Digital
Photography Lighting - Shedding Light On The Subject
Digital
photography lighting may utilize the same light as film cameras, but these
cameras have very different ways of reading, interpreting, and dealing with it.
By: Rika Susan
Digital
photography lighting presents many challenges, not the least being that some
CCD sensors still lack the broad exposure latitude of color films. This means
that some digital photos taken in strong light conditions, may have empty
shadows and blown out highlights.
However,
this is exactly where these cameras have the upper hand! They offer you the
opportunity to test your understanding of digital photography lighting
conditions, and to learn from previous mistakes!
Most
digital cameras have preset digital photography lighting modes, or
"scenes", which have been carefully set up to deal with a wide
variety of lighting situations.
To
give an example: a camera such as the popular Olympus SP500 Ultra Zoom has 21
preset scenes. When a more challenging digital photography lighting situation arises,
you can easily choose any one of these to get the perfect shot.
The
'night & portrait' scene is for shooting both your main subject and an
illuminated background in the night. This setting uses a slower than normal
shutter speed.
Then
there is the "museum" setting which is optimized for shooting without
a flash (or sound!) in a museum, or art gallery - or when your kid is
sleeping... This is where the versatility of digital photography lighting
clearly shows itself.
With
digital photography lighting, most cameras have various options for white
balancing. This is the process of determining what will be the baseline white
in your image, relative to which other colors are rendered.
Digital
cameras boast options such as daylight, cloudy, shade, and tungsten. Most
cameras also have an automatic setting for white balancing.
Many
of these cameras also display a histogram to help judge exposure (under or
overexposure) in different digital photography lighting situations.
What
about lighting equipment? You don't necessarily need expensive lighting
equipment. For example, if you're taking informal portraits of your family and
friends, you can easily start with something such as the Screwfix double 500W
site light set including a telescopic tripod.
To
help you master both the technical and creative aspects related to digital
photography lighting, Michael Freeman has written 'Digital Photography Expert:
Light & Lighting: The Definitive Guide For Serious Digital Photographers'.
He
includes 350 photographs to demonstrate the most important techniques. He
explains the full spectrum of light, how the camera measures it, as well as how
to get color accuracy in your digital images.
If
you want to fully explore how to use post-processing in Photoshop to achieve a
variety of digital photography lighting results, you may want to study
'Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques, Revised and Updated', by Barry
Huggins.
Huggins
explains techniques such as how to bring sunshine into cloudy day pictures, and
to create underwater effects. You can also find out about light sources, and
different types of light, such as candlelight and neon.
The
message of these authors are clear: practice, practice, practice makes for
perfect digital photography lighting!
For
more information visit Best-Digital-Photography.com
Rika
Susan of Article-Alert.com researches, writes,
and publishes full-time on the Web. Copyright of this article: 2006 Rika Susan.
This article may be reprinted if the resource box and hyperlinks are left
intact.
Article
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