Photographing the sunrise and sunset is pitch black in front of it, where should the focus be? What mode of exposure is used? How do you keep the camera out of the sky?
First of all, it is recommended to use the aperture priority mode, which allows the photographer to control the aperture size and thus the depth of field and exposure. This allows us to focus our limited energy on areas that need our attention more, such as composition, ambient lighting, or storyline.
Large aperture to effectively highlight the subject.
The small aperture produces a large depth of field, which can make both distant and near objects clear.
As for the metering method, it can be used in spot metering or center-weighted metering mode. When the light source is complex and there is a large area of chiaroscuro in the picture, spot metering has a very obvious advantage, which can be flexibly adjusted according to the photographer's wishes to selectively highlight a certain part. The key point of spot measurement is to choose the light and dark transition in the picture to measure the light, taking into account the bright and dark places.
Spot metering is performed using the brightness spot around the sky as a standard for metering, and it is possible to obtain an image that takes into account the details of the dark parts.
The central focus mode itself balances the central and nearby areas, which can automatically reduce the contrast.
Sometimes, it is found that whether it is the brightest, darkest, and middle focus metering, it is not possible to take a picture with normal exposure of the sky and the ground at the same time, as shown in the figure below. How to solve it?
Either the sky is white, or the buildings on the ground are dead black.
1. The "time of day" of shooting
Shooting the so-called "day time", that is, when the sun has just risen and is about to set, is more conducive to shooting. Although it is also dazzling, it is much weaker in terms of temperature and intensity, and at the same time, the "light and dark contrast" created by the "oblique angle" makes the picture more three-dimensional and layered.
The light is relatively soft
In addition, the light is golden during this time, which creates a beautiful golden halo around the subject's body. All of these invisibly weaken the darkening of the subject caused by the backlight, and instead create another sense of aesthetics.
2. "Weaken" strong light
It can block the backlight of direct sunlight, and you can use leaves, buildings, and even the body of the girl such as the head and shoulders to block part of the direct light and "weaken" the strong light.
Let the point light source shoot the starlight through the occlusion, and then use it with a small aperture, the effect will be more obvious.
3. Use the Neutral Gray Gradient filter
Place the Medium Gray Gradient filter in front of the lens, and adjust the up and down positions of the Gradient Gray mirror according to the size of the sky and the ground to achieve a balance between the exposure of the sky and the ground, so that the exposure of the sky and the ground tends to be the same.
The use of a neutral gray gradient filter balances the exposure of the sky and the ground.
I have to mention here that the sunrise shooting tool - RGND reverse medium gray gradient lens. Unlike normal GND, reverse GND has a decreasing dimming from the center of the filter to the top, making it ideal for shooting sunrises and sunsets. The gradient part of R-GND is best for shooting sunrise and sunset because the sun angle at sunrise and sunset is low and the light is strong. The commonly used neutral gray gradient lens cannot control the low angle of the sun's glare, while the reverse gradient can balance the light ratio of the picture, and the foreground retains more colors, layers, and details, so as not to make the foreground a silhouette effect. According to the gear, there are 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 and 1.2, 1.5.
Shot with a card-colored 170mm glass with a six-stop gray lens and a 0.9 reverse gradient lens.
4. Shake the black card
"Shake the black card" is generally used in the sunrise, sunset and other scenes when the upper and lower parts contrast is large, and the black card is used to block the sky part of the shaking, shaking is to prevent the traces of shaking the black card, if it is too slow, it is easy to leave traces of the black card.
The light ratio is very large, and to take a picture of a fisherwoman's statue is not exposed, and the surrounding photos of the immortal black are taken by shaking the black card.
In actual shooting, the black card can be a slightly hard material such as cardboard, plastic, black flannel, etc., and the worse the reflective ability of the surface, the more it is used, and it can even be replaced by black hats and gloves.
5. Exposure bracketing + post-HDR
HDR requires photos with different exposures, which can be done with exposure bracketing. Shoot 3 or more photos of the scene using bracketing, and then import these photos of the same scene with different exposures into a dedicated HDR processing software (I mostly use Photoshop), and the system will generate a work with more details according to the change of exposure value.
Exposure bracketing + post-HDR shooting
See the previous article Exposure Bracketing + HDR Synthesis to Solve the "Large Light Ratio" in Landscape Photography
However, there are limitations, especially in night scenes and sea scenes, when the wind is blowing and the leaves are blowing, the bracketing must get three or five photos in a short period of time to deal with it, but when shooting sunrise and sunset, when the shutter is less than 1 second, the displacement difference caused by the bracketing exposure, or the movement of the target object when the wind is strong, etc., can not be helped.
6. Take a silhouette
You can turn on the live view function, use the average metering mode, and then manually lower the exposure compensation, and confirm that the foreground is completely black on the large screen before shooting; It is also possible to spot metering the bright parts of the image, which also ensures that the foreground is completely silhouetted and dark. Focus on the silhouette part and you're good to go.
The focus is on the silhouette, ensuring that it is not out of focus.
7. Skillfully use the foreground to "brighten" the subject
If the foreground backlit area is not very large, you can use a flash to fill in the light.
Use the flash to illuminate the foreground and preserve the details in the shadows at close range.
This method is often used to shoot portraits with backlight, using reflectors, flashes, etc. to fill in the light of the subject, which can avoid the blackening of the face caused by backlighting.
With the help of the reflection of the snow, the brightness of the main body of the character is brightened, and the contour light in the backlight, the hair and the little snow in the sky can add to the dreamy feeling.
Of course, in the same way, you need to look for natural "reflectors" from the environment – that is, reflective "foregrounds" such as snow, water, mirrors, etc., to brighten the subject. As long as the light shines in the foreground to form a moderate reflective picture, as a "natural reflector", the originally dark subject can be brightened from the part to the exposure of the picture.
Finally, it is the use of post-production "rescue", due to the instantaneous nature of photography, some scenes do not have the opportunity to re-frame and shoot, but because of the backlight caused by the subject of the picture is too dark, a bit of a pity, in this case, we can save a backlit waste film through the later stage, through the brightening of the picture, adding contrast, enhancing clarity, and HDR.
Later rescue backlight waste films
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