Reflection on the water surface

Answer 1

Here are some tips for taking pictures of reflections on water:

** 1. Basic Shooting Preparing **
1. ** Choose a suitable water surface **
- The calm water surface was more conducive to reflective shooting. If you want a clear reflection photo, you should choose a lake, stream, etc. with a gentle flow of water. It is difficult to shoot a static reflection effect on a large flowing water surface (such as a rapid current), but you can use a long exposure to make the water appear silky, or use a high-speed shutter to shoot the static moment of the water movement. If you can't extend the shutter time during the day, you can use an external ND filter to reduce the exposure and extend the shutter time.
- For small puddles, such as small puddles after rain, it could also be used to shoot reflections. However, the puddles in the city may be muddy due to the stirring of cars and pedestrians, affecting the reflection effect. It was best to wait until the water surface was completely still and there was no debris to shoot.
2. ** Decide the shooting timing **
- In terms of weather, when there was no wind, the surface of the water was calm and reflective. At different times of the day, the surface of outdoor lakes and pools in the early morning or midnight was usually the quietest. There was less wind, which was suitable for shooting.
- In terms of lighting, the best time to shoot was when the scene was in front or side light. This could illuminate the details of the scene above the water level, and increase the chance of beautiful reflections (reflections) when it was calm. When backlighting, the effect was like shooting stars. Generally, the light effect was more obvious at sunrise and sunset.

** 2. Shooting Techniques **
1. ** In terms of composition **
- Usually, the composition was symmetrical and centered. The reflection and the main body were placed in the middle of the picture, making the reflection and the main body mirror symmetrical. You can also only shoot the reflection part as the main body of the picture (when the reflection effect is interesting or the medium is special), but you have to keep the basic form of the reflective medium.
- Try to create new compositions, such as rotating the photo 180 degrees or flipping the canvas vertically so that the reflection is at the top of the picture, or rotating the photo 90 degrees to create a unique visual experience.
2. ** Focus and depth of field **
- When taking a selfie with the front of the water, if the aperture was opened wide, the depth of field would be very shallow, and the reflection would easily be out of focus. You could reduce the aperture and then manually focus to ensure that the clear range was in focus.
3. ** Setting of parameters **
- When shooting the starlight effect, a small aperture was the key. The aperture value was set above F8. The smaller the aperture, the more obvious the starlight was. It was generally better at backlighting, sunset, and sunrise. However, it was easy to glare when taking photos. It needed to be blocked with a hood or other obstructions.
- If the light waves were used as a foil, he could also use a large aperture to make it look like a bokeh. When shooting reflective reflections, you can also use a tripod to match the lowest camera's USB with a small aperture (such as F8 - F11) and a long exposure to make the reflections more exciting, brighter, and the things in the reflections clearer. However, you have to adjust the parameters flexibly according to the light, environment, and subject.
- When shooting, you can use aperture priority mode, manually select a smaller aperture value (such as f/11, f/16, or even f/18), and manually lower the exposure compensation as needed to suppress other parts of the picture and highlight the reflection of the water surface.
4. ** Special Effects and Originality **
- At night, when the wet reflective water surface was not calm, the reflection of the light would fluctuate, and the unique abstract picture could be shot using the off-focus effect.
- If you wanted to shoot a character's "Lightness Skill Floating on Water" effect, you could first shoot a video of the character's side walk and the lake scenery. After the video was imported, you could do a series of post-processing, such as cutting the character video into a picture-in-picture, smart image matching, copying, adjusting the opaqueness, rotating, mirror, and other operations. You could also add water splash material.
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