Digital Photographers' Newsletter

MARCH 2012 Edition

This months summary

• Lighting in Your Photographs.
• Links to infra-red focussing delays.
• TIPs for Digital Photographers - now available by email request
• Library Seminar 6pm-7.45pm Thursday 15 MARCH

Lighting Used in Your Photographs

Lighting can be the difference between a mediocre and stunning shot. It can determine the mood and the overall feel. It will give your photograph ‘atmosphere’. It is helpful to learn how to identify different kinds of lighting and find the photo situations to give you that edge on others.

Light comes from all kinds of sources such as the sun, indoor lighting, the flash mounted to your camera, and the lights on cars and floodlit buildings. Here’s a more in-depth look at some of these sources and how you can use them to create stunning images.

Using the Sun can often be the simplest form of lighting: The sun is the best light source you’ll ever work with. It’s far away, and it isn’t too harsh for most of the day. Take your photographs in the early morning or twilight hours for best results.

Those are the times when the sun’s light hits your subjects from the side, creating a flattering glow that lighting effects.  Midday sun is very bright and creates deep unflattering shadows in portraiture.

Look for a setting sun and look where the sun’s light travels through the leaves on a tree, and photograph it with the sun in front of you. This produces a very pleasing glow to your backlit subject more so than with any other light source. It is great for portraiture to highlight hair and to give translucence to flower petals.  It also creates attractive silhouettes

There’s only one problem with using the sun as a light source. You can’t control it. You have to work with times of day and angles. Some things, no matter what time of day or time of year, will never be illuminated the way you want prefer.

Remember to keep against the sun light from reflecting in your lens by photo-graphing off centre or putting the sun  or light behind an object as in the above photo-graphs. 

Also be careful  with exposure. Avoid exposure from bright areas or it will give you a silhouette.

Maybe consider fill-flash in the outdoors against the light photographs. The flash lightens up some of the shadow areas and creates an image with more balanced exposure.

Artificial Lighting: Try some night photography of buildings and neon signs. You will need to steady your camera using a tripod or resting place. Pick a very slow shutter speed (5-15 seconds). You should see the buildings and neon signs in full colour with buildings lit up by the its reflected light of the neon signs or floodlighting. The buildings and streets will very be colourful.  Wet weather adds to the charm of this night photography.  Also consider water features and river reflections.

Shoot outdoors whenever you are able:

Try to Take Advantage Of Natural Light When You’re Indoors: In daytime, and when your subject is inside and near a window, have your subject face the light and position the camera between the window and your subject. This takes advantage of the natural light outside, illuminating your subject in a much more flattering way. The light from outside tends to be much more intense than the light inside and you may need to balance the external and internal light exposures.

Keep Your Shutter Open Longer and Use A Tripod: Try using a slower shutter speed like 1 second or 1/2 second when taking pictures. This lets more light into your camera, allowing you to take bright pictures without a flash.

While this is a good idea, you’ve got to pay attention to camera shake issues. Because the shutter is open for such a long period of time, any movement you make with your camera will usually blur your images. Best to use a tripod when doing this. It will keep the camera still so it can take in all the light without blurring your photo. Also be aware that any people you photograph with this technique will also be blurred -unless they stay absolutely still.

Increase you ISO speed and be surprised: Your camera’s ISO speed controls how receptive the image sensor is to light. This means you can use faster shutter speeds in low light conditions when you increase your ISO speed. This is great for taking portraits in moderately illuminated rooms where your subjects aren’t moving too fast.

You can access your camera’s ISO speed settings from the main menu. You usually have to be in some kind of manual mode in order for your camera to allow you to do this. Try different ISO speeds, and see which one works for your shooting situation. If your images are too blurry, keep increasing the ISO speed.

Be aware that an increase in ISO speed comes with a trade-off. High ISO speeds (greater than 400) can make your pictures grainy (pixilated).  Grainy images have this old-world feel about them. Suggest you try them sometime for the experience- you might just like them.