David Busch's Quick Snap Guide To Lighting

DAVID BUSCH’S QUICK SNAP GUIDE

TO LIGHTINGDavid D. Busch

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David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Lighting

David D. Busch

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For Cathy, who continues to be the light of my life.

David Busch's Quick Snap Guide to Lighting

iv

Acknowledgments

Once again thanks to the folks at Course Technology, who have pioneered publishing digital imagingbooks in full color at a price anyone can afford. Special thanks to executive editor Kevin Harreld,who always gives me the freedom to let my imagination run free with a topic, as well as my veteran

production team including project editor Jenny Davidson, and technical editor Mike Sullivan. Also thanks toMike Tanamachi, cover designer; Bill Hartman, layout; and my agent, Carole McClendon, who has theamazing ability to keep both publishers and authors happy.

About the Author

v

About the Author

W ith more than a million books in print, David D. Busch is one of the best-selling authors ofbooks on digital photography and imaging technology, and the originator of popular series likeDavid Busch’s Pro Secrets and David Busch’s Quick Snap Guides. He has written seven hugely

successful guidebooks for Nikon digital SLR models, and six additional user guides for other camera models,as well as many popular books devoted to dSLRs, including Mastering Digital SLR Photography, SecondEdition and Digital SLR Pro Secrets. As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, he illustrated hisbooks, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. He’s operated his own com-mercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily news-paper and upstate New York college. His photos have been published in magazines as diverse as ScientificAmerican and Petersen’s PhotoGraphic, and his articles have appeared in Popular Photography & Imaging,The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and hundreds of other publications. He’s also revieweddozens of digital cameras for CNet and Computer Shopper.

When About.com named its top five books on Beginning Digital Photography, debuting at the #1 and #2slots were Busch’s Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies and Mastering DigitalPhotography. During the past year, he’s had as many as five of his books listed in the Top 20 ofAmazon.com’s Digital Photography Bestseller list—simultaneously! Busch’s 100-plus other books publishedsince 1983 include bestsellers like David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Using Digital SLR Lenses. He is amember of the Cleveland Photographic Society, which has been in continuous operation since 1887, andcan be located at www.clevelandphoto.org.

www.clevelandphoto.org


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Contents

Preface................................................................................................xIntroduction ........................................................................................xi

1 Basics of Good Lighting and Exposure ..................................................1High-Contrast Lighting .........................................................................................2Low-Contrast Lighting...........................................................................................4High-Key Lighting................................................................................................6Low-Key Lighting .................................................................................................8Light and the Exposure Triangle ..........................................................................10F/Stops ...........................................................................................................12Shutter Speeds..................................................................................................14

Focal Planes and Shutter Speeds.................................................................14Adjusting Exposure with ISO Settings ..................................................................18

2 Optimizing Exposure .........................................................................21Metering Modes ...............................................................................................22

Evaluative/Matrix .....................................................................................22Partial......................................................................................................22Spot ........................................................................................................22Center-Weighted .......................................................................................23Averaging................................................................................................23

Aperture Priority ...............................................................................................24Shutter Priority ..................................................................................................26Programmed Exposure Modes ............................................................................30Manual Exposure..............................................................................................32Adjusting Exposure/EV......................................................................................34Bracketing .......................................................................................................36Histograms.......................................................................................................38Gray Cards, Light Meters, and Do-It-Yourself Exposure...........................................40

Contents

vii

3 Available Light ..................................................................................43White Balance .................................................................................................44

Manual White Balance..............................................................................46Creating Your Own White Balance Settings .................................................47

Color and Mood...............................................................................................48Filling in Shadows.............................................................................................52Using Reflectors ................................................................................................54

White Poster Board ...................................................................................54Foam Board .............................................................................................54Aluminum Foil...........................................................................................55Mylar Sheets ............................................................................................55Auto Sunscreens .......................................................................................55Umbrellas ................................................................................................56Black Cardboard or Cloth ..........................................................................57

Polarizing Filters ...............................................................................................58Polarizers and Wide-Angle Lenses...............................................................60

Lighting and the Sky..........................................................................................62Using Graduated Neutral Density Filters ......................................................64

4 Electronic Flash Fundamentals ............................................................67How Flash Works..............................................................................................68Types of Portable Electronic Flash........................................................................70

Built-in Flash .............................................................................................71Add-on Flash ............................................................................................73Studio Flash..............................................................................................73

Using Flash Creatively .......................................................................................74Bounce Flash ............................................................................................74Flash on a Bracket.....................................................................................76Off-Camera Flash......................................................................................77Multiple Flash ...........................................................................................77Paint with Light .........................................................................................77


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Determining Exposure........................................................................................78Automatic TTL Flash Exposure .....................................................................78Guide Numbers ........................................................................................79Flash Meters .............................................................................................79

Choosing a Flash Sync Mode.............................................................................80Ghost Images ...........................................................................................81High-Speed (FP) Sync ................................................................................83

Studio Flash .....................................................................................................84Fill Flash ..........................................................................................................88

5 Using Portrait Lighting Tools ...............................................................91Soft Lighting and Distance..................................................................................92Balancing Light.................................................................................................94

The Inverse Square Law .............................................................................94Using Lighting Ratios .................................................................................94

Using a Main Light............................................................................................98Fill Light .........................................................................................................100Other Lights ...................................................................................................102

Background Light ....................................................................................102Hair Light ...............................................................................................102Reflectors ...............................................................................................103

Umbrellas ......................................................................................................104Soft Boxes......................................................................................................106

Strip Lights .............................................................................................108

6 Portrait Lighting Techniques..............................................................111Lighting Setup Basics .......................................................................................112Split Lighting ..................................................................................................114Side/Profile Lighting........................................................................................116

Backlighting ...........................................................................................11745-Degree Lighting .........................................................................................118Short Lighting .................................................................................................120

Contents

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Broad Lighting................................................................................................122Butterfly Lighting .............................................................................................124Rembrandt Lighting .........................................................................................126

7 Lighting and Action..........................................................................129Indoor Lighting ...............................................................................................130Fast Shutter Speeds .........................................................................................132Slow Shutter Speeds........................................................................................136Outdoor Lighting.............................................................................................140Flash or Existing Light? ....................................................................................144

8 Close-up and Macro Lighting............................................................147Lighting Challenges.........................................................................................148Magnification and Perspective..........................................................................150Working with Existing Light ..............................................................................152Working with Electronic Flash...........................................................................154Working with Continuous Lighting.....................................................................156High- and Low-Contrast Close-ups .....................................................................160Tent Lighting ...................................................................................................162

9 Travel and Architecture ....................................................................165Choosing the Best Light and Best Angle .............................................................166Monuments and Museums................................................................................168Interiors .........................................................................................................170Mixed Illumination ..........................................................................................174Sunsets and Sunrises .......................................................................................176Night Lighting ................................................................................................178Fireworks .......................................................................................................182Water, Beaches, and Snow..............................................................................184

Glossary .........................................................................................188

Index ..............................................................................................196

Introduction

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Preface

You’ve mastered your digital SLR (mostly), used it to create a few thousand photographic master-pieces, and now you are looking to add some skills in the use of light in all its wondrous varieties.But, you have some questions. How do I create and work with diffuse light? How can I tame day-

light so that my pictures don’t look harsh and overexposed? What is the secret to working with multiple lightsources? What accessories and equipment will help me use light most creatively? What is color temperature?You don’t want to spend hours or days studying a comprehensive book on digital SLR photography. All youwant at this moment is a quick guide that explains the purpose and function of each type of lighting, how touse it to create great-looking pictures, and how to improve the lighting you find in a scene. Why isn’t there abook that summarizes whole collections of these concepts in a page or two with lots of illustrations showingwhat your results will look like when you use this type of lighting, or that?

Now there is such a book. If you want a quick introduction to working with light and exposure, improvingyour photos with filters and reflectors, or transforming good lighting into great lighting, this book is for you.Once you realize that light is the tool you use to paint your photographs, you need this Quick Snap Guide.

I’m not going to tell you everything there is to know about using your digital SLR camera; I’m going to tellyou just what you need to get started using light effectively to take compelling photos that will amaze yourfriends, family, colleagues—and yourself.


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T his is the fourth book inmy Quick Snap guide-book series, each of

which takes a single puzzlingarea of digital photography andcondenses each concept into afew pages that explain every-thing you need to know in easy-to-absorb bullet points, someessential text that summarizes justwhat you absolutely need toknow, and is clearly illustratedwith a few compelling photo-graphs. Previous books in thisseries have dealt with point-and-shoot and digital SLR cameras,and the selection and use of inter-changeable lenses. This one isdevoted entirely to the mysteriesof light.

Like all my Quick Snap guides,this book is aimed at photogra-phers who may be new to SLRs ornew to digital SLRs, and are over-whelmed by their options whileunderwhelmed by the explana-tions they receive in most of thephotography books available.

The most comprehensive guide-books try to cover too much mate-rial. You’re lost in page afterpage of background and descrip-tions, most of which you’re notreally interested in. Books of thistype are great if you alreadyknow what you don’t know, andyou can find an answer some-where using voluminous tables ofcontents or lengthy indexes.

The book is designed for thosewho’d rather browse their waythrough a catalog of ideas andtechniques, arranged in abrowseable layout. You canthumb through and find the exactinformation you need quickly. Allthe basics of light and lightingtechniques are presented withintwo-page and four-page spreads,so all the explanations and theillustrations that illuminate themare there for easy access. Thisbook should solve many of yourproblems with a minimum amountof fuss and frustration.

Then, when you’re ready to learnmore, I hope you pick up one ofmy other in-depth guides to digi-tal SLR photography. They areoffered by Course Technology,each approaching the topic froma different perspective. Theyinclude:

Quick Snap Guide to Digital SLR PhotographyIf you’re new to digital SLRs, thisbook belongs in your camerabag as a reference, so you canalways have the basic knowledgeyou need with you, even if itdoesn’t yet reside in your head. Itserves as a refresher that summa-rizes the basic features of digitalSLR cameras, and what settingsto use and when, such as continu-ous autofocus/single autofocus,aperture/shutter priority, EV set-tings, and so forth. The guidealso includes recipes for shootingthe most common kinds of pic-tures, with step-by-step instruc-tions for capturing effective sportsphotos, portraits, landscapes,and other types of images.

Daivd Busch’s Quick Snap Guideto Using Digital SLR LensesLike this book, my lens guide con-centrates on a single set of top-ics—choosing and using lenses. Ifyou’re ready to go beyond thebasics but are unsure which inter-changeable lens or two to buy,and, more importantly, how andwhen to use them, this bookoffers focused, concise informa-tion and techniques. It includesoverviews of how lenses work,and which types are available,discussions of all lens controlsand features, including image sta-bilization/vibration reduction,and how to select the best lensand settings for particular typesof photos.

Introduction

Introduction

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Mastering Digital SLRPhotography, Second EditionThis book is an introduction todigital SLR photography, withnuts-and-bolts explanations of thetechnology, more in-depth cover-age of settings, and whole chap-ters on the most common types ofphotography. Use this book tolearn how to operate your dSLR and get the most from its capabilities.

Digital SLR Pro SecretsThis is my more advanced guideto dSLR photography with greaterdepth and detail about the topicsyou’re most interested in. Ifyou’ve already mastered thebasics in Mastering Digital SLRPhotography, this book will takeyou to the next level.

Should you need instruction onhow to get the most from specificcamera models, look for myCourse Technology books for themost recent cameras introducedby Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony,and other vendors under theDavid Busch’s Guides to DigitalSLR Photography banner. You canfind more information about thosebooks at www.nikonguides.comand www.dslrguides.com.

Who Am I?After spending many years as theworld’s most successful unknownauthor, I’ve become slightly lessobscure in the past few years,thanks to a horde of cameraguidebooks and other photo-graphically-oriented tomes. Youmay have seen my photographyarticles in Popular Photography & Imaging magazine. I’ve alsowritten about 2,000 articles formagazines like Petersen’s Photo-Graphic (which is now defunctthrough no fault of my own), plusThe Rangefinder, ProfessionalPhotographer, and dozens ofother photographic publications.But, first, and foremost, I’m aphotojournalist and made my liv-ing in the field until I begandevoting most of my time to writ-ing books. Although I love writ-ing, I’m happiest when I’m outtaking pictures, which is why Itook 14 days late last year for asolo visit to Spain—not as atourist, because I’ve been toSpain no less than a dozen timesin the past—but solely to take

photographs of the people, land-scapes, and monuments that I’vegrown to love.

Over the years, I’ve worked as asports photographer for an Ohionewspaper and for an upstateNew York college. I’ve operatedmy own commercial studio andphoto lab, cranking out productshots on demand and then print-ing a few hundred glossy 8 ×10s on a tight deadline for apress kit. I’ve served as a photo-posing instructor for a modelingagency. People have actuallypaid me to shoot their weddingsand immortalize them with por-traits. I even prepared press kitsand articles on photography as aPR consultant for a largeRochester, N.Y., company, whichshall remain nameless. My trialsand travails with imaging andcomputer technology have madetheir way into print in book forman alarming number of times,including a few dozen on scan-ners and photography.

Like you, I love photography forits own merits, and I view technol-ogy as just another tool to helpme get the images I see in mymind’s eye. But, also like you, Ihad to master this technologybefore I could apply it to mywork. This book is the result ofwhat I’ve learned, and I hope itwill help you master your NikonD60 digital SLR, too.

As I write this, I’m currently in thethroes of upgrading my mainwebsite, which you can find atwww.dbusch.com, adding tutori-als and information about myother books. There’s a lot of infor-mation about several differentcamera models right now, but I’llbe adding tips and recommenda-tions about newer models and alist of equipment and accessoriesthat I can’t live without in the nextfew months. I hope you’ll stop byfor a visit.

www.dbusch.com

www.nikonguides.com

www.dslrguides.com

U nless you’re extraordinarily lucky, or supremely observant,great lighting, like most things of artistic value, doesn’t hap-pen by accident. It’s entirely possible that you’ll randomly

encounter a scene or subject that’s bathed in marvelous lighting, illu-mination that perfectly sculpts an image in highlights and shadows.But how often can you count on such luck? Ansel Adams is oftenquoted as saying (although he probably didn’t) that “The harder Iwork, the luckier I get.”

The great photographer was known for his patience in seeking out thebest lighting for a composition, and he did actually say, “A good pho-tograph is knowing where to stand.” My own take on excellence inillumination is that you have to possess the ability to recognize effec-tive lighting when it is already present, and have the skill to manipu-late the light when it is not.

This chapter will launch you down the road to being able to use thelight that is present, manipulate it when necessary to achieve theeffects you want, and to create good lighting from scratch using thetools available. I’m going to present some basic lighting concepts thatyou can use right now and apply with the more advanced informationpresented in later chapters.

Basics of Good Lightingand Exposure1


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High-Contrast LightingTo be able to use good lightingyourself, you have to be able torecognize it when you see it.There is a great story about pho-tographer George Krause spend-ing the early part of his careershooting photographs only onovercast days, under diffuse, low-contrast illumination (illustrated inthe next section). That kind oflighting can be exceptionallychallenging, because there is nointerplay of highlights and shad-ows to add depth to a composi-tion. Only when Krause wasconvinced that he understood softlighting did he move on to workwith more dramatic applicationsof light. No example of my ownin this book could illustrate theidea of good lighting morevividly than Krause’s Shadow,taken in Seville, Spain more than 40 years ago. I urge you to check it out atwww.georgekrause.com/shadow.htm. Does the photoshow an old woman—or an oldwoman followed by a darksecret?

High-contrast lighting is illumina-tion that provides images thatoffer stark, brightly lit highlightsand dark, inky shadows, with rel-atively few tones in the middle.Such images are seen as espe-cially dramatic, because theycapture the eye, drawing atten-tion to the bold and strongshapes within the frame. High-contrast photos are oftenseen as dynamic, in the sense

that something is going on in thepicture, when compared toimages that have less contrastand are seen as flat and static.

Today, high-contrast photos aresometimes considered bad form,because digital photographersmust constantly battle to over-come sensors that can’t alwaysrecord the full range of tones in ascene and, instead, produce

images with an excessive amountof contrast. In truth, it’s onlyunwanted contrast that’s bad.Indeed, back at the beginning ofmy career in the days of film anddarkrooms, one of the most popu-lar tools was high contrast lith(“lithographic”) film, which couldproduce nothing but black-and-clear images. Another favoritewas extra contrasty photographicpaper, like the legendary Agfa

Figure 1.1High-contrast lightingemphasizes textureand detail.

www.georgekrause.com/shadow.htm

www.georgekrause.com/shadow.htm

Basics of Good Lighting and Exposure

3

Brovira #6, which was, in thosepre-Spinal Tap days, the equiva-lent of being able to turn youramp up to 11.

High-contrast lighting does anumber of things for you.

◆ It can brighten up low-contrast sub-jects and make them more vibrantand interesting.

◆ It can take images of normal con-trast and give them a bold look.

◆ It can salvage images that arealready excessively high in con-trast.

◆ It emphasizes texture and detail.

◆ It can be used to provide a unifiedlook among several images thatdiffer in contrast, by pegging themall to the high contrast end.

◆ In portraiture, higher contrast light-ing can give male faces a rugged,masculine look, and, if used inmoderation, accentuate characterlines in older people.

High-contrast lighting emphasizestexture, as you can see in Figure1.1. Because of the shadows castby the sunlight, each detail of thecathedral stands out in vividrelief. This type of lighting ishighly directional. It illuminatesthe subject from a well-definedsource that is relatively narrow,and the beam of light doesn’tspread much, which is the sourceof the deep, sharp-edged shad-ows. The built-in flash unit onyour camera often produces illumination of this sort. High-contrast lighting is generallydirect, and at some distance fromthe subject; indeed, the fartheryou move a light source from asubject, the more harsh andsharp it becomes. Later in thisbook, I’ll show you how to createhigh-contrast lighting when youneed it, and how to correct for itwhen you don’t. Figure 1.2shows the results of a typical highcontrast lighting setup.

Figure 1.2 High-contrast illumination produces deep, sharp-edgedshadows.

Figure 1.3

HOW IT’S LITThe clown figurine shown in Figure 1.2 was lit with a singledirect light from the right side, as pictured in Figure 1.3. No

fill-in light was used to illuminate the shadows, other than light that mighthave bounced back from the surrounding areas.


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Low-Contrast LightingLike high-contrast lighting, thelow-contrast variety isn’t inher-ently bad; it’s inherently different.This kind of lighting is also calledsoft or diffuse illumination,because it provides a gentle, sub-tle, sometimes moody look to thesubject matter.

With low-contrast lighting, thereare few or no shadows, andthose that exist have soft edges.The entire subject is washed witha non-directional light that seemsto come from every angle. Diffuselighting almost always is pro-duced by the use of reflectors tosoften and spread the illuminationbefore it is bounced toward yoursubject; or by passing the lightthrough some sort of translucentmaterial, such as the fabric of awhite umbrella, or the diffusionscreen of a soft box. As youmove a light source closer to asubject, its illumination tends to“wrap around” the subject andprovide more even lighting.Move the source farther from thesubject, and it becomes moredirectional and gains contrast.

There are several things low-contrast lighting can do for you.

◆ It can soften high-contrast subjectsand make them more subdued.

◆ It can take images of normal con-trast and give them a moody look.

◆ It can partially recover images ofsubjects that are excessively highin contrast.

◆ Like high-contrast imaging, it canbe used to provide a unified lookamong groups of pictures that dif-fer in contrast by giving them all asofter look.

◆ It masks details, which can be use-ful in portraiture, where soft light-ing hides skin flaws, provides amore glamorous or romantic lookto photos of female subjects, andoffers a gentler rendition of olderpeople who would prefer to down-play the ravages of time.

