Photon detection has the advantages of high sensitivity, low system power consumption and long detection distance. And its performance is easily affected by the atmospheric environment. A photon detection model affected by the turbulence was established, and the modulated Poisson distribution of the echo photon was defined. The modulated Poisson distribution degenerated into Poisson distribution when the number of echo photons was less than 0.1. The range walk error model of photon detection was established to reconstruct the echo and calculate the range walk error of photon detection. The characteristics of photon detection echo and range walk error affected by turbulence were discussed. The results show that under the influence of turbulence, the first photon effect of photon detection is weakened; when the turbulence is 10-16 m-2/3 and the number of echo photons is 2, the range walk error of photon detection is reduced by 0.41 cm and the range precision decreased by 0.23 cm, compared with when there is no atmospheric turbulence. When the turbulence is 5×10-15 m-2/3, the detection probability of photon detection is reduced by 78.18%on average, the range walk error decreases by an average of 91.49%, and the range precision drops by a maximum of 85.77%.