too hard. Too strong or too hard will easily produce light spots and destroy the overall perfection of the lighting.
- Review
In the above lighting process, since the light is added in one kind, the latter kind of light is likely to have an impact on the previous light effect. Therefore, after the lighting is completed, it is necessary to carefully examine the overall light effect. For example, whether the lighting is obviously lacking or unreasonable, whether the projection density meets the requirements, whether the projection position is appropriate, whether the lighting of each light source is interfered, whether each light source enters the viewfinder screen and causes halo, etc. Examining these details can avoid the abandonment of previous efforts due to a momentary negligence.
④ Studio lighting techniques
In order to achieve the ideal light and shadow effect, in addition to following the above-mentioned lighting steps and rules when lighting the studio, special attention must be paid to the following skills and essentials.
- Control the light source area and degree of diffusion
The size of the light source area is directly related to the light-emitting properties of the light source, and the light-emitting properties of the light source affect the contrast of light and dark of the subject. Therefore, controlling the area of the light source and the degree of diffusion of the light source can better control the contrast effect of the subject. When low contrast is required, the light source has a large area and a large degree of diffusion, so that the light coverage exceeds the subject. When high contrast is required, the area of the light source should be small, and the degree of diffusion should be small, so the light has directivity.
- Ensure sufficient lighting brightness
Sufficient lighting brightness allows us to freely control the required depth of field through the aperture. Although the method of prolonging the exposure time or performing multiple exposures can be used to solve the problem when the lighting brightness is not enough, these two methods will bring inconvenience to the shooting. Extending the exposure time will easily cause the exposure reciprocity law to fail, resulting in coarser film grains, reduced contrast, and color deviation. However, the use of multiple exposures requires that the positions of the subject and the camera remain stationary during the exposure, and the calculation of the exposure is also more complicated, which greatly increases the difficulty of shooting.
(To Be Continued)