Figure 1.4 Overcast days produce low-contrast images with muted colors.


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One thing to keep in mind is thatit is possible to combine low-contrast lighting in the same photograph, to good effect. Forexample, you can shoot a humansubject outdoors in the soft, dif-fuse lighting in the shade of atree, with the background illumi-nated by harsh direct sunlight.The contrast between the two canhelp separate your main subjectfrom the background and providean interesting look.

You’ll often encounter low-contrast lighting outdoors oncloudy and overcast days, orthose plagued by haze or fog, asshown in Figure 1.4. Notice thatin this view of Paris, colors aremuted, too; low-contrast lightingtends to produce desaturatedhues. Back in the pre-digitaldays, photographers would use

films noted for their vivid colors,such as Kodak Ektachrome orFujifilm Velvia; today, you cansimply boost the saturation settingof your digital camera.

Figure 1.5 shows a typical low-contrast lighting arrangement.The shadows are minimal, whichreduces the three-dimensionallook of the porcelain figurinecompared to the high-contrastimage in the previous section.Note that the shadow areas aresubdued, but not eliminatedentirely. Low-contrast lighting canbe used to soften subjects, butshouldn’t be carried to extremes.Without any shadows at all, thefigurine would look flat and two-dimensional. I’ll show you anexample of a shadowless imagein the next section. Figure 1.5 Low-contrast lighting softens the shadows.

Figure 1.6

HOW IT’S LITIn this case, the clown was lit with a pair of umbrellas locatedin front of the figurine and at about a 45-degree angle from the

lens axis, as shown in Figure 1.6. The left umbrella was moved slightly far-ther back, and set to 3/4 intensity so the shadows cast by the other umbrellaweren’t completely filled in. If your light source can’t be varied in intensity,just move it back a bit more to reproduce this effect. Note that the light bulbsshown are modeling lights that preview the lighting effect of the flash.


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High-Key LightingAnother illumination concept youneed to understand is the differ-ence between high-key and low-key lighting. It’s easy to get thesestyles of lighting confused withhigh-contrast and low-contrasttypes, and adding to the confu-sion is the reality that high-keyimages are relatively low in con-trast, while low-key images canbe high in contrast. What’s going on here? I’ll explain eachtype in this section and the onethat follows.

High-key lighting is bright. Whenan image is photographed in ahigh-key style, it is typically verybright, with lots of white tones.The darkest areas may actuallyfall in what is considered a mid-dle tone area, and there aremaybe no dark shadows at all,as you can see in Figure 1.7,which has almost no blacks.Because all the tones are rela-tively homogenous, high-key light-ing can be considered relatively

low in contrast. But, as you’velearned, not all low contrastimages are bright; a photo canconsist of predominantly middletones or dark tones and still beconsidered low contrast. Whatdistinguishes all kinds of low con-trast images is the restricted tonalrange. High-key photos are justone type of reduced contrastimage.

High-key lighting became popu-lar at the beginning of the filmand television eras, because nei-ther medium was able to capturescenes of high contrast.Originally, a rather clumsy “three-light” scheme was used, with atrio of fixtures illuminating eachperson in a scene (to the left,right, and middle). That produceda bright, uniform lighting patternwith no shadows. In addition toreducing the contrast of the shotso it was easier to photographtechnically, high-key lighting wasfast to set up, and allowed film

Figure 1.7 High-key images have a preponderance of light tones,with few true blacks.


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and television production to com-plete more scenes in less time.Still photographers generally usemore sophisticated lightingarrangements to produce high-key effects (it’s unlikely that you’llwant to bathe each subject inyour photo with their own triad oflights), but the same generalbright, upbeat, virtually shadow-less illumination scheme is used.

Figure 1.8 shows a high-keyimage. Compared to the low-contrast image in the previoussection (Figure 1.5), this one hasvirtually no shadows; all the tonesin the picture fall into the light tomiddle-tone range.

Figure 1.8 High-key lighting produces a flat, often shadowlessimage.

Figure 1.9

HOW IT’S LITThe clown figurine shown in Figure 1.8 was lit with a pair oflights of equal intensity bounced into umbrellas set at roughly

45-degree angles from the lens axis, as shown in Figure 1.9. This pro-duces a soft, even lighting with virtually no shadows, especially whencombined with light bouncing back from the light-colored background.

LIGHTING RATIOSA lighting ratio is a comparison between the level of illumination of thehighlight areas of an image, and the amount of light falling into the shad-ows. For example, if an exposure of 1/500th second at f/11 is requiredto properly expose the highlights of an object, while the shadows wouldrequire an exposure of 1/500th second at f/5.6, then the lighting ratiowould be 3:1. High-key images often have a ratio of 2:1 or even 1:1,while low-key images can produce ratios of 8:1 or higher. I’ll explain lighting ratios in more detail in Chapter 5.


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Low-Key LightingLow-key images are typically verydark, and often are illuminatedby a single light source that pro-vides dramatic highlights, whileallowing the rest of the image tofade to darkness. A low-keyimage is often high in contrast,but some can include shadowareas that are illuminated with afill-in (“fill”) light, so there is detailin the dark areas, creating aneffect that artists call chiaroscuro(Italian for “light-dark”). If youremember that low-key photosare always dark (sometimes evenmurky), you can differentiatethem from the broader categoryof high-contrast images.

The scene in Figure 1.10 shows acathedral as seen from an alley-way opposite. The cathedral’stower is illuminated by flood light-ing, while the alley has severalstreet lamps to dimly light the nar-row passage. This lighting cre-ates a dramatic mood for thepicture, which was taken at mid-night on a crisp October day.You can see the same scene fromroughly the same vantage point

at 6 a.m. the following day inFigure 1.11. The early morninglight is still fairly high in contrast,but the foreboding low-key effectis gone.

Low-key lighting is another off-shoot of the film and television

area, and became popular ratherearly, despite the technical limita-tions imposed by high-contrastscenes, because more dramaticlighting was needed for seriousdrama, film noir, horror, andother heavier fare. Where high-key lighting illuminates the entire

subject evenly, low-key lightingemphasizes the contours of a per-son or object by providing lightonly to the edges, while allowingother areas to fall into shadow,as you can see in Figure 1.12.

Figure 1.10Low-key lightingcreates a moodyeffect.


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Figure 1.12 Low-key lighting often uses only a single light source,with the shadows filled in by reflected light.

Figure 1.13

HOW IT’S LITThe clown figurine shown in Figure 1.12 was lit with a singledirect light from the right side, as pictured in Figure 1.13.

No fill-in light was used to illuminate the shadows, other than light thatmight have bounced back from the surrounding areas and the umbrellaused as a reflector.

Figure 1.11 The same scene shot by early morning light has a brighter look.


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Light and the Exposure TriangleAn integral part of using lightingcorrectly is achieving the correctexposure, so that the final imagehas the tonal values you want toaccurately (or imaginatively) rep-resent your subject. Three compo-nents of the camera, the shutterspeed, lens opening (or aperture),and sensor sensitivity (measuredin ISO values), determine theexposure for a given scene. Thesethree aspects that involve yourcamera, its mechanics, and

controls are known as the expo-sure triangle, shown in Figure1.14.

◆ Shutter speed. This is the lengthof time that the sensor is effectivelyexposed to light. I say effectively,because, at briefer shutter speeds,the entire sensor may not beexposed all at one time; the cam-era may use a traveling “slit” toexpose only a small section of thesensor at a time. In addition, elec-tronic flash has a duration that’sshorter than the amount of time the

shutter is completely open, so that,even though your camera is set for1/200th second, the sensor maybe effectively exposed for only the1/1,000th second duration of theflash.

◆ Aperture. The aperture repre-sents the quantity of the light that isallowed to pass through the lens tothe sensor, much like garden hosesof different diameters allow moreor less water to flow during a giventime period.

◆ ISO. This is the relative sensitivityof the sensor. Each camera has abase sensitivity, which is its lowesttrue ISO setting. It can then pro-duce higher (or even lower) ISOsensitivities by amplifying (ordeamplifying) the signal as pho-tons are captured.

The three components of theexposure triangle work propor-tionately and reciprocally to pro-duce an exposure. That is, if youdouble the amount of light that’savailable, increase the apertureby one stop, make the shutterspeed twice as long, or boost theISO setting 2X, you’ll get twice asmuch exposure. Similarly, youcan increase any of these factors

while decreasing one of the others by a similar proportion tokeep the same exposure.

There are six aspects that affectlight as it travels from its source toyour sensor. The six factors thatinfluence the light we use to takephotos are as follows:

◆ Light source. The most importantattribute of light is its intensity. Howbright is the light at its source? Aslight grows more intense, it allowsusing exposures that have fastershutter speeds, smaller apertures,reduced ISO settings, or some com-bination of the three. Lower lightlevels mandate slower shutterspeeds, larger apertures, andhigher ISO settings, all of whichcan have negative effects on ourpictures, in the form of motion blur,reduced depth-of-field, and visiblenoise. In some cases, we may havesome control over the intensity ofillumination, as when shootingindoors with artificial light fixtureswe can adjust or dim. Outdoors, it’sbeyond our abilities to adjust thebrightness of the sun, but we canintroduce translucent or opaquelight-blockers to the path of the lightto intercept some of it, or reflectorsto re-direct the illumination.

Figure 1.14The threeelements of this triangledetermine theexposure ofyour image.


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◆ Light duration. Light sourcesaren’t necessarily continuous.Electronic flash units, for example,expend all their light within a briefperiod, quickly enough to affect theoverall exposure when flash is themain illumination of an image.Indeed, if flash is the primary light source, the effective “shutterspeed” of the exposure is the duration of the flash’s burst.Although the camera may havebeen set to 1/250th second, theaction-stopping capabilities of theflash might be 1/1,000th second.

◆ Light emission, reflection, ortransmission. Light reaches thelens directly (as when light from acandle is captured in an image);by reflection (bouncing off anobject); or by transmission (afterpassing through a translucentobject that’s lit from behind). Theamount of light that completes thisjourney without being absorbed,blocked, spread (diffused), or inter-rupted determines the exposurerequired.

◆ Light passing through thelens. Not all of the illuminationthat reaches the lens passesthrough to the sensor. If you have afilter mounted on your lens, it willremove or modify some of the light(see Figure 1.15). Inside the lens, avariable-sized roughly circulardiaphragm, or aperture, dilatesand contracts to control the amountof light that enters the lens. The

aperture is adjusted in size by yourcamera’s autoexposure system, orby manual settings you make. Asyou’ll learn in the next section, therelative size of the aperture iscalled the f/stop.

◆ Light passing through theshutter. Once light makes it allthe way through the lens, theamount of time the sensor isexposed to that illumination isdetermined by the camera’s shutter.

The shutter can remain open for aslong as 30 seconds (or even longerif you use the Bulb setting) or asbriefly as 1/8,000th second,depending on which digital cam-era you own. The “shutter” may bea physical device that opens andcloses for a given period of time,or, in the case of the highest shutterspeeds, an electronic mode thatactivates and deactivates the sen-sor for a brief period while thephysical shutter is open.

◆ Light captured by the sensor.Finally, the illumination that a frac-tion of a second ago began itsjourney from your subject to thecamera crosses the finish line andreaches the sensor. But not all thelight passing through the shutter iscaptured by the individual pixels(or photosites) of the sensor. If thenumber of photons reaching a par-ticular photosite doesn’t pass a setthreshold, no information isrecorded. Similarly, if too muchlight illuminates a pixel in the sen-sor, then the excess isn’t recordedor, worse, spills over to contami-nate adjacent pixels. We can mod-ify the minimum and maximumnumber of pixels that contribute toimage detail by adjusting the ISO(or sensitivity) setting. At higherISOs, the incoming light is ampli-fied to boost the effective sensitivityof the sensor.

These aspects—the quantity oflight produced by the lightsource, the amount reflected ortransmitted towards the camera,the light passed by the lens, theamount of time the shutter isopen, and the sensitivity of thesensor—all contribute to theactual exposure.

Figure 1.15 A filter placed in front of the lens removes some of thelight before it reaches the sensor.


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F/StopsMany people rely most on onlytwo legs of the exposure triangle:they set their ISO sensitivity to avalue appropriate for the type ofphotos they are going to take (alow ISO outdoors in bright sun-light; a higher setting for sports,indoors, or in other reduced-lightenvironments) and forget it. (Theyalso may forget that many cam-eras have an auto ISO optionthat adjusts sensitivity for them,sometimes producing unintendedresults.)

Then, they (or their camera’sexposure meter) adjust only thef/stop, shutter speed, or both, toarrive at an exposure. That’s acommon practice, and there’snothing wrong with it as long asyou keep in mind that ISO sensi-tivity is an available and impor-tant option for adjustingexposure.

I like to use the term f/stop fre-quently when referring to the lensopening, in order to remind youthat the expression represents afraction, as I’ll explain shortly.

However, an f/stop can also beproperly referred to as an aper-ture, and the physical lens featureis often called the iris diaphragmor simply diaphragm. These areall terms that describe a variable-sized, roughly circular opening inthe lens that dilates and shrinks todetermine the amount of light thatpasses through the lens to thesensor.

This aperture is roughly compara-ble to the pupil of the human eye.When the light is bright andharsh, the pupils contract; underdimmer conditions, the pupilsexpand to admit more light.F/stops aren’t absolute values: anaperture described as f/8 withone lens may actually be larger

or smaller than an f/8 settingwith a different lens. That’sbecause they represent the rela-tive size of the actual physicallens opening compared to thefocal length of the lens. For exam-ple, with a lens with a focallength of 50mm, an aperture thatmeasured 12.5mm in diameterwould produce a lens openingwith the value f/4 (50 divided by12.5). The same size opening ina lens with a 100mm focal lengthwould produce a lens openingwith the value f/8 (100 dividedby 12.5).

Because of this relationship, youcan visualize f/stops as thedenominators of fractions. That’swhy “larger” f-numbers represent

Figure 1.16An aperture off/5.6 (left) islarger than anaperture of f/8(right).

F/STOPS VERSUS STOPSIn photography parlance, f/stop always means the aperture or lens open-ing. However, for lack of a current commonly used word for one exposureincrement, the term stop is often used. (In the past, EV served this purpose,but Exposure Value and its abbreviation has been inextricably intertwinedwith its use in describing Exposure Compensation.) In this book, when Isay “stop” by itself (no f/), I mean one whole unit of exposure, and am notnecessarily referring to an actual f/stop or lens aperture. So, adjusting theexposure by “one stop” can mean both changing to the next shutter speedincrement (say, from 1/125th second to 1/250th second) or the nextaperture (such as f/4 to f/5.6). Similarly, 1/3 stop or 1/2 stop incrementscan mean either shutter speed or aperture changes, depending on the con-text. Be forewarned.


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smaller apertures, and “smaller”f-numbers represent larger aper-tures (see Figure 1.16). Once youbecome smarter than a fifthgrader (long ago, or recently),you have no trouble with the con-cept that 1/2 is larger than 1/4and 1/8, and that 1/16 issmaller than even an odd-ballfraction like 1/11. Similarly, f/2is larger than f/4 and f/8, andf/16 is smaller than f/11.

Of course, it doesn’t help demys-tify things to know that the rela-tionship between f/stops involvesthe square root of two (1.4). So,f/2 isn’t twice as large as f/4 interms of area; it’s four times aslarge, just as f/4 is actually fourtimes as large as f/8.Intermediate numbers, based onthat pesky square root of two, areneeded to represent actual dou-bling and halving of aperturesize. So, a lens might be marked:

f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11,f/16, f/22

with each larger number repre-senting an aperture that admitshalf as much light as the onebefore. You need to understandthat relationship to calculate

exposure, or to apply exposuresettings selected by your cam-era’s metering system.

While we’re most concernedabout lighting and exposure inthis book, you should be awarethat your choice of an f/stop hasother effects on your image thatcan cascade down to your light-ing and exposure decisions.

These include:

◆ Overall sharpness. The f/stopyou select can have a dramaticeffect on the sharpness of yourimage. Most lenses are not at theirsharpest wide open using thelargest f/stop. They will performbetter at an opening that’s one ortwo stops smaller (say, f/8 with alens having a maximum aperture off/4). Nor do most lenses producetheir best results at the smallest lensopenings, due to a phenomenon

called diffraction. Light striking theedges of the diaphragm at, say,f/22, scatter, reducing sharpnesscompared to a larger f/stop, suchas f/8. If your lighting scheme isdesigned to enhance the textureand sharpness of your subject,you’ll want to choose an f/stopthat doesn’t detract from that goal.

◆ Depth-of-field. The f/stopselected also determines the rangeof sharpness available, calleddepth-of-field. Larger apertures(smaller numbers) produce lessDOF (see Figure 1.17), whilesmaller apertures (larger numbers)generate more DOF. You may planyour lighting for a portrait so thatthe background is de-emphasized.If so, you might want to use theavailable depth-of-field as an addi-tional tool.

◆ Background appearance. Thef/stop used can affect how the out-of-focus portions of your imageappear, a process that’s separatefrom depth-of-field considerations.This property is called bokeh, froma Japanese word meaning blur,and determines whether out-of-focus highlights in the imageappear as visible discs, or as lessobtrusive shapes that are lessprominent. While bokeh is impor-tant from a pictorial standpoint, interms of lighting it is significantchiefly in how the backgroundscomplement or detract from yourlighting arrangement.

Figure 1.17 Larger apertures produce a very narrow range of sharpness, ordepth-of-field.


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Shutter SpeedsThe second leg of the exposuretriangle that most of us work withis the shutter speed, representedin fractions (of a second), such as1/60th, 1/125th, 1/250th,1/500th, and 1/1,000th second(at least, until the fraction reaches1/1 and the measurements con-vert to whole seconds). In prac-tice, the numerator is usuallyomitted, so that 60, 125, 250,500, 1,000, and so forth areused instead. Most digital cam-eras represent exposures oflonger than a second with num-bers followed by a single or dou-ble quote mark, so 2", 2.5", and4", and so forth represent 2.0,2.5, and 4.0-second exposures,respectively.

As I noted earlier, exposure set-tings are most commonly madeusing the aperture and shutterspeed, followed by adjusting theISO sensitivity if it’s not possible

to get the preferred exposure(that is, the one that uses the“best” f/stop or shutter speed for the depth-of-field or action-stopping we want).

In modern cameras, the shutterresides just in front of the sensor,which lies in the focal planewhere light focused by the lensconverges. Such shutters are,appropriately, called focal planeshutters. The most common typeof focal plane shutter consists of apair of curtains that travel verti-cally. The gap between the cur-tains allows the sensor to beexposed to light. A shutter that isclosed prior to exposure lookssomething like Figure 1.18. (Theillustration is not a photograph ofan actual focal plane shutter; it’sjust a concoction I put together toshow you how all the elements ofa shutter work together.)

Focal Planes andShutter SpeedsWhen the shutter button isdepressed all the way, the firstcurtain moves up, exposing thesensor, as you can see in Figure1.19. After a period of time, thesecond curtain begins to travelupwards, too, trailing the first cur-tain and producing a moving

“slit” as shown in Figure 1.20.The width of the slit determinesthe relative shutter speed. A nar-row opening produces a fast shut-ter speed; a wider openingcreates a slower shutter speed.

There are a couple limitationsyou should know about. Figures1.19 and 1.20 show a slit widththat, in this fictitious camera,

Figure 1.18 The focal plane shutter is completely closed.


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produces a shutter speed of1/500th second. A slit twice aswide would create a shutterspeed of 1/250th second, andone twice as wide as that wouldresult in a shutter speed of1/125th second. Indeed, that 4Xwidth exposes the whole sensorat once, and can’t get any wider,so shutter speeds longer than1/125th second are producedby introducing a delay before thesecond curtain starts to close.Exposing the sensor to light for

30 seconds before the secondcurtain begins its upward travelwould give you a shutter speed of30 seconds (natch).

