Photographic Lighting 1

Photographic Lighting

Since reflected light is what photographic films/sensors use to create images, lighting is clearly a key element in all kinds of photography. Light sources are divided into two major categories; natural and artificial. Natural light sources are sunlight, moonlight and reflected light. Artificial light sources are: flash, lamps and studio lights. Note that natural light is not necessarily outdoor, nor is artificial light exclusively indoor. Some of the best outdoor shots use flash to "fill" harsh shadows, while an indoor scene may rely entirely on filtered window light. Light may also be classified by its direction with relation to the subject. 

There are four of these classifications for light (natural or artificial).

1.    Overhead

2.    Front

3.    Back

4.    Side

Another characteristic of light is the quality, often defined as "hard" or "soft." Hard light is very bright, resulting in sharp shadows, while soft light is diffused, displaying better range of details, as with the Overcast condition mentioned above.

Photography in sunlight

Photography is all about light, the direction of the light falling on your subject is most important, you need to look at your subject carefully and watch how the shadows fall. If you are able to choose the time of day to shoot your pictures, try to pick a time when the sun is low in the sky, either shoot in the early morning or late afternoon. Shooting pictures of people with the sun too high in the sky, tends to mean the subject's eyes will be in shadow and/or they will be squinting in the strong light, both of which tend to look horrible. A nice side effect of shooting in the early morning or late afternoon is that the color of the light is 'warmer', reds and yellows are stronger which generally gives a more pleasing effect. If you are photographing in sunlight, try to position yourself so that the sun hits your subject from the side, this will give you nice 'modeling' and help create a 3D effect in the picture. Sunlight behind the subject can give a very pleasing 'backlight' effect but be careful that you are not getting 'flare' in the lens, which degrades the contrast of the image.

Lighting Reflectors

Faced with strong sunlight, the professional photographer will reach for his reflector. These actually fold up quite small for carrying around but not quite small enough to stick in your pocket on the summer holiday; also you need an assistant to hold it in place for you. The reflectors come in a variety of surfaces, white, silver and gold are the most usual to see. The idea is to bounce some light into the shadow areas thereby reducing the overall contrast of the shot. By moving closer to the subject or further away you can 'fine tune' the amount of contrast very accurately. The opposite piece of kit, which is black and is used in the same way but to reflect black onto the subject, creating shaded areas, is called a gobo. Gobos and reflectors are used a lot in fashion and glamour photography. Although reflectors and gobos are probably not a practical proposition for all but the most dedicated amateur photographers, it is worth understanding how they are used. Quite often you can find a white wall, or use a piece of card or paper, to do the same job.

Using Flash

Without any doubt, the worst, most horrible, ugliest way to light any subject is with the little flashgun that now comes built into every camera. The in-camera flash produces lighting that is flat, giving the impression that your subject has been run over by a steam-roller, such shadows as there are, are very harsh and look more like an outline than a shadow and, if you are using flash to photograph someone looking straight back at the camera, they will probably have red eyes. All these problems are caused by one thing, the flash is too close to the camera lens, the closer the flash is to the lens the bigger the problems. In the 'good old days' the flash was a separate item which clipped onto the top of the camera and, more importantly, could be detached from the camera. Even holding the flash at arm's length from the camera will improve the photo in all three respects. Also, with the separate flash guns, it was possible to bounce the light off a wall or ceiling giving a much more natural, softer light. If you can stand carrying a bit more kit around with you, I urge you to get a separate flash gun, they are still made for most of the more serious cameras. There will, of course, be times when you must either use the built-in flash or go without the photo, so what can you do to make things a little better? If there is any light at all, then use as much of it as you can. Modern auto focus cameras tend to do this automatically, they use the widest aperture to let as much natural light in as possible and add the flash to bring the exposure up to what is necessary. They might, however, be a little stingy with the shutter speed. The camera, after all, cannot be expected to know whether your subject is moving or not and whether you have a steady hand. Try changing the exposure mode to shutter priority and set a shutter speed of about 1/30th of a second, if you have a steady hand and there is not too much movement in the scene, this may well give you a sharp enough photo.

Studio Lighting

Once you develop a taste for indoor photography it is only a matter of time before you will want your own studio setup. A studio setup can be anything from a few table lamps and a spare sheet for the background to an elaborate multi flash system. Although continuous light can be used, I would thoroughly recommend that, if you want to get serious about studio photography, you invest in a couple of studio flash heads. These do not need to be expensive; nowadays you can get a couple of lights for about the same price as a halfway decent telephoto lens.

Studio flash heads have several advantages for the photographer because they are powerful, even the lower priced units kick out much more power that the average portable flash, and infinitely more than continuous light. This means that you can control the light in interesting ways by using umbrellas and soft boxes to diffuse the light and soften the shadows, whilst still getting a reasonable exposure at a small aperture. Flash can freeze the action with very fast exposure times, and give you all the depth of field you need. Studio flash heads also recycle very fast, much faster than a portable flashgun, so you can keep shooting at a fast rate, which is important when you are doing portraits. You don't need to go for any top of the range lights unless you are going to take up studio photography for a career. The top professional gear will be bigger, more powerful and more reliable when used all day, every day, but in my experience the bottom of the range lights are certainly powerful enough for use with our DSLR cameras, and as for reliability, I have had the same lights for ten years now and would expect at least another ten years' service out of them. I have never had any reliability problems with studio flash, which is a lot more than I can say for the portable battery flashguns that I have used over the years.

Diffusers

In order to produce a soft light that will in turn produce soft edged shadows, we need to spread the light out with a diffuser. There are several different kinds available, window lights, 'swimming pools' etc, but the most useful, versatile and portable is the umbrella. They can be used to shoot through or to reflect the light. The parabolic shape helps to focus or de-focus the light a little (depending on which way round you use it), and they fold up nicely for transport and storage.

Lighting for Portraits

Most people, when they first get their two studio lights, set one up on each side of them and try to produce an even light with as few shadows as possible. This is a reaction to the years of frustration using flash on camera and getting those ugly shadows down the side of the face and under the chin. Yes of course you can eliminate such shadows with ease but you can also do a whole lot more. Think of the two lights as a 'main light' and a 'fill light', then light the object (or person) with the main light first. Move it around to get different effects and see how the shadows fall. Then use the second light, on a lower setting or further away to soften the shadows you have created with the main light but not eliminate them altogether. The important thing to remember is that, no matter how many lights you use, one is the main light and all the others are fills or effects, light the subject first with one light then add others as needed.

Source: http://www.geofflawrence.com/studio_lighting.html