SLR Handheld Night Shooting Skills 1, Equipment Selection
Don't expose most night scenes for a long time. If you want to take delicate and high-quality night photos, you must pay attention to the quality of the camera. During the long exposure, you should ensure the stability of the camera. In order to prevent the photos from blurring, you should use a tripod to shoot. If you want to pursue better picture quality, you can choose the self-timer mode of 10 second or choose cable release and remote control to minimize camera vibration.
If you want to shoot high-quality photographic works, you'd better choose equipment with large sensors, which can receive more light, have better image quality and strong noise reduction function. For example, Canon EOS 70D, 5D3 and so on.
2. Selection of aperture and shutter parameters
If you want to shoot a big night scene and make the picture very clear, you should choose a smaller aperture (such as F22, F 16, etc. ) to get a better depth of field effect, so that the distant view is as clear and detailed as the close-up view, especially the neon signs in the shop window can be clearly displayed, otherwise the neon signs will form a mass of light and look blurred. If you shoot a smaller object, you can choose a larger aperture, and you can also take a good photo by highlighting the details with a shallow depth of field effect. The light at night is much darker than during the day. In order to ensure the image quality, choose a small aperture with low sensitivity, and the shutter speed will be slower. The slow shutter can take some special photos, such as the trajectory drawn by the lights of cars driving on the road. If the exposure time is long, you can choose B-gate exposure as needed.
3. Sensitivity setting
With the improvement of ISO sensitivity, the images taken by digital SLR cameras will be degraded by noise. If the sensitivity is too high, there will be noise in the picture. The lower the sensitivity, the better the image quality. ISO sensitivity can be 50 or 100 to minimize possible premature phenomena.
4. Accurate metering and exposure.
The most difficult thing in shooting night scenes is correct metering and exposure. When shooting a long-distance night scene, the black sky will affect the photometric reading of the camera and make the photo overexposed. In addition, if the shooting is influenced by spotlights or other strong lights, the photos will be underexposed to a certain extent. Because the camera metering will default to 18% medium gray scale, if the exposure is carried out according to the parameters provided by the camera, the final photo will generally be too bright. Therefore, in order to shoot a charming night scene, if the dark area of the shot picture is relatively large, the exposure compensation should be appropriately reduced by 1-2, so as to obtain accurate exposure.
5. Selection of focusing mode
Because the night scene is generally dark and it is difficult to focus, it is necessary to focus accurately if you want to take clear and high-quality photos. Some people will choose an infinite focus distance, and if they shoot a larger scene, they can also get a good focus effect. If you need to shoot a picture with a small depth of field, you need to focus manually. The specific operation method is to switch to real-time display shooting, use enlarged display to focus on any position of the picture, switch the focus mode of the lens to manual focus, and manually adjust the focal length to prevent focus deviation.
6. Selection of shooting mode
If you have a high level of exposure control, you can choose manual exposure mode. In general, it is recommended to use aperture priority mode, set sensitivity, aperture and exposure compensation, and then choose self-timer mode to minimize camera shake. When shooting the traffic on the road, due to the long exposure time, the lights of vehicles will form a linear pattern on the screen.
Pay attention to pedestrians when you press the shutter, and try to shoot when no one is walking in front of the camera, but sometimes the shadow left by people walking through the screen will have a better effect. In addition to camera settings, there are many other things to pay attention to when shooting. You should take more photos, look at the photos taken by other excellent photographers and learn some skills and knowledge in shooting and composition.