Going in the other direction,there’s a limitation on just hownarrow the slit can be. With ourfictitious example camera, the slitwould need to be 1/2 as wide tocreate a 1/1,000th second shut-ter speed, 1/4 as wide for1/2,000th second, and 1/8 aswide for 1/4,000th second.

Many digital cameras can’t nar-row the gap between the first andsecond curtains any more thanthat, so 1/4,000th second is thetop shutter speed. A few can goto 1/8,000th second or faster.Some cameras generate fastershutter speeds electronically, byturning the sensor on or off veryquickly while the two shutter cur-tains are wide open.

But wait, as they say, there’smore! Electronic flash has a very

brief duration, much shorter thanthe shutter curtains’ vertical travelat fast speeds. Camera designerswork around this problem byallowing the flash to fire only dur-ing that period when the shutteris completely open. With ourexample camera, the shutter isfully open at 1/125th second;flash pictures can be taken atshutter speeds of 1/125th sec-ond or slower.

Figure 1.19 The first curtain has traveled 1/4 of the distance across the focalplane, exposing the sensor through the slit produced.

Figure 1.20 The first curtain continues to travel, and the second curtain beginsto trail it, gradually exposing the sensor.


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Because shutter speeds andf/stops are proportional, you canproduce the exact same exposureusing many different combina-tions of settings. Table 1.1 showsequivalent exposure settingsusing various shutter speeds andf/stops. I’ll explain more aboutcalculating the best exposure inthe next chapter.

If your camera has chosen one ofthese exposure pairs, and you’drather use a different combina-tion, there will usually be a provi-sion to change from oneexposure pair to an equivalent

pair by spinning a dial or adjust-ing some other control. So, ifyour camera has chosen1/500th second at f/4 andyou’d prefer a little more depth-of-field, you can use the control toswitch to 1/250th second atf/5.6 or 1/125th second at f/8using the same ISO setting.Conversely, if you’d rather workwith a wider f/stop to apply lessdepth-of-field for selective focus,you can switch to 1/1,000th second at f/2.8, or 1/2,000thsecond at f/2 (assuming yourlens has either or both of thosefairly large aperture options).

You can switch among equivalentexposures in Aperture Priority orShutter Priority modes, too, butonly by changing the “dominant”control in your selected mode.That is, to produce a faster orslower shutter speed in AperturePriority mode while retaining thesame exposure, you must adjustthe aperture up or down. To usea larger or smaller aperture inShutter Priority mode, switch to afaster or slower shutter speed.

As with f/stops, the shutter speedyou select has effects on yourimage other than exposure:

◆ Subject blur/sharpness. Fastershutter speeds are required to“freeze” fast-moving objects, thosein motion that are closer to thecamera, and those that are movingacross the frame. In each case, themotion is more apparent becauseof the speed, distance, or directionof the subject. Conversely, you’llfind that slower shutter speeds willwork well for objects that are sta-tionary or not moving quickly,those that are more distant, orwhich are moving toward the cam-era, because the apparent motion

is less. Using motion-stoppingcapabilities, or allowing movementto blur is your choice, and part ofyour creative decision. Some typesof pictures, just as motor racing,look best when there is at leastsome blur to indicate that the sub-ject was moving.

◆ Camera/lensmovement/sharpness. A sec-ond kind of motion blur, caused bymovement of the camera or pho-tographer, can also affect pictures.In some cases, it can be appliedcreatively, as when the camera ispanned from side to side to cap-ture a sharp image of an athletewhile allowing the background toblur, as you can see in Figure1.21. But, most of the time, camerashake just robs your pictures ofsharpness. It can be produced dur-ing long exposures if the cameraisn’t mounted on a tripod or othersupport (or, even when properlymounted if the support is less thanrock steady). Camera shake isincreased by long lenses, whichmagnify the motion of the cameraat the same time distant subjectsare brought closer. If cameramotion blur is objectionable, use asturdy support; select a faster shut-ter speed; or use a camera or lens

Table 1.1 Equivalent Exposures

Shutter speed f/stop Shutter speed f/stop

1/8th second f/32 1/250th second f/5.6

1/15th second f/22 1/500th second f/4

1/30th second f/16 1/1,000th second f/2.8

1/60th second f/11 1/2,000th second f/2

1/125th second f/8 1/4,000th second f/1.4


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with built-in vibration reduction/image stabilization/anti-shake fea-tures. Nikon and Canon build thisfeature into many of their lenses;Sony, Olympus, Pentax, and othersinclude it in the camera body sothat every lens can be used withthe stabilization feature.

Figure 1.21 Camera motion can be used creatively to introduce blur to an action picture.

◆ Noise. Longer shutter speeds (usu-ally those of several seconds andlonger) can introduce those ran-dom, multicolored speckles we callvisual noise into your photographs.(Another, equally objectionabletype of noise is produced at thehighest ISO settings of a camera.)

While the built-in noise reductionfeatures of digital cameras canmask this visual interference, theytend to rob your image of detail,too. So, you should consider thepossibility of noise when selectinglonger shutter speeds (and higherISOs).

◆ Use of flash. As I noted earlier,the shutter speed you select canaffect your use of electronic flashfor a given photograph. Most digi-tal cameras have a maximum shut-ter speed (usually between1/160th and 1/500th second) atwhich flash can be used. (Somehave a mode called “high speedsync” that allows flash at evenfaster speeds, but reduces theeffective output of the flash.) Whenit comes to use of lighting, thismaximum sync speed can crampyour style when you want to useflash as a fill-in under high light lev-els. If the overall exposure in day-light that you want to use is1/1,000th second at f/8 (say, forreduced depth-of-field when usingselective focus), your flash isn’tgoing to do you much good to fillin the shadows if your cameraallows a shutter speed no fasterthan 1/200th second. Shutterspeed can also be a limitation atthe low end, too; if you use flashwith a low shutter speed (to pre-vent the surroundings from goingpitch-black), you can end up withghostly secondary images unlessthe camera is mounted on a tripod.


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Adjusting Exposure with ISO SettingsThe third way of adjusting expo-sure is by changing the ISO sensi-tivity setting. This option is oftenoverlooked, or used as a “lastresort.” That’s because higherISO settings are seen as neces-sary evils. You’re told you shoulduse the lowest ISO setting possi-ble for best quality, and increasethe sensitivity only if a given ISOdoesn’t allow the “best” expo-sure. So, we tend to set the ISOonce for a particular shootingsession (say, at ISO 100 or 200for bright sunlight outdoors, orISO 800 when shooting indoors)and then forget about it.However, changing the ISO is avalid way of adjusting exposuresettings, especially if you own anewer digital camera, as the lat-est batch tend to minimize visualnoise at reasonable ISO settings,with many fully usable up to ISO800 or ISO 1,600 (and beyond)with very little objectionablevisual noise.

The typical digital camera hasISO options ranging from ISO100 (although some go as low asISO 50) up to around ISO 1,600or ISO 3,200. A few newer cam-eras offer ISO settings of 6,400(while still producing acceptableresults), and one of my favoritemodels actually has High 1 andHigh 2 settings that are the equiv-alent of ISO 12,800 and ISO25,600. At the latter setting, thepictures are usually too grainy touse, but I’ve actually gottendecent results. Figure 1.22 showsan informal snapshot grabbed ata camera club meeting where Iwas complaining that ISO25,600 was overkill, and tookthis photo of the club president at1/250th second at F/11(indoors!) using that lofty ISO set-ting with a Nikon D3. I wasunable to make my point,because the image, as you cansee, doesn’t look that bad, grainand noise-wise.

Although I steer away from ISOsettings higher than 3,200 withmost cameras, I do end up usingISO adjustments quite frequentlywhen shooting in the studio.That’s especially true in Manualmode, which is my only optionwhen using studio flash (whichare not compatible with my cam-era’s TTL electronic flash exposuresystem). My studio flash units pro-duce bursts that call for exposuresat f/11 or f/16 at ISO 200. If Iwant a little more exposure, I canswitch to ISO 400, or, for a littleless, change to ISO 100, with noneed to change the f/stop (whichincreases or decreases yourdepth-of-field). Or, I can changeto a larger or smaller f/stop, andadjust the ISO to keep the sameexposure.

Outside the studio and sans flash,perhaps, I am using ShutterPriority mode (discussed in thenext chapter) and the metered

exposure at ISO 200 is 1/500thsecond at f/11. If I decide on thespur of the moment I’d rather use1/500th second at f/8, I canpress a button to switch to ISO100. It’s a good idea to monitoryour ISO changes, so you don’tend up at ISO 1,600 acciden-tally. Many cameras can adjustthe ISO automatically as appro-priate for various lighting condi-tions.

If you must use a high ISO settingto adjust exposure, take advan-tage of your camera’s noisereduction (NR) features. Somemodels have a single NR option,which can be turned on or dis-abled entirely if you want toavoid the loss of detail thataggressive noise reduction canproduce. Others allow choosinga level of noise reduction, fromlow, medium, to high, plus off.Noise cancellation can be broken


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down into two categories as well:High ISO Noise Reduction andLong Exposure Noise Reduction,because each type of situationproduces a different type ofnoise. You can activate or deacti-vate the High ISO and LongExposure noise reduction sepa-rately, as you might not needboth.

The visual noise produced byyour camera can also be mini-mized or eliminated using pro-grams that run on your computer,after the shot has been taken andtransferred to your hard disk.Adobe’s Camera Raw plug-in forPhotoshop and PhotoshopElements has built-in noise reduc-tion that can be applied when theimage is imported. Both imageeditors have their own noise can-cellation filters, as well. Noisereduction is included with third-party applications like NoiseNinja and Bibble Pro. Onceyou’ve learned how to minimizethe effects of noise at high ISOsettings, you’ll have the freedomto use sensitivity adjustments asan exposure tool more often.

Figure 1.22High ISO settingsdon’t necessarily leadto disaster with newerdigital SLRs, as thisISO 25,600 snapshotproves.

T he light you work with comes in many forms. You may usethe light that’s available at a scene, supply your own illumi-nation, or manipulate light to provide the exact look you

want. But, no matter how carefully you shape your picture with light,if the exposure is wrong for that image, you may not get the effectyou seek. A carefully crafted silhouette exposed improperly may betransformed into a murky portrait with a washed-out background. Ifthe exposure is incorrect, your languid landscape might emphasizean uninteresting foreground at the expense of a gorgeous expanse oflush foliage in the middle part of an image, because our eyes areautomatically attracted to the brightest parts of an image. Exposure,composition, and lighting must work hand-in-hand to produce the bestphotos.

Digital SLRs use light-sensitive electronics—the camera’s built-inmeter—to measure the light passing through the lens. Digital SLRs usemuch more refined methods of metering light, too, compared to the

earliest through-the-lens film models that measured an amorphous blobof light averaged out over the entire frame, without much regard towhere specific bits of illumination originated in the image.

There are three different aspects of calculating exposure that youneed to take into account when working with a digital camera. Howand where within a scene is the exposure measured? That’s the cam-era’s metering mode. Once the amount of illumination is measured,what controls, such as shutter speed, f/stop, and ISO sensitivity, areused to adjust the camera to arrive at the correct exposure? Thoseoptions are usually called the exposure modes. Finally, how can youadjust exposure to override or fine-tune the settings calculated by thecamera’s metering system? The tools you have to work with includeexposure value (EV) compensation, and bracketing. This chapterexplains all the elements that go into arriving at the right exposure fora particular image.

Optimizing Exposure2


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Metering ModesThis section introduces you to thethree to five different meteringmodes found in advanced digitalcameras, especially digital SLRmodels. Each of them divides thearea seen in the viewfinder intoexposure zones, and gives moreor less emphasis to some of thezones, depending on the modeyou’ve selected and the program-ming of the camera.

Evaluative/MatrixThe best choice for most situa-tions is Matrix metering, alsocalled Evaluative metering.Brightness patterns from a largenumber of metering zones in theframe (from 35 to more than1,000) are collected, and thencompared against a large data-base of sample pictures compiledby the camera manufacturer.Matrix metering enables the cam-era to make some educatedguesses about the type of pictureyou are taking, and chooses anexposure appropriately. Forexample, if the camera detectsthat the upper half of the frame is

brighter than the bottom half, itmay make a reasonable assump-tion that the image is a land-scape photo and calculateexposure accordingly. Your cam-era is not only capable of figur-ing out that you’re shooting alandscape photo, it can probablyidentify portraits, moon shots,snow scenes, and dozens ofother situations with a highdegree of accuracy.

In addition to overall brightness ofthe scene, the system may makechanges based on the focus dis-tance (if focus is set on infinity, theimage is more likely to be a land-scape photo); focus or meteringarea (if you’ve chosen a particu-lar part of the frame for focus ormetering, that’s probably the cen-ter of interest and should be givenadditional weight from an expo-sure standpoint); and the differ-ence in light values throughout theframe (effectively, the contrastrange of the image).

The camera may even be able todecide when it’s best to provide

less exposure than might becalled for when using a “dumb”exposure system. It’s often smartto build in some bias towardsunderexposure, because incor-rectly exposed shadows are eas-ier to retrieve later on (say, inyour image editor) than overex-posed (blown highlights).

PartialWhen you want to emphasize alarge central area of an imagewhen calculating exposure, youmight want to use the modecalled Partial, which is a fauxSpot mode offered by Canon inits digital SLRs. It uses roughlynine percent of the image area tocalculate exposure, which is arather large “spot.” Introducedwith early models of Canon’sdSLR line, Partial metering hasbeen mostly supplanted by trueSpot metering and Center-Weighted metering. Use thismode if the background is muchbrighter or darker than a largishsubject in the center of the frame.

SpotIf you want to ignore the bright-ness in most of an image andzero in on a specific subject, youcan use Spot metering. This modeconfines the reading to a limitedarea in the center of theviewfinder, which may make upjust two to about four percent ofthe total image, depending onyour camera. This mode is usefulwhen you want to base exposureon a small area in the frame.

The calculations arrived at withSpot metering can vary depend-ing on the size of the spot, whatthe camera elects to do with thespot of information, and howmuch flexibility the photographeris given over the process. Withsome cameras, you might beable to choose the size of thespot. Or, you may be allowed tomove the spot around in theviewfinder using your camera’scursor controls (usually switchingfrom one autofocus zone toanother), so that you meter thesubject area of your choice,

Optimizing Exposure

23

rather than a central area forcedon you by the camera.

If your camera doesn’t have theoption of moving the meteringspot, you can frame the image sothe area you want to measure isin the center of the frame, andthen lock exposure (usually bypressing the shutter releasehalfway, or by holding down adedicated exposure lock—AE-L—button). You’ll find this Spot meter-ing especially useful for backlitsubjects or macro photography.

Center-WeightedA Center-Weighted meteringmode allows emphasizing a sub-ject in the middle of the framewhile also taking into account therest of the image. In this mode,the exposure meter emphasizes azone in the center on the theorythat, for most pictures, the mainsubject will be located in the cen-ter. Center-Weighting works bestfor portraits, architectural photos,and other pictures in which themost important subject is locatedin the middle of the frame. As thename suggests, the light readingis weighted towards the centralportion, but information is also

used from the rest of the frame. Ifyour main subject is surroundedby very bright or very darkareas, the exposure might not beexactly right. However, thisscheme works well in many situa-tions if you don’t want to use oneof the other modes.

One vendor’s camera may calcu-late Center-Weighted exposurebased on an average of all thelight falling on a frame, but withextra weight given to the center(the size of which may beadjustable). Others may use amodified spot system with a reallylarge, fuzzy spot, so that light atthe periphery of the frame is virtu-ally ignored, even though the sys-tem is called Center-Weighting.

AveragingVery few cameras offer anAveraging mode, which givesequal weight to all portions of animage. Averaging is the leasteffective metering method in mostcircumstances, because it doesn’tallow for differences in brightnessbetween important and unimpor-tant parts of your picture. If yourcamera offers an averagingoption, it would be useful if you

happen to have a neutral graycard (described in more detaillater in this chapter). If you fill upthe frame as seen through theviewfinder with the gray carditself, an Averaging meter wouldsuggest an accurate exposure forthat gray card. You could thentake a picture of a scene illumi-nated by the same kind of lightand be confident that the middletones of the scene, including themedium gray of the card itself,would be rendered properly. But,most of the time, you’ll want touse one of the other meteringoptions to calculate exposure.

Figure 2.1 shows the approxi-mate coverage areas of four

metering modes offered withCanon digital SLRs, with theviewfinder/LCD icon used to indi-cate them shown in the upper-leftcorner of each representation.Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus,and other vendors have a similarmix of metering modes, and usetheir own icons. At upper left youcan see the 35 different exposurezones used for Evaluative(Matrix) metering; at upper right,the large circle that represents thefaux Spot mode called Partial; atlower left, the area metered inSpot mode is indicated in blue;while at lower right you can seethe middle zone of the frame thatis emphasized in Center-Weighted mode.

Figure 2.1TypicalEvaluative/Matrix (upperleft); Partial(upper right);Spot (lower left),and Center-Weighted (lowerright) meteringmode coverage.


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Aperture PriorityOnce the amount of light hasbeen measured and the correctexposure calculated, digital cam-eras need to apply that informa-tion by setting the shutter speed,aperture (lens opening), or ISO(sensitivity of the sensor). Mostdigital cameras have up to fivedifferent types of exposure modesthat determine how the exposuresettings are made. These includeAperture Priority, Shutter Priority,Program, Manual, and, withsome cameras, a set of customexposure modes usually calledScene modes.

In Aperture Priority mode, youselect the f/stop you want to use,and the camera selects the appro-priate shutter speed needed forthe correct exposure. (Some cam-eras can be set to adjust the ISOif the selected aperture requires ashutter speed that is faster orslower than the ideal setting.)

Aperture Priority is also calledAperture Preferred, and is abbre-viated either A or Av (for aper-ture value) on your cameracontrols.

Aperture Priority is an excellentchoice when you want to use aparticular lens opening toachieve a desired effect. Perhapsyou’d like to use the smallestf/stop possible to maximizedepth-of-field in a close-up pic-ture. Or, you might want to use alarge f/stop to throw everythingexcept your main subject out offocus, as shown in Figure 2.2.Perhaps you’d just like to “lockin” a particular f/stop becauseit’s the sharpest available aper-ture with that lens. Or, you mightprefer to use, say, f/4 on a lenswith a maximum aperture off/2.8, because you want the bestcompromise between speed andsharpness, as in Figure 2.3

Figure 2.2Aperture pri-ority allowsspecifying alarge aper-ture for selec-tive focus thatconcentratesattention onthe main subject.

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Aperture Priority can even beused to specify a range of shutterspeeds you want to use undervarying lighting conditions, whichseems almost contradictory. Ifyou’re shooting a soccer gameoutdoors with a telephoto lensand want a relatively high shutterspeed, but you don’t care if theshutter speed changes a littleshould the sun duck behind acloud, set your camera toAperture Priority, and adjust theaperture until a shutter speed of,say, 1/1,000th second isselected at your current ISO set-ting. (In bright sunlight at ISO400, that aperture is likely to bearound f/11.) Then, go aheadand shoot, knowing that yourcamera will maintain that f/11aperture (for sufficient DOF as thesoccer players move about thefield), but will drop down to1/750th or 1/500th second ifnecessary should the lightingchange a little.

