Light

The Importance of Light

Light is so basic and important to photography that the word itself - “photography” - comes from the Greek word for light, which is “phos.”

Light is essential to most types of life on earth, and does many other things for us such as enabling us to see colours and shapes – and without it, photography couldn’t exist!

Colour Temperature

The term colour temperature is a way to describe the colour of a light source, by relating it to a reference source heated to a specific temperature in Kelvin units.

Generally, light sources below 3,200 on the Kelvin scale are described as warm, and sources above 4,000 Kelvin are said to appear cool.

Thus, we can describe light as warm or cool based on this colour temperature measurement.

Light - Daylight

The best light source for most photography is daylight. This natural light source provides a well-balanced colour spectrum that is ideal for most purposes.

There are colour variations in natural light; for example, an overcast area will look more blue, whereas direct sunlight is a redder light. This is why you’ll see something called white balance in your digital camera settings.

White balance tells the camera what temperature the light is, and how to automatically make any needed adjustments for you. Both manual and automatic modes are available, so you can set the white balance yourself or let the camera make the decision for you.

Direct Sunlight

Although sunlight is a great light source, it’s important to be cautious when using bright direct sunlight for your photography. This is particularly the case during midday when the sun is at its highest and most direct.

This type of strong direct lighting will create excessively high level of contrast in you photos, such that shadows may come out very dark or even black, obscuring any detail, and light areas may be blown out and indistinct as well.

One fairly simple solution is to use a reflector or a flash to provide light to the shadowed areas – especially if you’re taking pictures of people’s faces and want a great balance without overly darkened features.

Indirect Sunlight

Indirect sunlight is the ideal light for all photographs, because the clear, balanced light flatters nearly every subject.

Many amateur photographers make the mistake of believing that an overcast sky is not good lighting for shooting. In actuality, a bright overcast sky provides a very valuable diffused light that can provide a high-quality environment for a photographer. Take some pictures in this kind of light and surprise yourself with the excellent colour quality and soft shadows that result.

Sunrise and Sunset

The light at sunrise and sunset can help a photographer create stunning images. Capture dramatic landscapes and other outdoor scenes unlike those of any other time of day.

Sunrise and sunset produce natural light in warm red and yellow tones, which add richness not available from daylight.

Sources of Light - Artificial Light

The broad variety of types of artificial light include:

• Light-bulbs

• Fluorescent light

• Candlelight

• Incandescent flash lamps

• Mixed lighting

The various kinds of artificial all provide different colour temperatures. For this reason, artificial light is easier to work with using a digital camera, where you can immediately see the results and make changes to the white balance settings as necessary.

Mixed light

Sometimes light from different types of sources, with different colour temperatures, mix together at the same time – this is referred to as mixed light.

For example, you’d have mixed light if you were shooting a subject indoors, with light coming from artificial sources (possibly including a flash) and also coming in through a window.

Consider which of the light sources is the highest, and set up your exposure for that level of light.

Flash Lighting

The benefits of flash lighting are the convenience and how flexible it is. Most cameras currently o the market have a built-in flash, and many have the additional option to connect a separate detached flash unit. Flash is one of a photographer’s key tools, and is worth further discussion. You will see the results in the quality of your pictures if you take the time to gain a good understanding of flash and how best to use it.

A separate flash unit will be larger and more powerful than the flash built into your camera. Your camera will have a “hot shoe” or special bracket and sync lead for the external flash to attach to.

When shopping for a flash unit, look for one that lets you angle the head for more control over the direction of the light. You’ll get softer shadows and better overall lighting on the scene if you can bounce the light off the ceiling or use a diffuser.

Built-in flash

Built-in flash is most useful for subjects no more than one foot away – though if you’re too close, the details will get washed out . The built-in flash in your camera is fairly weak, mostly because it’s small – because it has to fit inside your camera!

Flash Lighting

Professional photography studios never flash directly at their subject. Light will be bounced into reflectors such as shoot-through umbrellas or bounced off walls or the ceiling.

When you bounce light off another surface, that surface effectively becomes the source of the light to your subject. Because the new surface is so much larger than the original source of light – the flash – the light is spread out or diffused across it, and a larger surface always creates a much softer effect.

Backlighting

When the light source is placed behind the subject of a photograph, this is called backlighting.

Light coming from behind them prevents the subject from being well-lit, and they will be underexposed or even seen in silhouette. The camera will automatically adjust to expose the area of the shot that is most well-lit, and leave the foreground in shadow.

If your objective is to shoot a dark object, like a group of people with a bright sky behind them, simply set your exposure to the light of the sky and your camera will underexpose the objects in front of the sky and leave them in darkness.

Side Lighting

Side lighting is a technique you can use to take especially dramatic photographs.

Accentuate the effects of side lighting by varying the degrees to which the off side is in darkness – anywhere from a soft shadow to total blackness.

Do this by altering the angle of the light source and the contrast of the shot, and this will increase or decrease the level of shading.

Front Lighting

Front lighting (when the sun or light source is behind the photographer) is said to help give detail to a photograph.

Although front lighting is favoured by many as a way to take a good photograph, it can also be known to flatten images and take away form and texture.

If you lose and strip away too much shadow from your scene, it can then impact on your depth and contrast.

Light Painting

One technique used in photography is called light painting, or sometimes light writing or light graffiti.

Using long exposures, you can “paint” light into a shot using handheld light sources.

The surroundings need to be dark or at most have a very low level of light. Too much ambient light will interfere with the painted light during the long exposure needed.

Using your handheld light sources and long exposures, many very interesting effects can be achieved. It’s a lot of fun and something you should definitely try out and experiment with!

We believe that the first person to develop this technique was a photographer known as Man Ray, in a series of images called “Space Writing.” However this is a versatile technique you can use to do more than just painting or writing.

You don’t need much special equipment for light painting – just your camera, a tripod (since you’re using long exposures), and a handheld light source.

Light Painting

Try it yourself using these step-by-step instructions:

• Affix your camera to the tripod to keep it steady and prevent any possible camera shake during the long exposures.

• Use manual focus to focus your camera on the subject.

• Depending on your camera and where you are shooting, the exposure time needed will vary. Experiment – start with a shutter setting of about ten seconds and see how that works.

• Put on the self-timer or a remote shutter release, as this helps you not to shake the camera when you press the button.

• Be sure to keep the subject inside the frame. Perform a check to make sure the subject – since they’ll be moving – knows where the boundaries are.

• If you are indoors, turn off the lights.

• Release the camera shutter and have the subject begin “painting” with their light.

• Look at the results.

• Repeat the procedure as necessary, making tweaks to your setting to get the kind of image you want.

Lens Flares

Keep the light from shining directly into the lens, as this will result in lens flare.

If you are interested in using lens flare as a technique, that’s perfectly fine – but do be very cautious. A powerful light source flashing directly into your camera can damage the sensor.

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