Basic knowledge of portrait photography, knowledge of portrait photography skills

There aren't many specialized photography that requires a clear focal length, and portrait photography is one of them. Most professional photographers use short zoom lenses to shoot people, and their favorite focal length range is around 85-1oomm. In fact, a telephoto lens between 85 1oomm in length is often referred to as a portrait lens, as it allows the photographer to shoot at a good shooting distance (3-4m away from the subject, leaving some space for himself and the subject, but still being able to fill the frame with the subject), and more importantly, shooting with a focal length of 85 1oomm eliminates the facial distortion caused by using a wide-angle lens, and also avoids the compression caused by longer telephoto lenses.

Some portrait photographers insist that a focal length of 85mm is ideal for portrait photography, while others think that 100mm is the best, and professional photographers debate this kind of thing on the Internet**forum every day You can try both focal lengths with a zoom lens and choose the one you like the most, because both focal lengths can make a satisfying portrait** So I won't start a war here. (Note: Nikon and Canon cameras have zoom lenses from 28 to 105mm, which is ideal for shooting people because you can choose between a focal length of 85mm, a focal length of 1oomm, or something in between.)

Another reason why short zoom lenses are great for portrait photography is that you don't have to move the tripod or change the camera mode every time you need to recompose. Therefore, having a zoom lens with a focal length of 85-105mm can be used to complete the shooting well.

Excellent portrait photography is the sum of many success factors: expression, posture, composition, lighting, and production must reach a high level, and they are all components of an overall whole.

Portrait photography is different from general portrait photography: portrait photography takes the depiction and expression of the specific appearance and demeanor of the subject as its primary creative task, although some portrait photography works also contain a certain plot, but it still mainly shows the appearance of the photographed, and a considerable number of portrait photography works only explain the image of the subject, and there is no specific plot.

Portrait photography, on the other hand, is mainly to show the events and activities in which the subject participates, and its main task is to express the specific plot, rather than to express the subject's appearance and demeanor with a clear image. An important difference between the two is whether or not the physiognomy of the person is depicted. Whether it is a single person or multiple people, whether it is captured in the scene or posed in the photo studio, whether it has a plot or not, as long as it is based on the specific appearance and mental state of the subject, it belongs to the category of portrait photography.

Those photographs that mainly show the activities and plots of the characters, reflect a certain theme of life, and the appearance of the subject is not very prominent, whether it is a close-up or a full body, can only belong to the category of character photography. Of course, in a broad sense, it belongs to portrait photography.

Portrait photography takes the portrayal and depiction of the subject's appearance and demeanor as its expressive task, and the person's appearance should be distinct. It is divided into three categories: studio portraits, indoor environment-specific portraits, and outdoor portraits. The requirement for portrait photography is to "have both form and spirit".

<>1. Large aperture prime lens

The biggest feature of a large aperture lens is that it has a large aperture, and under the condition that the subject is at a certain distance from the background, a relatively shallow depth of field can be obtained, that is to say, the background will be blurry, and in the case of a blurred background, usually the subject will be highlighted, and then you can give full play to the advantages of a large aperture lens.

a.Advantages of large aperture lenses.

1.With a large aperture, when the distance between the subject and the background remains the same, shooting with a wide aperture can obtain a relatively blurry background and highlight the subject, which can usually be used for street photography to blur the messy street scene.

2.Opening the aperture wide can achieve a high shutter speed in low-light environments, thus increasing the success rate of taking pictures.

3.Compared with the zoom lens with the same focal length and aperture f, the prime lens is small in size and light in weight.

b.Disadvantages of large aperture lenses.

1.Lenses with aperture f are usually prime lenses with a fixed focal length and require the camera to be moved for framing.

2.When the aperture is wide, the depth of field is very shallow, and it is easy to shoot out-of-focus blurry**.

3.The focal length of the lens is fixed, and different angles of view are often required to present different perspectives, so the lens needs to be changed frequently.

2. Wide-angle lens

a.Advantages of wide-angle lenses.

1.The anamorphic properties of the wide-angle lens can be used to modify the subject's figure.

2.Its perspective distortion can be used to enhance the tension of the picture and the impact of the subject.

b.Disadvantages of wide-angle lenses.

1.If you don't control the deformation well, the picture will be very strange.

2.It is easy to shoot the screen that is too messy, resulting in the main body that cannot be found.

3.The wider the angle of view, the more attention is paid to keeping the picture clean, and the difficulty of choosing the composition will increase accordingly.

3. Telephoto lens

a.Advantages of telephoto lenses.

1.It is used to take a full-body shot with the model surrounded by a scene, which makes it easy to stand out from the center of the background.

2.You can take advantage of the characteristics of a telephoto lens to compress the scene to simplify the background.

b.Disadvantages of telephoto lenses.

1.It is usually heavier, not convenient for long-term shooting, and because the lens is large and heavy, the requirements for the safety shutter speed are relatively high, and it is necessary to pay more attention to maintaining the stability of the camera when shooting, otherwise it is easy to shoot blurry and out of focus**.

2.The size is relatively large, and it is not convenient to carry.

3.If you don't retreat far enough, it will become a half-length portrait of a model taken by Xunpai, which will be featureless.

PS: For models with round faces, you can usually choose to shoot with a wide-angle lens, and models with long faces can be shot with a telephoto lens.

<> What is Color Temperature and White Balance?

One. What is color temperature?

Color temperature is a physical quantity used to represent the "color of light", and the color perceived by the human eye is different under different energies. And that's where the color temperature changes.

The unit of color temperature is Kelvin, which can be expressed in k, such as 1000k, 5000k, 10000k, etc. in the figure above.

Relationship between k-value and color temperature and hue:

The smaller the K value, the warmer the color temperature, the yellowish the picture, and the overall feeling of warmth;

The higher the K value, the colder the color temperature, the colder the picture, and the overall feeling of coolness.

Supplement the knowledge points! Color temperature ≠ how hot or cold the light is;

Many friends confuse the color temperature with the temperature of light, and here I will explain to you an example of striking iron. When striking iron, the iron will absorb heat, and then from red to yellow at low temperature, and then to white, blue, green, etc., in this process, the color change produced by the iron is the change of color temperature, so the color temperature is not the degree of heat and cold of the light, but actually the color component contained in the light, which everyone must understand.

Two. What is White Balance?

White balance, literally "white balance", is provided by the camera, and is a setting that ensures that the color of the subject is not affected by the color temperature of the light source when shooting.

In Canon or Nikon DSLRs, there is generally a preset white balance. For example, auto white balance, daylight white balance, shadow white balance, cloudy white balance, tungsten white balance, fluorescent white balance, flash white balance, etc.

It is important to note here: the relationship between white balance and k value, as opposed to color temperature, in the white balance-k value: the smaller the k value, the bluer **, and the overall is cold; The higher the k value, the more yellow ** is, and the overall tone is warm.

Three. Color temperature and white balance relationship:

White balance and color temperature are two different concepts, because the process of adjusting white balance is achieved by adjusting the color temperature, so color temperature is a matter of white balance for the camera.

Four. How do I set the white balance?

If you want to shoot warm (yellowish)**, turn up the white balance k-value;

If you want to shoot cool tones (bluish)**, turn down the self-balancing k-value.