Keep in mind that the cameramay be unable to select anappropriate shutter speed at thepreferred aperture and that over-and underexposure will occur atthe current ISO setting. That’s themajor pitfall of using AperturePriority: you might select anf/stop that is too small or toolarge to allow an optimal expo-sure with the available shutterspeeds. For example, if youchoose f/2.8 as your apertureand the illumination is quitebright (say, at the beach or insnow), even your camera’s fastestshutter speed might not be ableto cut down the amount of lightreaching the sensor to providethe right exposure. Or, if youselect f/8 in a dimly lit room, youmight find yourself shooting witha very slow shutter speed thatcan cause blurring from subjectmovement or camera shake.Aperture Priority is best used bythose with a bit of experience inchoosing settings. Many sea-soned photographers leave theircameras set on Aperture Priorityall the time.

Figure 2.3 In this case, an aperture of f/4 was selected to provide the bestcompromise of speed, sharpness, and depth-of-field when capturing this wary owl.


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Shutter PriorityShutter Priority is the opposite ofAperture Priority. In this mode,you select the shutter speed you’dlike to work with, and the cam-era’s metering system selects theappropriate f/stop. Perhapsyou’re shooting action photosand you want to use the absolutefastest shutter speed availablewith your camera; in other cases,you might want to use a slowshutter speed to add some blur to

a sports photo that would bemundane if the action were com-pletely frozen. Shutter Prioritymode gives you some controlover how much action-freezingcapability your digital camerabrings to bear in a particular situ-ation. Shutter Priority is alsocalled Shutter Preferred, and maybe abbreviated on your camera’scontrols as S or Tv (for timevalue).

Of course, Shutter Priority pres-ents the same problem you mightencounter with Aperture Priority.It’s possible to select a shutterspeed that’s too long or too shortfor an ideal exposure under someconditions. I’ve shot outdoor soc-cer games on sunny Fall eveningsand used Shutter Priority mode tolock in a 1/1,000th second shut-ter speed, only to find my camerarefused to shoot when the sundipped behind some trees andthere was no longer enough lightto shoot at that speed, even withthe lens wide open. Your camerawill tip you off with a blinking Hior Lo or other message in theviewfinder, so you can select adifferent shutter speed and tryagain.

As with Aperture Priority, you canuse Shutter Priority to lock in aspecific range of apertures thatwill be used. To use our soccer

game example again, perhapsyou want to make sure you use arelatively small f/stop, such asf/11, but you don’t care if theaperture changes a little. A highshutter speed is your main prior-ity. Go ahead and set your cam-era to Shutter Priority, and adjustthe shutter speed until an aper-ture of f/11 is selected at yourcurrent ISO setting. (In bright sun-light at ISO 400, that shutterspeed will be around 1/500thsecond.) Shoot away. If lightingconditions remain the same, yourcamera will maintain that f/11aperture, but will drop down tof/8 or an intermediate f/stop ifnecessary should the lightingchange a little during the game.

The shutter speed you select for agiven photo affects two key partsof your image: the overall expo-sure (when mated with the ISOand f/stop parameters) and the

AUTO ISOWith both Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority, you may have the optionof directing your camera to increase or decrease the ISO sensitivity tokeep those shutter speeds and apertures within the “ideal” range.Cameras that implement this feature may let you specify a minimum shutterspeed and maximum ISO setting to use in this ISO Auto mode. For exam-ple, in Aperture Priority mode, if you want to avoid using shutter speedslower than 1/30th second, you can tell the camera to raise the ISO when-ever a shutter speed slower than that is specified by the exposure system.In either Aperture or Shutter Priority modes, you can specify that ISO willbe increased, say, to no more than ISO 1000 automatically, avoidinghigher sensitivity settings that can increase grain.

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relative sharpness of your imagein terms of how well subject orcamera motion is stopped. Ahigh shutter speed will freeze fast-moving action in front of yourcamera, and potentially negateany shakiness caused by cameramovement. If a shutter speed is

not high enough to stop thismovement, elements in yourimage will be stretched andblurred. Creatively, you mightactually want this blur in order toadd a feeling of motion to yourimages. So, it’s important tochoose the right shutter speed to

stop action when you want tofreeze a moment in time, or toallow your subject to “flow” whenthat’s what you’re looking for.

To maintain the most control over the amount/lack of blur inyour photographs, you need to

understand that components inyour image are subject to thisblurring to varying degrees.Indeed, it’s possible to have oneimage with several subjects, eachwith a different amount of blur.Here are some things to keep inmind when selecting a shutterspeed:

◆ High shutter speeds countercamera shake. If your camerashakes during an exposure, all ofthe image will be blurry to adegree. Anti-shake measures builtinto the camera or image stabiliza-tion/vibration reduction included ina lens can counter some camerashake, but are not cure-alls. Highershutter speeds (1/500th to1/1,000th second or shorter) canhelp eliminate camera shake.

◆ Motion across the framerequires higher shutterspeeds. Motion across the frame(left to right or right to left) appearsto move more quickly than motionthat’s headed toward or away fromthe camera. In Figure 2.4, thebaseball is traveling across theframe, and so appears slightlyblurred even at a shutter speed of1/500th second. A speed of1/2,000th second would freezethe ball in mid-flight, but the blurshown here is actually more effec-tive because of the feeling ofmotion it adds to the image.

Figure 2.4 Action across a frame requires the highest shutter speed to freeze action.


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◆ Motion towards the cameraseems slowest. Motion comingtoward the camera appears tomove much more slowly. An athletebarreling over high hurdles (as inFigure 2.5) can be frozen at a rela-tively slow shutter speed—1/250thsecond may be sufficient—becausethe apparent motion isn’t as fast.

◆ “Slanted” movement is inbetween. If a subject starts outon one side of your frame, andapproaches you while headed tothe other side, it will display blursomewhere between the twoextremes.

◆ Distance reduces apparentspeed. Subjects that are closer tothe camera blur more easily thansubjects that are farther away,even though they’re moving at thesame absolute speed, becausetheir motion across the cameraframe is more rapid. A vehicle inthe foreground might pass in frontof the camera in a split-second,while one hundreds of feet awaymay require three or four secondsto cross the frame.

◆ A moving camera empha-sizes or compensates forsubject motion. If you happen tobe moving the camera in the samedirection as a subject’s motion (thisis called panning), the relativespeed of the subject will be less,and so will the blur. Should youmove the camera in the other direc-tion, the subject’s motion on theframe will be relatively greater.

The correct shutter speed willvary based on these factors, com-bined with the actual velocity ofyour subject. (That is, a tight endracing for a touchdown in an NFLgame is very likely moving faster[and would require a faster shut-ter speed] than, say, a 45-year-old ex-jock with the same goal ina flag football game.) The actualspeed you choose also varieswith the amount of intentionalblur you want to impart to yourimage, as in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.5 Action moving toward the camera, such as this shot of a hurdler at1/250th second, can be captured at a slightly slower shutter speed.

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For example, if you want toabsolutely stop your subject in itstracks, you might need1/1,000th to 1/2,000th second

(or faster) for the speediesthumans or speeding automobiles.You might apply 1/500th secondto a galloping horse to allow a

little blur in the steed’s feet ormane. Shutter speeds as slow as1/125th second can stop somekinds of action, particularly if you

catch the movement at its peak,say, when a leaping basketballplayer reaches the top of his orher jump and unleashes the ball.

Figure 2.6 Panning the camera while shooting at a slow shutter speed can produce an interesting sports photo.


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Programmed Exposure ModesVirtually all digital cameras havea user-adjustable fully automaticexposure mode called Program,Programmed Exposure, orProgrammed Auto, usuallymarked with a P on the cameracontrols. Entry-level and someintermediate models may haveadditional programmed exposuremodes, including Auto or FullAuto, and a series of settingscalled Scene modes suitable forspecific types of situations (andwith names to match), such asPortrait, Landscape, Sports,Night, or Close-Up. Scene modesmay be categorized by differentnames by various manufacturers.(Canon calls them Basic Zonemodes, while Nikon prefers theterm Digi-Vari Program.) The con-cept is the same: with any pro-grammed mode, the cameramakes most (or all) of the deci-sions for you, and may or may

not permit overriding those set-tings. Fortunately, these automaticmodes usually work with yourcamera’s Matrix metering method(described earlier in this chapter),so they can intelligently analyzeyour image and arrive at a fairlyaccurate exposure on their own.

Don’t confuse P mode (discussednext) with Auto or Full Auto,which is usually marked on thecamera with a green cameraicon, the words AUTO, or agreen rectangle (because A or Avusually means Aperture Priority).Fully automatic exposure modesmake all settings and may pre-vent any sort of adjustment by theuser. That might be useful whenyou hand your camera over to anon-photographer to ask him totake your picture standing in frontof the Grand Canyon, but Autowon’t be the preferred exposuremode for more experienced photographers.

With most cameras, P mode alsosets the shutter speed and aper-ture for you, and may adjust ISOsensitivity as well, but allows youto override the settings it choosesto customize the actual exposureto best suit the image you want tocreate. In truth, P probably won’tbe your favorite mode, either.But, because you can counter-mand the camera’s selection ofsettings, Program exposure isentirely acceptable when youwant to reduce the number ofdecisions you make in a given sit-uation.

Perhaps you see a fleeting grabshot opportunity and there is notime to figure out which exposuremode to use. Set the camera to Pand fire away. Review the shoton your LCD, and if a little moreor less exposure is needed, dialthat in (see EV Compensationlater in this chapter) and take

another picture. If the exposure isfine, but you’d rather use a differ-ent equivalent exposure, say, alarger f/stop and shorter shutterspeed to stop action or provideless depth-of-field for selectivefocus (or a smaller f/stop andlonger shutter speed to increasedepth-of-field or add blur) youcan do that.

Scene modes are a little lessrestrictive than Auto/Full Auto,and may do a better job of deal-ing with the type of situationsthey were designed for. Scenemodes may make some settingsfor you, and may limit the othersettings you can make by block-ing out overrides for focusmethod, exposure, brightness,contrast, white balance, or satu-ration. Figure 2.7 shows themode dial of several differentpopular digital SLR cameras thatfeature Scene modes.

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Here are some of the commonScene modes found in digitalSLRs:

◆ Portrait. Uses a large f/stop tothrow the background out of focusand activates red-eye reduction inthe flash.

◆ Night. Reduces the shutter speedfor exposures in low light levels, toallow longer exposures withoutflash, and to allow ambient light to

fill in the background when flash isused. You’d probably have to usea tripod with this Scene mode.

◆ Night Portrait. Uses a long tripod-assisted exposure, often withred-eye flash, so the backgroundsdon’t sink into inky blackness.Figure 2.8 shows a typical imagetaken using Night Portrait mode.

◆ Beach/Snow. Adds some expo-sure to counter the tendency of

Figure 2.7 Scene modes (indicated by the icons on the mode dials) areavailable in entry-level cameras from many different vendors, including Nikon(upper left), Pentax (upper right), Sony (lower left), and Canon (lower right).

Figure 2.8 The Night Portrait scene mode (illustrated at left) uses slower shutterspeeds with flash to prevent the background from fading into darkness, asshown at right.

automatic metering systems tounderexpose when faced with verybright settings.

◆ Sports. Uses the highest shutterspeed available to freeze action,and may choose Spot metering toexpose for fast-moving subjects inthe center of the frame.

◆ Landscape. This mode chooses asmall f/stop to increase depth-of-field, improving your chances of

having both foreground and distantobjects in sharp focus. With somecameras, this mode also increasesthe saturation setting to make thelandscape more vivid.

◆ Macro. Some cameras have aclose-up Scene mode that shiftsover to Macro focus mode and tellsthe camera to focus on the objectin the center of the frame.


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Manual ExposureManual exposure is a usefuloption that many photographersdiscover after they’ve becomefamiliar with their camera’ssophisticated exposure system.As I’ve emphasized in this chap-ter, there are many situations inwhich automated exposuremodes, including P and Scenemode settings are entirely appro-priate. The semi-automatedAperture and Shutter Prioritymodes are useful when you wantto use a specific f/stop or shutterspeed. And, manual exposurecan be especially effective in situations like those I list here,where you are faced with specificexposure or equipment chal-lenges that are best resolved withmanual settings. Some advancedphotographers actually prefer toset their exposure manually mostof the time, because most cam-eras provide an indication in theviewfinder or status LCD to con-firm that your manual settingsagree with the exposure the cam-era itself has calculated.

Perhaps you’re shooting a silhou-ette with an underexposed fore-ground subject, and using theexposure compensation controlsproves to be a clumsy and incon-venient way of countermandingthe camera’s settings. You mightbe working in a studio environ-ment using multiple flash units.The additional flash are triggeredby slave devices (gadgets that setoff the flash when they sense thelight from another flash, or, per-haps from a radio or infraredremote control). Your camera’sexposure meter works fine with abuilt-in flash or dedicated unit,but doesn’t compensate for theextra non-dedicated flash units,or can’t interpret the flash expo-sure at all. You need to set theaperture manually.

The biggest pitfall facing thosewho want to set exposure manu-ally is lack of familiarity. Those ofus who generally use one of theautomated or semi-automatedmodes tend to be a little rusty

when it comes to manual expo-sure. It’s a good idea to investi-gate how manual exposures areachieved with your camera.Fortunately, most cameras makemanual operation very easy. Justchoose M mode, and turn thecommand dial or other control toset the shutter speed, and useeither a secondary dial or themain dial while pressing a buttonto adjust the aperture. Then,press the shutter release halfwayor press the exposure lock buttonon your camera, and the expo-sure scale in the viewfindershows you how far your chosensetting diverges from the meteredexposure.

Manual exposure mode is a pop-ular option among moreadvanced photographers whoknow what they want in terms ofexposure, and want to make thesettings themselves. Manual letsyou set both shutter speed and

aperture. There are several rea-sons for using Manual exposure:

◆ For a specific exposure tocreate a special effect.Perhaps you’d like to deliberatelyunderexpose an image drasticallyto produce a shadow or silhouettelook, as shown in Figure 2.9. Youcan fiddle with exposure compen-sation settings or override yourcamera’s exposure controls in otherways, but it’s often simpler just toset the exposure manually.

◆ When using an external lightmeter under tricky illumina-tion, or for total control.Advanced photographers often fallback on their favorite hand-heldlight meters for very precise expo-sure calculations. For example, anincident meter (described later inthis chapter), which measures thelight that falls on a subject ratherthan the light reflected from a sub-ject, can be used at the subjectposition to measure the illuminationin the highlights and shadows sep-arately. This is common for por-traits, because the photographercan then increase the fill light,reduce the amount of the mainlight, or perform other adjustments.

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Those enamored of special expo-sure systems, like the marvelouslyeffective and complex Zone Systemof exposure developed by AnselAdams for black-and-white photog-raphy, might also want the addedcontrol an external light meter provides.

◆ When you’re using an exter-nal flash that’s not compati-ble with your camera’s TTL(through-the-lens) flashmetering system. You canmeasure the flash illumination witha flash meter, or simply take a pic-ture and adjust your exposure inManual mode.

◆ When you’re using a lensthat doesn’t couple withyour digital camera’s expo-sure system. Several digital SLRmodels can use older lenses notdesigned for the latest modes ofoperation, although they must beused in Manual focus/exposuremode. I have several specializedolder lenses that I use with my dSLRin Manual focus/exposure mode.They work great, but I have to cal-culate exposure by guesstimate orby using an external meter. Mycamera’s exposure system won’tmeter with these optics under anycircumstances.

Figure 2.9 Manual exposure simplifies some special effects, such as silhouettes.


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Adjusting Exposure/EVSometimes you’ll want more orless exposure than indicated bythe camera’s metering system.Perhaps you want to underex-pose to create a silhouette effect,or overexpose to produce a highkey look. It’s easy to use the cam-era’s exposure compensation sys-tem to override the exposurerecommendations. This option isusually available in any modeexcept Scene modes andManual.

Exposure compensation, oftenabbreviated EV (for exposurevalue), tells the camera to startwith whatever f/stop and shutterspeed settings it calculated usingthe current metering method, butto add or subtract a givenamount, as specified by you.These amounts are measured inpositive or negative EV numbers.A setting of +1EV doubles theexposure, while –1EV cuts thetotal exposure in half. In EVterms, it doesn’t matter whether

the change was accomplished byopening the lens one f/stoplarger, or by halving the shutterspeed (to add 1EV), or by closingdown the lens one f/stop or dou-bling the shutter speed (to sub-tract 1EV). You’ll recall fromChapter 1 that, by convention, aone stop change in exposure rep-resents one whole shutter speedor f/stop increment; a one f/stopchange means you’ve actuallyadjusted the aperture.

So, if you dial in a +1EV adjust-ment, your camera will take thecalculated exposure and openthe aperture one stop, or cut theshutter speed duration in half. Ifthe basic exposure was 1/500thsecond at f/11, the cameramight change to 1/250th secondat f/11, or use 1/500th secondat f/8 instead. That would be thecase if the camera was set to P(Program) exposure, and the set-ting used (shutter speed or f/stop)

would be selected by the pro-gramming in the camera. In Pmode, the camera’s “smarts” maychoose to add or subtract EV byadjusting the shutter speed (per-haps to avoid using an extra-large or extra small f/stop suchas f/2.8 or f/22) or decide,instead, to change the f/stop anequivalent amount (to avoid drop-ping down to a slow shutterspeed that could aggravate cam-era shake problems).

If the camera is set for AperturePriority mode, the f/stop you

have selected will remain, andEV adjustments will be made bychanging the shutter speed. It’sup to you to make sure that theshutter speed doesn’t stray intoan undesirable range, and pre-vent that by changing your man-dated aperture. Should thecamera be set for Shutter Prioritymode, the shutter speed remainsfixed, and any EV adjustmentswill be made by opening or clos-ing the aperture. (The same warn-ing about monitoring yoursettings to avoid undesirablef/stops applies.)

REMEMBER TO CANCEL EVIf your camera retains EV changes until you cancel them (some preservethe EV setting even if the camera is turned off and then on again), be sureto dial the EV adjustment back to zero when you’re no longer shootingunder the conditions that called for the modification. A large percentageof “wrong” exposures that some photographers complain about end upthe result of forgetting to turn off an EV change.

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In practice, you’ll rarely want tomake EV changes in whole stops,unless you need a dramaticchange in exposure from thevalue metered by your camera.Usually, you’ll dial in one-third ortwo-thirds stop adjustments,which are displayed on yourcamera’s status screens/viewfinder as +0.3/–0.3 and+0.6/–0.6 (if your cameramakes exposure and EV changesin one-third stop increments). Ifyour model applies exposurechanges in half-stop increments,you’ll see +0.5/–0.5 and+1.0/–1.0 options. Most cam-eras allow making EV adjust-ments only within a particularrange, such as +/–2.0 or 2.5stops.

Figure 2.10 shows how EV canbe useful when photographingsubjects that mislead your cam-era’s exposure meter. The giant30-foot stainless steel gavel bysculptor Andrew Scott is, as youmight expect, highly reflective,and the specular highlights (actu-ally glare from the sun) causedthe camera to underexpose theimage, as you can see at left. Idialed in an EV correction of Figure 2.10 The original exposure was too dark (left), but adding +0.6EV (center) and +1.3EV (right) provided more

interesting renditions.

+0.6 (two-thirds of a stop) to pro-duce the more pleasing exposureshown at center. Then, just for theheck of it, I added another 2/3stop to achieve the luminous ren-dition shown at right. There arealways several ways to do any-thing with a sophisticated digital

camera, and I could have donethe same thing with bracketing(discussed next) or manual expo-sure (described in the previoussection).

To adjust EV, with most camerasyou hold down a button that’s

usually conveniently located onthe top panel somewhere in thevicinity of the shutter release, andmarked with a plus/minus signand/or an EV symbol. Thenrotate a dial or press anothercontrol to change the EV.


