Lighting

Lighting is a critical element not only in making the photograph possible, but in determining the mood of a photograph. While lighting is a complex subject that can include expensive studio equipment, there are less expensive alternatives that may work in a given situation, and natural lighting has many advantages.

Natural Light

Often the best and most convenient light is natural light when it is available. Aside from looking more realistic in photos, the changing color and direction of light during the course of the day gives opportunities for different moods or effects.

When using natural lighting, pay attention to the direction of the lighting. Backlit subjects are often completely shadowed, but that effect can work well, as the photo on the right shows. Shooting with the sun at your back can lead to a flat look to the photo, and it forces human subjects to squint into the sun. Often some kind of side lighting works best.

While natural lighting is preferable for many subjects, there are times when there isn't enough natural light to get the shot and some form of additional lighting is necessary or desirable.

Flash

The most common additional lighting is the camera's built-in flash. While this can work well under specific circumstances, it tends to create harsh shadows in general and red-eye is human and animal subjects. To work around the harsh shadows, a piece of translucent material can be taped over the flash or, if it is possible to point the flash and the lens in different directions, the flash can be bounced off of another object, such as a wall or ceiling, to soften it. To work around red-eye problems, look for a flash that is not very close to the lens.

One type of built-in flash that works particularly well is fill flash. When an object is backlit, fill flash can be used to add light to the shadows in the subject. As long as the flash is less bright than the backlighting, the results tend to look natural.

When using any flash, keep in mind that subjects too close to the camera will be very bright, while those too far away will still be dark. Another point to remember is that using the built-in flash will quickly drain the camera's batteries.

Studio Lighting

Studio lighting equipment includes a wide variety of lights designed for particular effects, but usually at a substantial cost. More common household lights and objects can be used to get a similar effect for less expense, although finding objects with sufficient wattage can be difficult.

Lights with bowl reflectors and spotlights create a fairly harsh beam of light with sharp shadows. Common replacements include floor lamps with an upward pointing bowl that can be tipped to one side and clip lights or desk lamps, especially for shooting macros. Softboxes and diffusers create softer looking lights with more diffuse shadows. Covering the replacements for spotlights with a translucent material or bouncing the light off a large light-colored object can mimic these lights, but that reduces the amount of light that reaches the subject.

Reflective cards or discs are used to bounce light from a light source into shadowed areas. The cards can be colored for different effects. Frequently choices are white for soft light, silver for harsher light, or gold for warmer light. Black cards are also used to prevent light from bouncing off a light-colored object and adding unwanted light to a photo. Common replacements include mat board, sheets, and even mirrors.

Lighting a subject from underneath can be accomplished with a lightbox bought at a craft store. This is particularly useful for transparent objects like glass.

The photo on the left was shot without any studio lights. Other than resizing the image the image for the web and sharpening it, this image is unchanged from the original image file.

The tiny digital camera was placed on a black table with a black piece of matboard behind it. A 60-watt clip light was placed to the left of the camera shooting the photo (which was set on a tripod) and aimed toward the subject. To prevent the right side of the subject camera from being completely dark, a hand mirror was held off to the right side of the photo and angled to illuminate the subject.