​Full explanation of night portrait shooting

Portrait at night is a popular theme among photographers. However, canvas prints due to the complexity and diversity of light sources, photographers need to be more accurate in the use of light, which is more difficult to shoot than daytime portraits. In the next tutorial, photographer Zach Sutton will tell you about the process of shooting people in the night scene.

Equipment selection

In low-light environments, canvas prints online having a good high sense camera and a large aperture lens is a good choice, but it's not a requirement for this tutorial. Also available are three flash units, reflectors, and other continuous light fixtures (not all of them, depending on the situation).

Location selection

The processing of the shooting varies greatly from location to location. Like in an abandoned warehouse and a brightly lit street, there is a difference between the two. When selecting, frames for canvas consider whether the shooting area has continuous lighting, if not, you need to bring some lighting tools to facilitate movement and help the camera focus.

Ambient light selection

When you choose a location with no ambient light, in which case the light source is all from the flash, a higher shutter speed will be used to shoot, and the exposure of the subject and background will be easier to control. If you choose a location with a continuous light source, you will generally reduce the flash output to blend with the ambient light and use a slower shutter speed (note: shutter speed does not affect the flash output).

The working process

The subject of this shoot is the smoking bearded spencer. According to the characteristics of the subject, two flash bulbs were used. The other one is in the upper right front of the character, the main light. After determining the approximate position and output of the flash, you can start shooting. The exact position and output of the flash can be adjusted during shooting.

After determining the general position and parameters of the flash, set the camera parameters and start shooting. Here's the first shot, much less exposed. The output of the main flash was increased, and the resulting photo is shown below. As you can see, the exposure is still a little bit behind.

So I raised the ISO, and the flash output was a little bit higher and then I started shooting. The resulting picture is significantly better. Next, I tweaked it according to the theme, moving the main light a little bit to the left and reducing the output a little bit; The backlit flash slightly increases the output, making the backlight more noticeable and the smoke more clearly separated from the environment. The result is the picture below.

Post-production

In the post-processing, the saturation is reduced and the dark background is lowered, depending on the subject being shot. Then duplicate the elements you want to highlight with one more layer and use tools like burn, dodge, and layer blend to make them more noticeable. The final processed photo is shown below:

Conclusion

By sharing above, I hope I can give you some help. During the shooting, the first step is to determine the location of the shooting, acrylic mounting online so as to facilitate the equipment preparation and lighting arrangement. Let your imagination play a role in lighting to make your photos more colorful.