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BracketingBracketing is a method for shoot-ing several consecutive exposuresusing different settings, as a wayof improving the odds that onewill be exactly right. Before digi-tal and electronic film camerastook over the universe, it wascommon to bracket exposures,shooting, say, a series of threephotos at 1/125th second, butvarying the f/stop from f/8 tof/11 to f/16. In practice, smallerthan whole-stop increments were

used for greater precision. Plus, it was just as common tokeep the same aperture and varythe shutter speed, although in thedays before electronic shutters,film cameras often had onlywhole increment shutter speedsavailable.

Today, many digital cameras canbracket exposures much more pre-cisely, and bracket white balanceas well. While WB bracketing is

sometimes used when gettingcolor absolutely correct in thecamera is important, auto expo-sure bracketing (AEB) is usedmuch more often. When this fea-ture is activated, the camera takesthree consecutive photos in theorder you select. Perhaps the firstis taken at the metered “correct”exposure, one with less exposure,and one with more exposure.(Some cameras allow changingthe order in which these brack-eted shots are taken.)

Figure 2.11 shows three versionsof a view of the Columbus, Ohioskyline taken at about half anhour before dusk. The middle pic-ture provides the most accuraterepresentation of what the sceneactually looked like when this trioof images was taken. They weresnapped as a bracketed set withmy camera’s ContinuousShooting mode, and bracketingadjusted for 2/3rds of a stop dif-ference between them. In thatregard, these pictures resembledthe photographs of the gavelsculpture in the previous section.

But, in this case, all three werefired off in less than a second,and a bit more conveniently,because the exposure adjust-ments were automatic and didn’trequire fiddling with the EV set-tings. The shot at top looks almostas if it were taken in daylight,and the one at bottom could pass for a night photograph.Bracketing is an excellent toolwhen you want to experimentwith the different effects you can get just by changing theexposure.

Using AEB is trickier than it needsto be, but you can follow thesesteps:

◆ Small steps. Use small bracketincrements when you just want tofine-tune exposure. Using smallamounts between bracketed shotsprovides subtle differences. Youmight find that all your shots areacceptable, but one will be exactlyright.

◆ Large steps. Use larger incre-ments when you want to see dra-matic differences between shots. Aone stop bracket set may give you

BRACKET FOR HDRIn addition to fine-tuning exposure, bracketing can be useful when you’replanning on doing so-called HDR (high dynamic range) mergers in yourimage editor. HDR is an image-editing tool that’s beyond the scope of thisbook, but, in brief, it’s a way of taking several shots at widely differentexposures, and then combining them in the editor to arrive at one picturewith the greatest possible range of tones. You may, for example, shoot onepicture that is greatly overexposed with no highlight detail, but which hasabundant detail in the shadows. A second picture that is heavily underex-posed may have no information in the shadows, but rich highlight detail.Using HDR techniques, the shadows of the first image can be combinedwith the highlights of the second image to produce one optimum exposure.For best results, bracketed shots should be taken using a large increment(one full stop or more) and with the camera mounted on a tripod so themultiple images that will be combined are otherwise identical in framingand content.

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a normal shot, an interesting silhou-ette version, and a high-key (ormaybe washed-out) shot within athree-shot bracket.

◆ Many steps. Your camera mayallow bracketing more than threeshots in a set (one of my camerascan bracket up to seven consecu-tive exposures). Large bracketedsets are most useful when you’reusing small bracket increments,because they give you subtlechanges over a larger range ofexposures. For example, a seven-shot bracket set using half-stopsteps would give you seven pic-tures spanning 3.5 stops of expo-sure.

◆ Cluster effectively. While somecameras force you to bracket anequal amount over and under thebasic exposure (say, the meteredexposure, plus one over and oneunder that setting), others are moreflexible. You may be able to clusteryour bracketed shots in a specificdirection, either over- or underex-posure. For example, if you feel thecamera’s exposure setting is a little

too much for a scene, you can setbracketing so that individual shotsare taken at that exposure, plusseveral more at reduced exposuresettings. Instead of plus one incre-ment, metered exposure, minus oneincrement, you can capture imagesat metered exposure, minus oneincrement, minus two increments.

◆ Mode matters. In AperturePriority mode, bracketing will bedone using the shutter speed; inShutter Priority mode, bracketingadjustments will be made using thelens’s aperture. That’s important toremember if the particular shutterspeed or f/stop used during brack-eting is important to you.

◆ Use your ContinuousShooting mode. A handy wayto shoot a bracketed series is toturn on your camera’s ContinuousShooting mode. At, say, a 3frames-per-second shooting rate,you can snap off a series of threebracketed shots in one second,assuming that the shutter speedyou’re using is shorter than about1/30th second (of course).

Figure 2.11 A three-shot bracketed set produced three very differentlooks of the same scene.

TURNOFFWhen finished bracketing, remember to turn the feature off. Several timesI’ve been puzzled when I turned my camera on and began shooting, andnoticed that the exposures were varying widely. I neglected to turn brack-eting off, and failed to notice the warnings on the LCD and in the view-finder. This goof is almost as bad as forgetting to cancel EV compensation.


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HistogramsAlthough you can often resurrectbadly exposed photos in yourimage editor, it’s smarter to getthe right exposure in the firstplace. That’s because not everyexposure mistake can be fixed inpost-processing. Detail that’s lostin the highlights is gone forever,and underexposed shadows mayor may not be fixable. Often,when you try to extract shadowdetail in an image editor, youend up boosting noise as well.

Of course, confirming that yourexposures are correct isn’t simplya matter of reviewing the imageson your camera’s LCD after theshot is made. Ambient light maymake the LCD difficult to see andvary the appearance of theimage that you do view. Withcameras that have LCD bright-ness adjustments, the brightnesslevel you’ve set can also affectthe appearance of the playbackimage. Nor can you get a 100percent accurately exposed view

prior to the shot using the cam-era’s Live View feature. Somecameras don’t even pretend thattheir live image resembles theactual exposure you’ll get; thegoal is to present a viewable pre-view image, and the LCD “expo-sure” is pumped up to give youthat optimum preview. Only afew cameras with Live View havean “exposure simulation” modethat mimics what the actual expo-sure at the current settings willlook like.

The most reliable way to monitorexposure in the camera is to useyour model’s histogram feature. Ahistogram is a chart displayed onthe camera’s LCD that shows thenumber of tones being capturedat each brightness level. You canuse the information to providecorrection for the next shot youtake. There are two kinds of his-tograms available. One, found invirtually all digital SLRs, is thebrightness histogram, which

shows the overall brightness lev-els for an image. A second typeof chart, the RGB histogram, sep-arates the red, green, and bluechannels of your image into sepa-rate histograms.

Histogram display on your LCD isusually an option provided after

the shot is taken, as you reviewyour images. You may be able topress a button to cycle throughvarious information displayoptions, and they should includea basic brightness histogramand, perhaps, an RGB histogramas well, as shown in Figure 2.12.

Figure 2.12 Many cameras offer both RGB histograms (upper right) andbrightness histograms (lower right).

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As I mentioned, both types arecharts that include a representa-tion of up to 256 vertical lines ona horizontal axis that show thenumber of pixels in the image ateach brightness level, from 0(black) on the left side to 255(white) on the right. (A camera’sLCD doesn’t actually haveenough pixels to show each andevery one of the 256 lines, but,instead provides a representationof the shape of the curve formed.)The more pixels at a given level,the taller the bar at that position.If no bar appears at a particularposition on the scale from left toright, there are no pixels at thatparticular brightness level.

A typical histogram produces amountain-like shape, with most ofthe pixels bunched in the middletones, with fewer pixels at thedark and light ends of the scale.Ideally, though, there will be atleast some pixels at eitherextreme, so that your image hasboth a true black and a truewhite representing some details.

Figure 2.13Histogram of anunderexposedimage.

Figure 2.14Histogram of anoverexposedimage.

Figure 2.15Histogram of animage that hasbeen properlyexposed.

Learn to spot histograms that rep-resent over- and underexposure,and add or subtract exposureusing an EV modification to compensate.

For example, Figure 2.13 showsthe histogram for an image that isbadly underexposed. You canguess from the shape of the his-togram that many of the darktones to the left of the graph havebeen clipped off. There’s plentyof room on the right side for addi-tional pixels to reside withouthaving them become overex-posed. Or, a histogram mightlook like Figure 2.14, which isoverexposed. In either case, youcan increase or decrease theexposure (either by changing thef/stop or shutter speed in Manualmode or by adding or subtractingan EV value in other modes) toproduce the corrected histogramshown in Figure 2.15, in whichthe tones “hug” the right side ofthe histogram to produce asmany highlight details as possible.


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Gray Cards, Light Meters, and Do-It-Yourself ExposureYour camera’s automated andsemi-automated exposure systemswill do a fine job most of thetime, particularly if you use a littleintelligence to override the cam-era as needed by applying expo-sure compensation where needed(and indicated by histograms), bybracketing where appropriate,and maybe by using your cam-era’s Spot metering system tometer specific areas of yourimage when the overall illumina-tion may mislead your camera’sexposure system.

But if you want the absolutelymost accurate and consistentexposure, you may have to beprepared to go the do-it-yourselfroute, and that can involve thingslike hand-held light meters, neu-tral gray cards, and other stepsthat can be time-consuming andrewarding. Even in this digitalage, there remain devotees ofAnsel Adams’ Zone System,which details methods for measur-ing light and calculating the opti-mum exposure under a wide

range of differing illumination,using a variety of different sub-jects. If you aspire to be a picto-rial or fine art photographer, youmay well want to study Adams’New Basic Photography Series,last updated in 1981, shortlybefore his death.

Fortunately, you don’t need toimmerse yourself in the ZoneSystem to fine-tune exposureusing the basic tools available toyou. Your digital camera can beused to measure light off a card(or even your hand) to derivesome useful exposure informa-tion. Or, you can find inexpen-sive hand-held light meters/flashmeters that will give you new

insights into how optimum expo-sure should be figured.

Here are some of the things youcan do. This list is intended sim-ply as an introduction; any goodbook that covers everything thereis to know about exposure willhave more detail:

◆ Measuring exposure from agray card. You can purchase aKodak gray card that reflects 18percent of the light that reaches it,and use the information to deter-mine the correct exposure. Set upthe card under the same illumina-tion that will be used to take thepicture (you can even include it inthe frame as in Figure 2.16) andmeasure the light from the card.

(Take one shot, and then remove itfrom the frame; you can use thegray card in your image editor tocheck exposure or color balance.)You can fill up the frame with thecard by getting in close, temporar-ily, or use your camera’s Spotmetering function to measure theexposure off the card. If you takethe reading you arrive at, and thenadd one-half stop of exposure,your picture should show the graycard at its proper tonal level.Highlights and shadows may belighter or darker than you wish, butthat’s due to the limited tonal rangeof the digital camera’s sensor. Butonce you have the correct expo-sure for the middle tones, you canadd or subtract exposure to favorthe highlights or shadows in yourimage.

THE MYTH OF THE 18 PERCENT GRAY CARDIt’s common notion that digital cameras are calibrated to provide a correct exposure equivalent to the middle graytone found in an 18 percent gray card, like those sold by Eastman Kodak Company. That’s a myth. In reality, digitalcameras are typically calibrated to “see” middle gray as a 12 to 13 percent tone. That’s why, when you measureillumination from an 18 percent gray card with a camera meter, nit-pickers need to add one-half stop of exposure toaccount for the difference. So, why is the standard gray card produced to reflect 18 percent? Some say it’s becausethat’s the value that is the standard middle gray in the printing industry.

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◆ Measuring exposure fromyour hand. Instead of a graycard, meter off the palm of yourhand, and then reduce the expo-sure by one-half to one stop. Thepalm of the human hand (regard-less of race) is generally twice asreflective as a gray card, so cuttingexposure a little will provide similarresults.

◆ Using a hand-held incidentmeter. An incident meter is anexposure device with a hemispheri-cal light collector that simulates thetypical shape of a subject. If youhold it at the subject position

◆ Using a hand-held incidentmeter to measure highlightsand shadows separately. Ifyou’re lighting a portrait (asdescribed later in this book), youmay want to know how the illumi-nation in the shadows compares tothat in the highlights (the lightingratio, as described in Chapter 5).Move an incident meter to measureboth highlight and shadow illumi-nation, and compare the two tocalculate your lighting ratio. (Muchmore on this later.)

◆ Using a hand-held spotmeter. Meters that measurereflected light, like the spot metershown in Figure 2.18, are usefulwhen you can’t walk up to yoursubject and thrust an incident meterin the light path. But, as with thelight metering system built into yourcamera, a reflective meter doesn’tknow what type of subject is pro-ducing the light that it “sees.”

You’ll need to make some adjust-ments to accommodate subjectsthat are brighter or darker than themiddle tones the meter is cali-brated for.

Figure 2.16Include a gray cardin your scene, andyou can spot meter

off the portion not inshadow, and use

the gray tone as areference when

adjusting color bal-ance in your image

editor.

Figure 2.17Placed at the sub-ject position, thedome of an incidentmeter mimics theactual lighting andshadows on the sub-ject when calculat-ing exposure.

Figure 2.18 To use a hand-heldspot meter, “sight” through theoptical viewfinder at top left, thencalculate exposure based on howmuch the needle is deflected bythe reflected light.

pointed at the camera, it will meas-ure the light actually falling on thesubject. An incident meter elimi-nates the inaccuracies of reflectivelight meters, which, after all, don’tknow whether the light reachingtheir sensor is coming from a blackcat (indicating one exposure toreproduce the cat’s fur), a white cat(which would require quite a differ-ent exposure), or a gray cat (call-ing for an exposure somewhere inbetween). Incident meters, like theone shown in Figure 2.17, areavailable for both continuous illumi-nation, flash illumination, or in acombo model that measures both.

S trictly speaking, any sort of light that can be used to illuminatea photo can be considered “available” light. That includesdaylight, moonlight, existing light indoors, supplementary

lights you provide, your camera’s built-in flash, candles, plummetingmeteorites—anything that’s available. But, photographically speaking,available light is generally considered only as the light that is alreadypresent at a scene, usually not moveable or adjustable in brightnessby the photographer. It’s available, but not necessarily convenient.But, as you’ve probably learned, inconvenience goes by other names,including challenge, opportunity, or creative boundary. How you han-dle available light, and how you manipulate and supplement it, oftenis a major factor in the success of your image.

Available light can be sparse and require special effort on your partto eke out a picture from the fleeting photons. Back in the 1960s (andbefore) there was an entire school of photographic endeavor dedi-cated to capturing photos under (non) existing light. The rage was forcrazy-fast lenses with apertures as fast as f/0.95, and darkroom

manipulations like “push” processing, which tended to do little butincrease grain and contrast while elevating sensitivity settings to theequivalent of today’s ISO 1600-3200. Today, in the digital domain,low light can still be a challenge, and tools like f/1.4 or f/1.2 lensesare valuable, along with image stabilization/vibration reduction/anti-shake technology that allows the use of slower shutter speedswithout a tripod. But the biggest breakthrough in available light pho-tography has been modern sensors, many of which can captureimages at ISO 3200 and beyond to a mind-bending ISO 25,600—in full color—that black-and-white bleeding-edge photographers of 40 years ago could only dream about.

Of course, available light photography isn’t limited to low-light envi-ronments. You’ll find that available light can be plentiful, too, but stillrestrained by excessive contrast, unwanted reflections, awful colorbalance, and other limitations. In this chapter, I’m going to providesome tips for taming available light as you raise the bar on the techni-cal and aesthetic qualities of your photographs.

Available Light3


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White BalanceThe visible light that we see by isactually a continuous spectrumranging from the shortest wave-lengths our eyes can discern (atthe blue-violet end of the scale) tothe longest reddish wavelengthsthat peter out at the near-infraredportion of the spectrum. But oureyes can’t directly perceive thiscontinuous spectrum. Instead, our

color vision derives from threetypes of cone cells in our retina(remember “rods and cones”from high school biology?) thatoverlap to collect light that peaksin the blue, blue-green, andgreen-yellow (and red) portionsof the spectrum, respectively, asyou can see in Figure 3.1. The“burst” icons indicate the peak

response of each type of conecell, but you can see that the S-,M-, and L-cones each respond toa range of colors that cover theblue, green, and red portions ofthe spectrum.

Humans have mimicked the wayour eyes divide the spectrum upinto three ranges in creating film,

sensors, scanners, display moni-tors, and other devices that com-bine blue, green, and red light toproduce the full range of colors.These hues are generally listed inreverse alphabetical order, orRGB. (That’s just a coincidenceas, say, French- or Spanish-speakers will notice immediately.)

The relative balance of each ofthose three colors varies, depend-ing on the kind of illuminationyou’re using. That ratio is com-monly called color balance orwhite balance. For most types ofcontinuous lighting and electronicflash, the white balance is meas-ured in degrees Kelvin, becausescientists have a way of equatingtemperature with the relativewarmness and coolness of thelight. (That’s why white balance isalso called color temperature.)Common light sources range fromabout 3,200K (warm indoor illu-mination) to 6,000K (daylightand electronic flash). Fluorescent

Figure 3.1 The eye’s three types of cone cells each perceive blue, green, or red light—and then some.

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light doesn’t have a true colortemperature, but its equivalent“white balance” can be specifiednonetheless.

Digital cameras can make somegood guesses at the type of light-ing being used and its color tem-perature, and for non-criticalwork you can set your camera’swhite balance to Auto and forgetabout it. If you’re smart enoughto be shooting RAW, you canalways correct for bad guesseslater on in your image editor. Ifyou are shooting critical JPEGfiles (for sports, a wedding, orother application where youdon’t want to end up with hun-dreds of RAW files to process),it’s often a good idea to explicitlytell your camera exactly whatkind of light it is working with.Or, to specify the white balanceas closely as you humanly can.That will produce pictures withmore accurate colors and lesscorrection required later.

Figures 3.2 and 3.3 show twosample images with the whitebalance gone terribly wrong. Atleft in Figure 3.2 is a JPEG imageof an indoor scene photographedwith the white balance set toDaylight. The color balance isfrightfully red-yellow, producing ahorrible color cast. Luckily, I hadtaken this picture using my cam-era’s RAW+JPEG setting (avail-able with Nikon, Canon, andmany other dSLR models). So, Iwas able to change the WB set-ting from “As Shot” to “Tungsten”to produce the more realistic rendering shown at right inFigure 3.2.

The flip side of the equation canbe seen in Figure 3.3. At left is adaylight shot of a flower, but withthe white balance set for Tungstenillumination. It’s excessively blue.When the WB is adjusted fordaylight, the improved versionseen at right emerges.

Figure 3.2 Shooting indoors with the white balance set for Daylight producesan excessively warm image (left). The Tungsten setting creates a more realisticlook (right).

Figure 3.3 A photograph exposed under daylight is much too blue when theTungsten WB setting is used (left); the correct setting (right) produces the correctcolor balance.


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Manual WhiteBalanceIf you’d rather not use Auto whitebalance, your digital camerashould have an option to let youchoose a white balance presetmanually, either using a menuentry or a button that can be helddown while white balance isadjusted using a command dialor the cursor pad control. Ineither case, you’ll be presentedwith preset values that you canchoose instead of the defaultAuto. The number of differentchoices may vary, but you’ll haveDaylight/Direct Sunlight,Incandescent, Electronic Flash,Fluorescent, Cloudy, and Shadyas a minimum. Your cameramight offer several differentFluorescent settings for the differ-ent kinds of fluorescent lights(cool white, warm white, etc.) aswell as options to dial in theexact color temperature indegrees Kelvin, or change the“bias” of the white balance in theblue/yellow/green/magenta

directions. It’s also common tohave a “fine-tuning” option thatallows you to dial in some extrawarmth or coolness, usually plusor minus, say 10, from the nomi-nal neutral value.

I used that option for Figure 3.4,taken at dusk on a winter day. Iknew the image would be verywarm because of the waning sun-light, but I wanted to catch thecoolness of the snow on the roof

of the barn and shed. So, I usedmy camera’s white balance“bias” setting to change theDaylight setting to produce abluer rendition.

Figure 3.4 A slight white balance bias towards the blue reduced the reddish cast in this picture taken at dusk.

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Creating Your OwnWhite BalanceSettingsMost cameras allow you to meas-ure white balance of continuouslight sources yourself and save itas a “custom” setting. The whitebalance of a current scene canbe measured by taking a photoof a neutral surface (such as awhite or gray wall). White bal-ance will be set to render thissubject in a colorcast-free way.There may be an option for stor-ing the measured white balancein a menu memory “slot” as apreset, so you can retrieve thesetting at a later date. You mayalso “adopt” the white balance ofan existing image on your mem-ory card, so that can be appliedto your current shooting sessionor stored as a preset.

As I mentioned earlier in this sec-tion, if you shoot RAW, you canadjust the white balance whenthe image is imported into yourimage editor, changing it fromthe “as shot” value to any othervalue available in the conversionprogram, like as shown in Figure3.5. The green overlay boxshows the options available inAdobe Camera Raw, includingthe Custom setting, which allowschoosing both color balance andtint (or bias).

Figure 3.5 If you shoot in RAW format, you can adjust the white balance whenthe image is imported into your image editor.


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Color and MoodIf you understand color balanceand white balance, you alreadyknow that available light comesin many “colors.” However, youcan also add colors to yourimage, or tweak the color that isthere, and take advantage of thehues to create a mood. Figure3.6 is an example of a photo-graph deliberately manipulatedto produce a specific atmos-phere—in more ways than one.

It’s actually a composite of threeimages taken on a hill overlook-ing Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania onedrizzly night. The scene wassomewhere between bleak anddreary, with a light fog obscuringmost of the skyline. I set up mycamera on a tripod, set it forDaylight color balance (toemphasize the blue of the scene),and took three separate expo-sures, one after another. (I used a

cable release and my camera’sContinuous Shooting mode, witha manual exposure setting of fourseconds.) In Photoshop, I copiedthe Red Channel from one image,the Green Channel from the nextimage, and the Blue Channelfrom a third, and pasted eachdown into the Red, Green, andBlue Channels of a new, blankimage.

Using this technique, the non-moving parts of the imagereceived the same red, green,and blue exposures they wouldhave gotten in a single image,but the headlights and taillights ofthe vehicles seen in the lowerright were in different positions ineach exposure, and so were sep-arated into red, green, and bluestreaks. This added a welcomesplash of color to an otherwisemundane image.

Figure 3.6 Swapping color channels among three images produced this multi-color effect.

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The range of colors can help seta mood. Figure 3.7 shows bluesguitarist Jimmy Johnson. At left,Johnson is shown with the colorbalance set correctly for the stageillumination at the venue. At right,

I nudged the color balance a bittowards the blue when the RAWimage was imported into myimage editor. You might have tocover the left side, and then theright side, with your hand to view

the two versions separately, with-out one affecting your percep-tions of the other. I happen to likethe right, “bluesy” rendition bet-ter. To me, it evokes the atmos-phere of a smoky blues club. You

might prefer the left-hand ver-sion—and that’s the point. Colorsaffect our moods, and whenusing lighting to create your pic-tures, you can use those colors asyour creativity demands.

Figure 3.7 The “correct” color rendition (left) might not be as effective in setting a mood as the bluesier version at right.


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You’ll find that the colors in ascene can be very different at dif-ferent times of day, or even differ-ent times of year, with each colorscheme producing a differentmood. Figure 3.8 shows thesame scene in autumn (left) andwinter (right). The bright, goldencolors in the fall scheme producea much different atmosphere thanthe somber, blue-tinted snowscene. You can accentuate—orcounter—each type of mood bymaking adjustments in your cam-era, or in an image editor. Forexample:

◆ Increase saturation. If youwant a lively or festive mood, con-sider increasing the saturation pro-duced by the available lighting.Digital cameras have a Vivid orSaturated mode that boost the rich-ness of the colors. You can accom-plish the same thing in an imageeditor.

◆ Increase contrast. A polarizingfilter can increase apparent con-trast by darkening the sky andremoving highlights from non-metallic reflective surfaces (such as water). When contrast isadjusted, colors can appear moresaturated. Again, an image editorcan allow you to make this sort ofadjustment.

Figure 3.8 Different times of year can produce different lighting effects and moods.

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◆ Use colored filters or in-camera color effects. Manyfilm photographers always traveledwith an array of color filters. Theystill can be useful, but you may beable to add color filter effects usingan option tucked away in yourcamera’s menus. These includered, yellow, blue, green, or otherfilters that add a tint to a colorimage, as well as color filters thatchange the rendition of black-and-white pictures you shoot (includingsepia and bluish cyanotype set-tings). As always, check yourimage editor to see if filter effectscan be added after the image iscaptured.

◆ Filter your lighting. Whenyou’re shooting by available light,you may be able to provide somefiltration of the light source, particu-larly if you’re shooting indoors. Ifso, the color possibilities are end-less. Figure 3.9 shows a balletdancer illuminated by filtered stagespots.

Figure 3.9 Stage lighting filters are deliberately used to create a mood.


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Filling in ShadowsShadows aren’t an unavoidableevil. As you’ll discover inChapters 5 and 6, shadows workin concert with highlights to pro-vide shaping, texture, and char-acter to your subjects. Whendealing with shadows, you sim-ply need to make sure that thedarker portions of your image domore than just obscure details inyour subject. You’ll want to makesure that the shadows perform thefunctions I just listed, emphasiz-ing the shapes, surface, andinherent nature of your subjectmatter. That said, shadows areone of the reasons you’ll find thatworking with available light isvery different from what youmight encounter in the more con-trolled conditions of an informal(or formal) studio environment.

The term “studio” implies a lot ofcontrol over light, with two ormore individual lights at your dis-posal, as well as light modifierssuch as umbrellas, soft boxes,and reflectors to produce the

qualities of light that you want.Outside the studio, these tools,especially reflectors and, attimes, auxiliary flash units, areeven more important. They canserve both as lighting tools andprotect flowers, plant life, andother moveable subjects frombreezes that can spoil your shot.

Outdoors, both reflectors and electronic flash are useful for filling in the shadows. Irecently covered a Civil War re-enactment, and several of the important battles, parades,and assemblies over the three-day event took place between the hours of 1 and 3 p.m., whichis about as far from the “goldenhour” as you can get. Even so, ifI wanted to photograph the activi-ties when the sun was brightestand harshest, I knew I’d needsome help filling in the shadows Iexpected. Although you canalways pray for rain (or, better, aslight overcast), sunny days dohappen.

For the images shown in Figure3.10, I used a 2 × 3-foot pieceof white cardboard that I had afriend hold for me off to my left.The version at left shows a sturdy(if aging) Confederate privatewaiting for inspection. The harshlight cast his face in shadow. For my second shot (right), I took advantage of the soft fill-inlight of the reflector, and addedabout half an f/stop’s worth of

exposure using my camera’sExposure Compensation (EV)option. While the portions ofJohnny Reb’s uniform in the directsunlight are a little (more) over-exposed, his face is no longercloaked in darkness.

A few minutes later, I encoun-tered the soldier shown in Figure3.11. The shadows were so deepon his face that I used fill-in flash

Figure 3.10 To counter the dark shadows that obscured the soldier’s visage(left), I used a reflector to bounce some light onto his face.

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instead of a reflector. (Check outthe shadow cast by his gun to theright of the firearm, and thecatch-light in the gentleman’seyes, caused by the flash.) I usedjust enough flash to illuminate the shadows, while not washingout the character lines in this re-enactor’s expressive face.

So, how do you decide whetherto use reflectors or fill flash out-doors? Here are some things toconsider:

◆ Get help. Reflectors may requirean assistant to hold or position thesurface used to bounce the light.Wedding shooters, environmentalportraitists, or senior photogra-phers working alone may enlist amember of the party, a friend ofthe subject, or Mom or Dad as a“light stand.” One trick is to haveyour “helper” (especially if it’s aMom) hold the reflector in such away that they have it in front oftheir own face and direct the lighton your subject. That prevents themfrom viewing the pose, so theycan’t offer suggestions that inter-fere with your own direction. I’mnot kidding; I know photographerswho do this all the time.

◆ Portability. Reflectors are greatwhen you’re shooting in one loca-tion for a period of time, but if

you’re moving around a lot, as Iwas at the Civil War re-enactment,a flash unit attached to your cam-era may be more practical. That’sparticularly true if you’re using anaccessory flash unit that can bepositioned on top of the camera(mounted to the flash shoe) or off-camera. You have complete free-dom to wander around, usingfill-flash for any picture you want totake.

◆ Reflectors operate at anyshutter speed. When shootingoutdoors, you need to take yourcamera’s top flash sync speed intoaccount. (More on that in Chapter4.) Most digital cameras allow con-ventional use of flash only atspeeds of 1/250th second orslower (depending on the camera).So, with an ISO setting of 100, inbright sunlight you’ll be using anexposure combination of 1/200-1/250th second at around f/11.(Remember the “Sunny 16” rule?Exposure in daylight is the recipro-cal of the ISO setting at f/16.) Ifyour camera has ISO 200 as itslowest setting, you’ll need to usef/16 instead. That’s not great ifyou wanted to work with selectivefocus at a larger f/stop, say, tothrow your background out offocus. No such restrictions affectreflectors, which operate exactlythe same at any shutter speed/lensopening combination.

Figure 3.11 Exceptionally dark shadows in this mid-day outdoor portrait werevanquished with fill-in electronic flash.


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Using ReflectorsAlthough fill-flash is great, formany available light situations,the best and most versatile lighttool is a reflector that you buy ormake yourself. Buying a reflectorintended for professional photog-raphers is certainly an option,and there are wonderful collapsi-ble boards, disks, and otherunits, as well as things likescrims, which are thin screens oftranslucent material, often madeof cotton and supported in aframe, and used in both theatri-cal and photographic lighting.(One kind of scrim is actuallyinserted in front of a light fixtureto attenuate the light, but that’snot what I am talking about.) But,you may find that the homemadetools are a lot less expensive,and perhaps even more flexiblein the things they can do.

In this section, I’m going to sharesome of my favorite reflectortricks.

White Poster BoardWhite poster board is cheap, dis-posable, and you can do dozensof things with it. Here are a fewideas on using white cardboard:

◆ Fold it up into quarters to make itmore compact. Having a fewcreases won’t hinder your card-board’s utility as a reflector in theleast. You can unfold only as muchas you need for your photograph.

◆ Use white shades, but mix in somecolors. Most of the time you’ll wanta neutral white board, but you cancarry orange and light-blue ver-sions to warm up or cool down theshadows of your picture. You mightfind, for example, that the high-lights of an object are illuminatedby diffuse sunlight, but the shad-ows are filled in by reflections off abluish object. An orange reflectorcan balance the color quickly.

◆ Use the cardboard to block light,too. While you’ll generally use thecardboard to reflect light onto yoursubject, you’ll find you can use it toblock direct sunlight and create softshadows where none existedbefore.

◆ Cut holes in the cardboard for spe-cial effects. Motion-picture lightingoften uses “cookies” to create spe-cial lighting shapes and effects.What? You thought those shadowson the wall were cast by realVenetian blinds? Use your imagina-tion and cut some holes in yourcardboard to create a halo aroundyour subject or some other effect.Move the cardboard closer to thesubject to make the highlightharder, and farther away to soften it.

Foam BoardFoam board can make a greatsoft-light reflector, whether you’reoutdoors or shooting in yourhome studio. Those ultra-lightboards of plastic foam sand-wiched between paper or plasticsheets are commonly used tomount photos or to constructexhibits. They make great reflec-tors, too, especially if you needlarger sizes that are rigid but alsolight in weight. They don’t foldeasily, and are probably moreuseful for portraits and group pic-tures, but if you have a smallhunk of foam board, keep ithandy. Foam board with oneblack side can be used as abackground.

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Aluminum FoilAluminum foil provides a bright,contrasty reflection that cansharpen up soft lighting (if that’swhat you need). Tape aluminumfoil to a piece of white cardboard(use the reverse side of your main cardboard reflector if youwant). If you need lighting with alittle less snap, just reverse thecardboard to expose the non-aluminum side. Be sure to crinklethe aluminum foil so it will reflectthe light evenly; you don’t wantshiny hot spots.

Mylar SheetsI love finding new (photographic)applications for productsintended for some other purpose.Those Mylar space blankets cando more than keep you warm atyour campsite or in an emer-gency. They can be used as ahandy high-contrast reflector, yetstill folded up and carried in apocket of your gadget bag. Everyphotographer should get two:one for the emergency kit in thetrunk of your car, and another forphotographic purposes.

Auto SunscreensThose aluminum reflective sun-screen gadgets sold to keep yourvehicle from heating up fasterthan a Space Shuttle returningfrom orbit are one of my favoriteserendipitous discoveries. The cir-cular or rectangular variety, likethe two shown in Figure 3.12,are absolutely perfect as photo-graphic reflectors. I’m going toneed a list of bullet points to tellyou just how cool these are.

◆ Small, transportable. Whenyou buy them, they are collapseddown to the size of a dinner plate(see lower right in Figure 3.12).With a simple twist, they expand totheir intended size, which can betwo to three feet across the longestdimension. When you’re doneshooting, grip the outer edge, foldlike a taco, and then twist. Theframework has a “memory” andthe reflector collapses down toplate size again.

◆ Dual surfaces. Most of the onesI’ve seen have a Mylar or shinyaluminum surface on one side, anda dull matte metallic gray surfaceon the other. A single reflector canserve two purposes. I’ve even got-ten a can of fabric paint andsprayed the reverse side of one ofmy reflectors with a black coat toturn it into an effective light

blocker. Faced with a subject whowas illuminated almost entirely bylight coming from behind her, Iused a gold-painted reflector tobounce light into her face, as youcan see in Figure 3.13. The warmglow adds a romantic look to theportrait, which I augmented byadding some diffusion inPhotoshop.

Figure 3.12 Collapsible automobile sunshields make perfect reflectors.


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◆ Multiple sizes. Auto sunscreenstypically come in small, medium,and jumbo sizes for use with com-pact cars, family sedans, andSUV/Humvee-level behemoths. Youcan find one that’s perfect for thereflective applications you have inmind.

◆ Inexpensive. The small size Ipurchased at my local mega-martwere priced at two for $5.98.Then I discovered the jumbo size attwo for $7.98. What other photo-graphic accessory that’s this usefulcan you buy for $3 to $4 each? Ibought a set for each of my cars(which also have their own dedi-cated tripod and monopod in a

duffle in the trunk). In a pinch, Icould probably put them on mydashboard to block the sun frommy windshield.

UmbrellasPhotographic umbrellas used inthe studio, available in white,gold, or silver surfaces, are com-pact enough to carry with you onoutside close-up shooting expedi-tions. However, I favor whitepurse-sized rain umbrellas, likethe one shown in Figure 3.14,that telescope down to six or eightinches in length (I’ve seen some

Figure 3.13 A gold reflector added a warm tone to this backlit portrait.

Figure 3.14Purse- or pocket-sized umbrellasare perfect formacro shooting inthe field.

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mini models that go even smaller),yet unfold to a respectable size.You can use these as a reflector tobounce light onto your subject, oras a translucent diffuser to softenthe light that passes through them(perfect for use in bright sunlightwhen you can’t find any openshade). And if it rains, you won’tget wet!

The only complication is that thewhite ones can be difficult tofind. You may have to look forthem. (Even a search of eBay pro-duced only a full-sized whiteumbrella, with a ruffle around itsedge, for Pete’s sake.) The blackones, targeted at manly men, areeasy to locate, followed by beigeand festive colors favored by any-one, of either sex, who findsblack rainwear depressing. Thewhite umbrellas are more of achallenge, either because theyare less popular (they do get dirtymore easily than, say, the blackmodels), or because photogra-phers like me snatch them upwhenever they are offered forsale. (I purchased six the last timeI found some.)

Your go-anywhere white umbrellacan be held in the left hand as areflector while you’re shootingwith your right hand, used as adiffuser in bright sunlight, orapplied anywhere you might usea reflector, but want a softer typeof illumination. That's what I didfor Figure 3.15, which was takenoutdoors just after the rain hadstopped and the light wasapallingly dull. With an umbrellaand flash in my left hand, I tookthis portrait while balancing mycamera in my right hand.

Black Cardboard orClothSometimes you need to blocklight from a glaring source to pro-duce softer illumination. A sheetof black poster board works,although even black boardreflects some light. For extra lightabsorption, consider a smallpiece of black velour. If you’retrying to take photos of seashellsin their natural habitat, a blackcloth will help—or even may bepressed into duty as a backdrop.

Figure 3.15 Flash and a white rain umbrella improved the lighting of this rainyday portrait.


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Polarizing FiltersMost of us were introduced to theeffect of polarizing filters throughour use of polarized sunglasses,which simultaneously darkenbright sunlight, provide richerand more vibrant colors, andreduce glare. Polarizing filterscan provide the same effects tophotographic images, but to usethem, you need to follow a fewrules. I’ll lay out the rules first (soyou can rush out and begin usingyour filter right away), and thenexplain why.

◆ Use only circular polarizers.All polarizing filters are in a gen-eral sense circular, of course. Inthis context, the term refers to theway in which these filters handlepolarized light. You’ll want to use acircular polarizer (abbreviatedCPL) rather than a linear polarizer.

◆ Keep the sun at your right orleft side. Polarizers work best ifthe sun is at a 90-degree anglefrom the lens axis, and low in thesky. At other angles, the effects arereduced.

◆ Watch your exposures.Polarizers can affect the exposuremetering system of most cameras,although a circular polarizershouldn’t fool your meter too much,but you may need to adjust yoursettings.

◆ Not all glare can be reduced.You’ll find that polarizers reduceglare from semi-transparent shinyobjects, such as water or plastics.They may be of little or no helpwith other surfaces, particularlymetallics.

◆ Polarizers are problematicwith wide-angle lenses. Thefilter itself may appear in theimage, and cause dark corners(vignetting). Worse, you may getuneven polarization across yourframe when using extreme wide-angle lenses.

◆ Polarizers are neutral den-sity filters. You’ll need a stop ortwo more exposure with a polar-izer attached to your lens. When Iwant to use a longer shutter speedunder bright conditions to produceblur, I sometimes use a polarizersimply for its neutral density effect.

A typical polarizing filter isshown in Figure 3.16. Such filtersconsist of two connected pieces:a ring that screws into the filterthread of your lens, and an inter-locked ring containing the polar-izing filter itself, which can berotated to maximize/minimizethe effect. As with most filters, apolarizer is designed to fit the

thread of a particular lens diame-ter. You can often use the samefilter with multiple lenses throughthe use of step-up or step-downadapters, as shown in the figure.However, be cautious when usingthese adapters to mount a filter(any type) to a wide-angle lens,as the extra thickness is likely toproduce vignetting.

Figure 3.16 Step-up and step-down rings can let you use the same filter onlenses with different filter threads, but they can lead to vignetting when usedwith wide-angle lenses.

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These filters operate on the princi-ple that light waves normallyvibrate, or oscillate, equally in alldirections, unless they have beenscattered or polarized by reflec-tion off shiny transparent objects,such as dust and water vapor inthe atmosphere, liquid surfaces,glass, or plastics. The resultingillumination tends to vibrate inonly one plane (rather than everywhich way), and polarizing filterscontain what you might think ofas louvers (as in a windowshade) that remove the light thatis not oscillating in the samedirection as the filter’s slits. That’swhy rotating the filter changesthe effect: You’re changing theorientation of the louvers so theycan admit more or less vibrating

light waves. In one position, thepolarized light passes through thefilter (causing glare in yourimage). Rotated 90 degrees, thepolarized light is blocked, andglare is reduced. Non-polarizedand partially polarized lightpasses freely through the filter toproduce your image.

To use a polarizer, mount it onyour lens, look through theviewfinder, and rotate the outerring until the polarizing effect ismost pronounced (or, producesthe degree of polarization youwant). As I mentioned, these fil-ters are most effective when thesun is 90 degrees from your sub-ject (that is, the sun is comingfrom your left or right side). You

can take photos using otherangles, but the polarizing effectwill be reduced. The correctshooting angle can be trickywhen you’re using a very wide-angle lens. (See the sidebar laterin this section.) Blue sky andwater, which can contain highamounts of scattered light, can bemade darker and more vibrant asglare is reduced. You can alsoreduce or eliminate reflectionsfrom windows and other non-metallic surfaces.

Choose your subjects carefully.Light striking, passing through,and reflecting off water becomespolarized. The same is true ofmany other types of objects,including foliage, and the paint

on your car, which is also par-tially transparent (otherwise, theautomobile would require only asingle coat of paint). Shiny metal-lic objects, like the chrome on anautomobile, aren’t transparent,and thus don’t inherently provideany polarization of the light.However, if the light reflectingfrom the metal has already beenpartially polarized (that is, it isreflected skylight), you can seesome glare-reduction from thepolarizing filter. The effect ismuch less than with most non-metallic shiny objects, however.

Sometimes, a polarizer won’t pro-duce the exact effect you want,as you can see in Figure 3.17. Atleft is a landscape scene taken

Figure 3.17 Scene without a polarizer (left); with a polarizer (middle); a combined shot with darker sky, but more attractive water image (right).


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light source, as when the lightsource is behind you. The field ofview of normal and telephotolenses is narrow enough that thedifference in angle between thelight source and your subject isroughly the same across theimage field.

But an extra-wide-angle lens mayhave a field of view of about 90degrees. It’s possible for subjectsat one side of the frame to be ori-ented exactly perpendicular tothe light source, while subjectmatter at the opposite side of theframe will actually face the slightsource (at a 0-degree angle).Everything in between will havean intermediate angle. In thisextreme case, you’ll get maxi-mum polarization at one side ofyour image, and a greatlyreduced polarization effect at theopposite edge, as you can see inFigure 3.18. Use caution whenusing a polarizer with a verywide lens.

This phenomenon may not evenbe a consideration for most pho-tographers. Many people don’tknow how to use a polarizer cor-rectly, anyway, and end up point-ing the camera in a directionthat’s greater than 90 degreesfrom the light source, which tendsto minimize the polarizationeffect and, at the same time, theunevenness. In addition, manypolarizers intrude into the picturearea of wide-angle lenses, caus-ing vignetting, so photographerstend to avoid using them entirelywith the very widest lenses. Mostusers avoid them with such lensesnot only because of the vignettingthey cause, but also becausesuper-wide lenses usually call forsuper-large filters, which can beexpensive. Finally, the problem issometimes “solved” because avery wide-angle lens can’t use fil-ters in any case. For example, thefront element of Nikon’s 14-24mm f/2.8 ultra-wide zoom hassuch a pronounced curve that fil-ters are impractical (as well asimpossible, as the lens lacks a fil-ter thread).

LINEAR VS. CIRCULAR POLARIZERSBoth linear and circular polarizers transmit linearly polarized light that isaligned in only one orientation. However, circular polarizers have anadditional layer that converts the light that remains into circularly polar-ized light (never mind what that is; it’s not important unless you’re fasci-nated with helixes/helices). What is important is that the metering andautofocus sensors in digital SLRs are mightily confused by linearly polar-ized light, but they work just fine with circular polarizers (also referred toas CPL filters). Make sure the polarizer you purchase is a circular polariz-ing filter.

without a polarizing filter. In themiddle, you can see the samescene shot with a polarizer: Thesky is darker, the foliage morevibrant, and the reflections aregone from the water in the inlet.In this case, though, the waterwithout reflections looks dull andlifeless. Some effects of the polar-izer were good, others, not somuch. To fix this, I combined bothversions in an image editor, eras-ing the reflection-free inlet toallow the more interesting rendi-tion to show through. Reflectionsthemselves aren’t necessarilybad: It’s the glare that is distract-ing in a photograph.

Polarizers and Wide-Angle LensesAnother thing to watch out for isthe use of polarizers with wide-angle lenses. Such filters produceuneven results across the field ofview when using lenses widerthan the equivalent of about28mm (which would be a 17-18mm lens on a camera with a1.5X to 1.6X crop factor). As Imentioned earlier, polarizerswork best when the camera ispointed 90 degrees away fromthe light source, and provides theleast effect when the camera isdirected 180 degrees from the

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Figure 3.18 Because of the wide-angle perspective, the cloud-contrast effects of the polarizer are most pronounced at the right side of this image, and progressivelyless at the left side.


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Lighting and the SkyOne of the most vexing thingsabout shooting outdoors by avail-able light is getting the sky tolook right. We’ve all done it.There’s a scene with a beautifulsky, full of fluffy clouds that hoverabove a stunning foregroundlandscape. We take the photo,and when it’s loaded into ourcomputer, it looks like the horridimage at top in Figure 3.19. Thesky is completely washed out. Butsome of our pictures look like theone at the bottom of the figure.The questions run through ourminds. Why can’t they all turn outlike that? What has happened?And, more importantly, what canwe do about it?

The bane of most digital camerastoday is the reduced dynamicrange (the range of brightnessfrom dark to light that can bereproduced), compared to film.Many of us came to the digitalrealm from shooting color nega-tive film that wound up as prints,and color neg film could often be

counted on to capture the equiva-lent of seven stops worth ofdetail. That is, if the correct expo-sure was 1/250th second atf/11, we could expect to seesome detail even in the brightestareas that might call for an expo-sure of f/22, as well as the dark-est areas that might haverequired an aperture of f/2.8.The brightest and darkest areasmight not be well exposed, butdetail was there.

Digital cameras typically have anarrower dynamic range. It’s dif-ficult to pin down an exact figure,because a lot depends on thedesign of the camera and sensor,including such esoterica as thesize of the pixels. The most com-mon outdoor result of thisreduced range is the difficulty ofcapturing both the sky and fore-ground so that both are properlyand pleasingly exposed.Fortunately, there are severalsolutions.

Figure 3.19 Washed out skies (top) don’t have to happen, as you can see in theimage at the bottom.

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Here are some tips:

◆ Change your angle. There’sone chief difference between thetop and bottom images in Figure3.19. In the top picture, the sunwas positioned in front of me, pro-ducing a backlighting effect. In thebottom version, the sun was moreoverhead and slightly behind me. Ifyou can avoid having the sun at a45-degree angle to either side ofthe lens axis, you’ll improve theodds that the sky and clouds won’tbe washed out.

◆ Wait until the sun is low. Evenbacklighting can work if the sun islow enough in the sky, as shown inFigure 3.20.

◆ Adjust your exposure. Yourwashed-out sky might be due, atleast partially, from overexposure.See if a little less exposure mighthelp, while retaining detail in yourforeground.

◆ Try a polarizer. Check out thesection preceding this one for infor-mation on how to darken the skyand make those fluffy clouds morevisible with a polarizing filter. InFigure 3.21, the sun was low in thesky (it was just a few hours beforedusk) and off to the left. A polar-izer darkened the sky and madethe clouds more visible.

Figure 3.20 A backlit sky can still be dramatic if the sun is near the horizon.Figure 3.21 Lighting conditions were perfect for using a polarizer forthis shot.


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◆ Try HDR photography. HighDynamic Range photography iscurrently the rage among thosewho spend half their time inPhotoshop. HDR is time-consuming,but not difficult. You need to set thecamera up on a tripod and take aseries of exposures bracketed atleast one f/stop apart. Then, usePhotoshop’s Merge to HDR feature(or similar features available inother software applications) to cre-ate a single photo that combinesthe highlight detail, middle tones,and shadow detail from several dif-ferent shots.

◆ Use a graduated filter. A grad-uated neutral density (ND) filter isclear at one end, and has densityat the other, and reduces the expo-sure in the sky (at the top of theframe) while allowing the fore-ground (at the bottom) to beexposed normally. I’ll explain moreabout this option next.

Using GraduatedNeutral DensityFiltersExperienced landscape photogra-phers most frequently resolve thewashed-out-sky problem with theuse of graduated neutral densityfilters, like the one shown inFigure 3.22. As I noted, these

filters have density at one endand are clear at the other end,and are graduated, so the filterremoves a lot of light from half ofthe image (most often the tophalf), while allowing the otherhalf to be exposed normally.Here are some things to learnabout graduated ND filters:

◆ Square/rectangular are best.These filters are available in screw-in circular styles that fasten directlyto your lens, but those are not thebest option. With a circular filter,the middle of the gradation isalways smack dab in the middle.That might work if your horizon isalways in the center of the frame,but, if you follow the conventional

compositional rules, the horizonwill never be in the center of theframe for landscape photos. It willmost often be in the upper third (ifyou want to emphasize the fore-ground) or in the lower third (if youwant to emphasize the sky). With asquare or rectangular filter, usedwith a holder like the Cokin filterframe shown in Figure 3.23, youcan push the filter up or down toposition the gradation anywhereyou want.

◆ They come in colors. Althoughthe most common graduated NDfilter has a neutral gray tone, youcan buy them in many differentcolor combinations. One populartype has a warming filter at oneend, and a cooling filter at theother, so you can color your skywith one of those tones, whileadding the other to the foreground.

Figure 3.22 A graduated neutraldensity filter usually has density atone end, and is clear at the other.

Figure 3.23 A filter holder with a square or rectangular filter allows positioningthe neutral density at any point in the frame.

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◆ Watch your orientation. Evenif you’re using a filter frame, it’seasy to accidentally rotate thegraduated ND filter so the grada-tion no longer lines up with yourhorizon. You want an even transi-tion, as shown in the “before andafter” images in Figure 3.24.

◆ Reverse the filter. There’s nolaw that says a graduated neutraldensity filter has to be used withthe density on top and the cleararea at the bottom. When I tookthe shot shown in Figure 3.25, Ifound that the flowing stream wastoo bright, and exposing for thewater made the foliage too dark.So I flipped my graduated ND filterupside down, and made the waterdarker while the plant life in thebackground was exposed normally.

Figure 3.24 At top, the original scene. At bottom, a graduated ND filter rescuedthe overexposed sky.

Figure 3.25 In this case, the water was too bright, so I flipped my graduatedneutral density filter to produce a dramatic “black water” effect.

Compared to continuous lighting—like sunlight, moonlight, orthe lamps you may find in a room—electronic flash is bothmore convenient and less convenient; more powerful and less

powerful; more consistent and less consistent; able to leap tall build-ings at a single bound; or stumble when you need your flashy lightsource the most. As you’ll see in this chapter, electronic flash is obvi-ously not perfect, but for some applications it is the best light sourcewe have available.

Think of the alternative: continuous lighting, which is low in cost, hasa built-in “modeling light” that previews the lighting effect you’regoing to get and can be easily measured to calculate the best expo-sure. But electronic flash is better at stopping action (unless you haveenough continuous light to allow a very fast shutter speed), doesn’tlock you to a tripod when available light is scarce, can provide pow-erful bursts of illumination (with some limitations), and delivers (mostly)consistent color balance.

Electronic Flash Fundamentals4


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How Flash WorksThe surge of light we call elec-tronic flash is produced by aburst of photons generated by anelectrical charge that is accumu-lated in a component called acapacitor and then directedthrough a glass tube containingxenon gas, which absorbs theenergy and emits the brief flash.Electronic flash is notablebecause it can be much moreintense than continuous lighting,lasts only a brief moment, andcan be much more portable thansupplementary incandescentsources. It’s a light source youcan carry with you and use any-where. Flash is useful for every-thing from studio photography(see Figure 4.1) to sports, to fulldaylight as shadow fill-in.

For most flash units, the full burstof light lasts about 1/1,000th ofa second and is triggered at theinstant of exposure, during aperiod when the sensor is fullyexposed by the shutter. As I men-tioned in Chapter 1, the typical

dSLR has a vertically travelingshutter that consists of two cur-tains. The first curtain opens andmoves to the opposite side of theframe, at which point the shutteris completely open. The flash canbe triggered at this point (so-called front-curtain sync—moreon that later in this chapter), mak-ing the flash exposure. Then,after a delay that can vary from30 seconds (or longer) to as briefas 1/250th second (dependingon your camera), a second cur-tain begins moving across thesensor plane, covering up thesensor again. If the flash is trig-gered just before the second cur-tain starts to close, thensecond-curtain sync is used. (I’lldescribe these in more detail laterin this chapter.) In both cases,though, a top shutter speed of1/160th to 1/250th second(more, or less, depending onyour camera) is ordinarily themaximum that can be used totake a photo.

Figure 4.1 Electronic flash can be used for studio photography (as shown),sports, or even in full daylight to fill in shadows.

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Consider this sequence of thingsthat can take place when youtake a photo using electronicflash, either the unit built intoyour camera or an external flash:

1 Sync mode. Before taking thepicture, you choose the flash syncmode. I’ll describe sync modes laterin the chapter.

2 Metering method. If you’rerelying on your camera’s automaticthrough-the-lens flash exposure sys-tem, you need to choose the meteringmethod you want, fromMatrix/Evaluative, through Center-Weighted, and Spot metering, againdepending on the options your cam-era provides.

3 Activate flash. Press the flashpop-up button to flip up the built-inflash, or mount (or connect with acable) an external flash and turn iton. A ready light usually appears inthe viewfinder or on the back of theflash when the unit is ready to take apicture.

4 Check exposure. Select a shut-ter speed when using your camera’sManual, Program, or Shutter Prioritymodes (always using the maximumsync speed, or slower); select anaperture when using Aperture Priorityand Manual exposure modes.

5 Preview lighting. With somecameras and flash units, you may beable to preview the lighting effectwith the modeling flash. Some Nikoncameras, for example, produce amodeling burst when the depth-of-fieldbutton is pressed.

6 Lock flash setting (ifdesired). Optionally, if the mainsubject is located significantly off-center, you can frame it so the subjectis centered, press a designated buttonor control to lock the flash at theexposure needed to illuminate thatsubject, and then reframe using thecomposition you want.

7 Take photo. Press the shutterrelease down all the way.

8 Preflash emitted. Most dSLRsusing through the lens (TTL) electronicflash metering emit one or two pre-flash bursts prior to taking the photo.One burst can be used to controladditional wireless flash units, whileanother burst can be used to measureand determine exposure. I’ll describethis process further in the flash expo-sure section later in this chapter.

9 Exposure calculated. The pre-flash bounces back and is measuredby the camera’s exposure sensor,which uses brightness and contrast ofthe image to calculate exposure,using the exposure sensors, such asthose shown in Figure 4.2.

bk Mirror up. The mirror flips up.At this point exposure and focus arelocked in.

bl Flash fired. At the correct trig-gering moment (depending onwhether front or rear sync is used),the camera sends a signal to one ormore flashes to start flash discharge.The flash is quenched as soon as thecorrect exposure has been achieved.

bm Shutter closes. The shuttercloses and the mirror flips down.You’re ready to take another picture.

bn Exposure confirmed.Ordinarily, the full charge in the flashmay not be required. Some camerasprovide a blinking indicator thatshows that the entire flash chargewas required, and it could mean thatthe full charge wasn’t enough for aproper exposure. Be sure to reviewyour image on the LCD to make sureit’s not underexposed, and, if it is,make adjustments and shoot again.

Figure 4.2 A preflash emitted when you press the shutter button all the waybounces back through the lens, where it is measured by your camera’s flashexposure system.


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Types of Portable Electronic FlashYou may hear electronic flashunits called by various names.They are often referred to asstrobes, after the electronic stro-boscope invented by Dr. HaroldEdgerton, who used a rapidlyflashing lamp to study motion.Flash units are also calledspeedlites or speedlights, which,if you’ve spoken to anyone whoever used flashbulbs to take pic-tures, you’ll know why strobesare considered “speedy” in com-parison. Electronic flash comes inseveral different varieties that arebuilt into many digital cameras,available as separate portableflash units that can be mountedon a camera’s accessory or hotshoe, or as studio flash, whichare powered by AC current orseparate flash power packs.

Figure 4.3 Flip up your built-in flash by pressing a button. In some modes, the flash will pop up automatically.


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Built-in FlashThese are the flip-up units foundin digital SLR cameras (point-and-shoot cameras also have built-inflash), as shown in Figure 4.3.They draw power from the cam-era’s battery, and thus are avail-able for use any time there’senough juice for the cameraitself. These units always integratetightly with the operation of thecamera, offering accurate,through-the-lens exposure, inter-locking features (with some mod-els, the camera won’t fire until theflash has recharged), and, withsome vendors, they function as a focus-assist light to illuminatedim subjects to help the camera’sautofocus system.

However, built-in flash have somedisadvantages, too:

◆ Camera battery drain. In-camera flash uses a lot of power,more than even the most power-hungry LCD display. Indeed, cam-era battery life is measured andspecified relative to how many ofthe shots taken used flash. If youuse your camera’s flash a lot, you’llwant to carry more batteries withyou.

◆ Limited power. In a futileattempt to reduce the impact of aninternal flash on the camera’s bat-tery, most such units are relativelylow in power. If you need a beefierflash unit, you’ll want to use anexternal unit (which will go easieron your camera’s battery, too).

◆ Red-eye problems. While yourcamera’s flash flips up to elevatethe flash tube a few inches abovethe lens, you’ll probably still get thedemon-eye effect caused by theflash reflecting back into the lensoff your subjects’ retinas. Red-eyereduction preflashes or other

remedies are rarely perfect, andwho wants to depend on an imageeditor to cancel red pupils? Asyou’ll see, using an off-cameraflash instead of the built-in unit mayhelp solve this problem.

◆ Wide-angle shadows. If you’reusing a wide-angle lens with a lenshood attached, your camera’s flashwill probably cast a shadow onyour subject. The elevation of theflash unit simply isn’t enough toavoid creating a dark hemisphereat the bottom of every shot youtake. Figure 4.4 shows this syn-drome at work in a flash shot thathas several different problemsbesides the errant shadow.Removing the lens hood mighthelp, but it may not solve the prob-lem completely.

◆ Unwanted bursts. This is moreof a user “error” than a fault of theflash or camera. Many digital SLRshave “scene” mode settings thatfully automate the picture-takingprocess (other than the need foryou to point the camera and pressthe shutter release). One or more

of these modes may pop up theflash at inopportune times, and youcan get an unwanted burst of lightin a museum, at a concert, or dur-ing a religious ceremony, whenyou’d intended to take the photoby available light. These samecameras have “no flash” or“museum” modes that disable theflash—but you have to rememberto use them.

◆ Limited studio use. If you wantto use flash in a studio environ-ment, your camera’s built-in flash isnot your best choice, because youhave no control over where it isaimed. While such flash units aregood as fill-flash outdoors, in thestudio they are best used as a verylimited fill, when their power outputis dialed down, or as a wirelesstrigger to control off-camera flash.Indeed, some cameras allow set-ting the built-in flash so that it doesnot contribute to the exposure, but,instead, will fire only a preflash totrigger compatible external flashunits automatically.


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Figure 4.4 The shadow of a lens hood is probably not something you want in your shot. Remove the hood before you shoot if it interferes with your image.


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Add-on FlashVirtually every dSLR vendor offersan add-on flash you can pur-chase that solves most of theproblems listed previously. Whilemost flash units of this type fit in acamera’s hot shoe, as shown inFigure 4.5 (or, optionally, on aflash bracket or frame as “offcamera” flash connected to thecamera with a cable), they canalso be mounted on light standsor other supports and used asinexpensive studio illumination.Basic flash also are still availableas “handle mount” or “potatomasher” flashes, which are morepowerful and used in profes-sional photojournalism applica-tions, often with separate batterypacks.

There are three drawbacks toexternal flash units. One is that,like a camera’s internal flash,they are designed to operate onbattery power. An AC adaptermight be available for a basic

flash, but it might not. The seconddrawback to an add-on flash unitis the possible lack of a modelinglight. Some have them; somedon’t. A few shoe-mount flashes(and some internal flashes) havea modeling light feature, whichflashes the unit many times at lowpower to provide a sort of contin-uous illumination you can use tojudge the lighting effect. If allother room lights are dim, youmight be able to use this effect.However, these multiflashes aretoo weak to overcome significantavailable light and may providea nearly invisible modeling lighteffect. Instead, you might be ableto rig a small incandescent lightnext to your flash to serve as amodeling light substitute.

The final problem with using anexternal flash is the relativelylong recycling time betweenflashes. When using such a flashon battery power, recycle timesmay be five to eight seconds ormore, which can put a real crimp

in your photography. If you’reshooting portraits, I can guaran-tee that in every session you’llshoot one picture and your sub-ject will immediately break into asmile a half-second later thatyou’ll want to capture for poster-ity. A five-second delay will seemlike half an hour in those cases.

Many flash units of this type canbe attached to a beefier batterypack, made by Quantum or othervendors, which not only extendsshooting time, but reduces recy-cling time as well.

Studio FlashThese are specialized units thatare designed to function in photostudios and on location, oftentethered to AC power sources, ortotable battery packs. I’ll explainthe selection and functions of stu-dio flash in more detail later inthis chapter.

Figure 4.5 External flash units cliponto the accessory or “hot” shoe ontop of digital SLR cameras.


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Using Flash CreativelyPart of the reason that flash pho-tography sometimes is given abad rap is that too many photosare taken using the built-in flashor with a direct on-camera auxil-iary flash unit that would havebeen better served by off-cameraflash. Flash on the camera isoften too direct, too harsh, castsunpleasant shadows, and canpromote undesirable red-eyeeffects. You’ll find that strobescan be used in more creativeways to provide more attractivelighting. Here are some suggestions:

Bounce FlashIf you have a flash unit mountedon your camera’s accessoryshoe, tilt it upwards at an angleto bounce off the ceiling, or toone side to bounce off a reflectoror wall. The light will spread anddiffuse against the reflective sur-face and return with a softer tex-ture that is much more flatteringthan direct flash. Bounce flashworks well when you’re photo-graphing people indoors, espe-cially when your subjects arenear walls that would show uglyshadows from direct flash.

However, bounce flash must beused with caution:

◆ Watch for shadows underthe eyes. If you’re fairly close toyour subject, having all the illumi-nation coming from directly over-head can produce shadows underthe eyes. Many add-on flasheshave a slide out white card reflec-tor that bounces a little direct flashat your subject as a sort of fill lightto counter those shadows. Or, youcan try bouncing your flash off adifferent surface, as shown inFigure 4.6. The version at left wasa misguided attempt at ceilingbounce, and I ended up with a pic-ture that never would have seen thelight of day had I not needed anexample of what not to do. Thebride’s eyes are shadowed, dark,and lifeless. The version at rightwas taken a few seconds later,with flash bounced off a white sur-face to the left. It’s still not a prize-winning shot, but the lighting is abit more flattering for the youngwoman.

◆ Beware bald heads. Light fromoverhead accentuates bald heads.Ceiling bounce may not be yourbest choice if your subjects are fol-licly challenged. Even if they aren’tsensitive about their bare pates,they probably won’t find a photo-graph with their dome gleamingbrilliantly to be very flattering.

◆ Keep that inverse squarelaw in mind. I’ll address theinverse-square law once again inChapter 6, but you should remem-ber that bounce flash producesmuch more light on parts of yoursubjects that are closest to the(reflected) light source than thosethat are farther away. A shininghead of hair that’s two feet fromthe ceiling bounce-source willreceive four times as much light(two f/stops) as the head’s owner’swaist, two feet closer to the floor.

◆ Watch those colors. If youbounce your light off a ceilingthat’s painted yellow or green (ormost any other color), you proba-bly won’t like the results.


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Figure 4.6 Ceiling bounce led to dark eye sockets (left); in the version at right, the light was bounced off a surface to the right of the bride, to provide more flatteringlighting.


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Flash on a BracketMove the flash off the cameraand mount it on a bracket thatmoves the flash above or to oneside, as shown in Figure 4.7.Then, should you be forced to usedirect flash, you’ll enjoy severaladvantages over having thestrobe mounted directly on thecamera. First, shadows will fallbehind or to one side of your sub-ject, even if they are fairly closeto a wall, rather than provide asharp silhouette directly behindthem. Second, if the flash islocated farther from the lens, thechances of evil red-eye effects arevirtually eliminated.

You’ll find many different kinds offlash brackets available from ven-dors like Custom Brackets(www.custombrackets.com),which produces the CB Juniorthat I own, and StroboFramebrackets from Tiffen(www.tiffen.com). They are avail-able with left and right grips, canbe used to mount your flashbeside or above your camera,and can even include rotatingframes that allow great flexibilityin positioning your unit. Figure 4.7 Moving the flash off the camera and onto a bracket can eliminate red-eye and reduce the

shadows cast by the strobe.

www.custombrackets.com

www.tiffen.com


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Off-Camera FlashFor the greatest freedom, detachyour flash from the cameraentirely. You can hold it in yourleft hand, point it at your subjectat an angle, or bounce it off thesurface of your choice. Myfavorite technique is to hold asmall white umbrella (I use aTotes rain umbrella) in my lefthand, while gripping my elec-tronic flash, pointed back into theumbrella, with the same hand.Presto! Your left arm becomes alight stand and you can aim thesoft umbrella light anywhere youplease while you compose yourshot through the viewfinder andtake your photos with your cam-era held in your right hand. Withan autofocus/autoexposure cam-era, this technique is easy. I actu-ally used the rain umbrella/flash

combination for 18 years when Iwas a roving photojournalist formagazines—without benefit ofautofocus technology. (It was pos-sible—but not easy—to focus myfavorite lens manually with thefingertips of the right hand. The35mm film cameras of the daywere much smaller and easier tohold than today’s digital models.)

Multiple FlashArchimedes claimed that given alever and a place to stand, hecould move the Earth. My moremodest goal is to have a coupleflash units and a place to putthem in order to illuminate asmaller portion of the planet.Even when you’re using portableflash units, you can usually find aplace to put them within mostscenes, and provide impromptulighting using one main flash anda couple “slaves.” You don’t needto be working in a studio to usemore than one flash simultane-ously—you just need to be cre-ative in your thinking and inspotting ways to illuminate yoursubject with multiple strobes. But,if studio shooting is your game,I’ll provide more tips on usingmultiple flash in Chapters 5 and 6.

Paint with LightPut your camera on a tripod in adark location, open the shutter fora long exposure, and then walkaround the scene triggering yourflash to “paint” the scene with thelight. Fire off several flashes usingyour unit’s Test or Open Flash but-ton. Keep your body between thecamera and the flash so the flashitself won’t appear in the picture,and remain moving at all times.With an exposure of 30 secondsor longer, you will become invisi-ble, but your flashes can illumi-nate even large areas easily.


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Determining ExposureCalculating the proper exposurefor an electronic flash photo-graph is a bit more complicatedthan determining the settings forcontinuous light. The right expo-sure isn’t simply a function ofhow far away your subject is(which some cameras’ flash expo-sure systems can figure out basedon the autofocus distance that’slocked in just prior to taking thepicture). Various objects reflectmore or less light at the same dis-tance so, obviously, the cameraneeds to measure the amount oflight reflected back and throughthe lens. Yet, as the flash itselfisn’t available for measuring untilit’s triggered, the camera hasnothing to measure.

Automatic TTL FlashExposureModern cameras are able tomeasure the flash (or a preflashsurrogate) through the lens that isused to take the picture, for nifty

TTL (through-the-lens) automaticflash exposures. Of course, theflash can’t be measured duringthe actual exposure, as I noted.For most dSLR camera systems,the solution is to fire the flashtwice. The initial shot is a monitorpreflash that can be analyzed,then followed virtually instanta-neously by a main flash (to theeye the bursts appear to be a sin-gle flash) that’s given exactly thecalculated intensity needed toprovide a correct exposure. As aresult, the primary flash may belonger in duration for distantobjects and shorter in durationfor closer subjects, depending onthe required intensity for expo-sure. This through-the-lens evalua-tive flash exposure systemoperates whenever the pop-upinternal flash is used, or you haveattached a compatible dedicatedflash unit, like the one used off-camera for Figure 4.8.

Figure 4.8 Even though the external flash was held off to the right, thecamera was able to calculate the correct exposure.


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Guide NumbersGuide numbers, usually abbrevi-ated GN, are a method of speci-fying the power of an electronicflash in a way that can be usedto determine the right f/stop touse at a particular shooting dis-tance and ISO setting. In fact,before automatic flash unitsbecame prevalent, the GN wasactually used to do just that. AGN is usually given as a pair ofnumbers for both feet and metersthat represent the range at ISO100. For example, one typicalcamera’s built-in flash has a GNin TTL metering mode of 17/56(meters/feet) at ISO 200.

Using that camera’s built-in flashas an example, at ISO 200 withits GN of 56, if you wanted toshoot a subject at a distance of10 feet, you’d use f/5.6 (56divided by 10). At 5 feet, anf/stop of f/11 would be used.Some quick mental calculations

with the GN will give you anyparticular electronic flash’srange. You can easily see that thebuilt-in flash would begin to peterout at about 20 feet, where you’dneed an aperture of f/2.8 at ISO200. Of course, in the real worldyou’d probably bump the sensitiv-ity up to a setting of ISO 800 soyou could use a more practicalf/5.6 at that distance.

Today, guide numbers are mostuseful for comparing the powerof various flash units, rather thanactually calculating what expo-sure to use. You don’t need to bea math genius to see that an elec-tronic flash with a GN in feet of,say, 174 (like one unit I own)would be a lot more powerfulthan a built-in flash. At ISO 200,you could use f/9 instead off/2.8 at 20 feet, an improvementof about 3.5 stops.

Flash MetersExternal flash meters are anoption that serious flash photog-raphers often avail themselves of.These meters are hand-helddevices, like the one shown inFigure 4.9, that measure the lightemitted by the flash during a testshot. You’ll find them put to workmost often in a studio environ-ment, where it’s important tomeasure and compare the lightfrom the main illumination sourcewith that of other lights used in ascene, such as the fill light (usedto illuminate the shadows) or hairlight (which provides an accent tothe hair of a portrait subject).

Flash meters aren’t necessarilyexpensive, and learning to usethem is fairly easy. But they maybe overkill for most flash situa-tions with a digital camera,because you can easily take atest shot and review your lightingand exposure using the LCD andthe camera’s histogram feature.But, if you want the most accurateflash exposures, a flash metercan be extremely helpful. Somemodels can measure flash andcontinuous light, so that onemeter can do double duty,although these models can be relatively pricey.

Figure 4.9 A hand-held flash meter can measure the flash levels for individuallights in a multi-light setup.


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Choosing a Flash Sync ModeMost digital SLRs have as manyas five electronic flash synchro-nization modes. They determineexactly when the flash is fired,and may control which shutterspeeds are used. In many situa-tions, only the light from the

electronic flash contributes to thefinal exposure, but if ambientlight levels are high enough, theexisting light may also become afactor. In those situations, thesync mode becomes especiallyimportant.

I briefly explained how focalplane shutters work in Chapter 1.You’ll recall that when the shutterbegins to open, the first or frontcurtain exposes the sensor andstarts to travel to the top of theframe, as shown in Figure 4.10.

At shutter speeds equal to orlonger than the camera’s maxi-mum sync speed (typically 160thto 1/250th second), the secondor rear curtain doesn’t begin tomove until the sensor is fullyexposed, as in Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.10 At the beginning of the exposure, the first curtain starts to uncoverthe sensor.

Figure 4.11 When the sensor is fully exposed, the flash can be triggered tomake the exposure.


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Sometime while the shutter iscompletely open, the flash is trig-gered. The operation of these cur-tains comes into play when flashsync is considered. Here are theprimary sync modes used in mostdigital SLR cameras.

◆ Front-curtain sync. This settingshould be your default setting. Inthis mode the flash fires as soon asthe front curtain opens completely.The shutter then remains open forthe duration of the exposure, untilthe rear curtain closes. If the sub-ject is moving and ambient lightlevels are high enough, the move-ment will cause a secondary“ghost” exposure that appears infront of the flash exposure (in rela-tion to the apparent direction ofmovement of your subject). I’llexplain this in more detail next.

◆ Rear-curtain sync. With this set-ting, which can be used withShutter Priority, Aperture Priority,Program, or Manual exposuremodes, the front curtain openscompletely and remains open forthe duration of the exposure. Then,the flash is fired and the rear cur-tain closes. If the subject is movingand ambient light levels are highenough, the movement will cause asecondary “ghost” exposure thatappears behind the flash exposure(trailing it).

◆ Slow sync. This setting allows thetypical digital SLR to use shutterspeeds as slow as 30 seconds withthe flash to help balance a back-ground illuminated with ambientlight with your main subject, butwhich will be lit primarily by theelectronic flash. You’ll want to usea tripod at these slower shutterspeeds, of course. It’s common thatthe ambient light will be incandes-cent illumination that’s muchwarmer than the electronic flash’s“daylight” balance, so, if you wantthe two sources to match, you maywant to use a warming filter on theflash.

◆ Red-eye reduction. In thismode, there is a slight lag afterpressing the shutter release beforethe picture is actually taken, duringwhich the camera’s red-eye reduc-tion lamp (an LED on the front ofthe camera) or a strobe pre-flash istriggered, causing the subject’spupils to contract (assuming theyare looking at the camera/flash).This reduces potential red-eyeeffects.

◆ Red-eye reduction with slowsync. Some cameras have thisadditional mode, which combinesslow sync with red-eye reductionbehavior.

Ghost ImagesThe difference might not seemlike much, but whether you usefirst-curtain sync (the default set-ting) or rear-curtain sync (anoptional setting) can make a sig-nificant difference to your photo-graph if the ambient light in yourscene also contributes to theimage. At faster shutter speedsthere isn’t much time for the ambi-ent light to register, unless it isvery bright. It’s likely that the elec-tronic flash will provide almost allthe illumination, so first-curtainsync or second-curtain sync isn’tvery important.

However, at slower shutterspeeds, or with very bright ambi-ent light levels, there is a signifi-cant difference, particularly ifyour subject is moving, or thecamera isn’t steady. In any ofthose situations, the ambient lightwill register as a second imageaccompanying the flash expo-sure, and if there is movement(camera or subject), that addi-tional image will not be in the

same place as the flash exposure.It will show as a ghost imageand, if the movement is sufficient,as a blurred ghost image trailingin front of or behind your subjectin the direction of the movement.

As I mentioned earlier, whenyou’re using first-curtain sync, theflash goes off the instant the shut-ter opens, producing an image ofthe subject on the sensor. Then,the shutter remains open for anadditional period (which can befrom 30 seconds to your maxi-mum sync speed). If your subjectis moving, say, towards the rightside of the frame, the ghostimage produced by the ambientlight will produce a blur on theright side of the original subjectimage, making it look as if yoursharp (flash-produced) image ischasing the ghost. For those of uswho grew up with lightning-fastsuperheroes who always left aghost trail behind them, that looksunnatural (see the top image inFigure 4.12).


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Figure 4.12 With front-curtain sync (top), the ghost image “precedes” the moving object; with rear-curtain sync (bottom), the ghost “follows” the moving object.


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So, your camera provides rear-(second) curtain sync to remedythe situation. In that mode, theshutter opens, as before. The shut-ter remains open for its desig-nated duration, and the ghostimage forms. If your subjectmoves from the left side of theframe to the right side, the ghostwill move from left to right, too.Then, a few milliseconds beforethe second shutter curtain closes,the flash is triggered, producinga nice, sharp flash image aheadof the ghost image. Voilà! Wehave the subject “outrunning” itsown trailing image, as you cansee at bottom in Figure 4.12.

High-Speed (FP) SyncTriggering the electronic flashonly when the shutter is com-pletely open makes a lot of senseif you think about what’s goingon. To obtain shutter speedsfaster than the maximum flashsync speed, your camera exposesonly part of the sensor at onetime, by starting the second cur-tain on its journey before the firstcurtain has completely opened.That effectively provides a brieferexposure as a slit passes over thesurface of the sensor. If the flashwere to fire during the time whenthe first and second curtains par-tially obscured the sensor, onlythe slit that was actually openwould be exposed.

However, some cameras andcompatible flash units provide apartial solution, called high-speedsync or FP sync (focal planesync). Those flash units can fire aseries of flashes consecutively inrapid succession, producing theillusion of a longer continuousflash, although at reduced inten-sity. These multiple flashes have aduration long enough to allowexposing the area of the sensorrevealed by the traveling slit as itmakes its full pass. However, thereduced intensity means that yourflash’s range is greatly reduced.

This technique is most useful out-doors when you need fill-in flash,but find that, say, 1/250 secondis way too slow for the f/stop youwant to use. For example, at ISO200, an outdoors exposure islikely to be 1/250 second at,say, f/14, which is perfectly finefor an ambient/balanced fill-flashexposure if you don’t mind theextreme depth-of-field offered bythe small f/stop. But, what ifyou’d rather shoot at 1/1600second at f/5.6? High-speedsync will let you do that, and youprobably won’t mind the reducedflash power, because you’re look-ing for fill flash, anyway. Checkyour camera manual to see ifhigh-speed sync is available foryour model.


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Studio FlashIf you’re serious about using light-ing creatively, you should con-sider adding simple studioelectronic flash units to your gearkit. While they are more expen-sive than incandescent lights usedin a studio environment, suchflash are cooler, free you fromneeding to use a tripod (most ofthe time), and, unlike most otherflash options, include an incan-descent modeling light that givesyou an exact preview of whatyour lighting effect will look like.

Their other advantages includegreater power output, much fasterrecycling, multiple power levels,and ruggedness that can standup to transport, because manyphotographers pack up these kits

and tote them around as locationlighting rigs. Studio lighting kitscan range in price from a fewhundred dollars for a set of lights,stands, and reflectors, to thou-sands for a high-end lighting sys-tem complete with all thenecessary accessories.

Because they can use AC power,studio flash don’t have to be fru-gal with the juice, and are oftenpowerful enough to illuminatevery large subjects, or to supplylots and lots of light to smallersubjects. The output of such unitsis measured in watt seconds (ws),so you could purchase a 200ws,400ws, or 800ws unit, andpower pack to match.

The traditional pro studio flash isa multi-part unit, consisting of aflash head that mounts on yourlight stand, and is tethered to anAC (or sometimes battery) powersupply. A single power supplycan feed two or more flash headsat a time, with separate controlover the output of each head.This type of flash has the mostrugged construction, so you canpack them up in hard cases,transport them anywhere (evenby airplane), and set them up onlocation, confident that they’ll dothe job as expected.

For someone who is not a full-time location-shooting profes-sional, monolights, like the oneshown in Figure 4.13, are proba-bly a better choice. These are“all-in-one” studio lights that havethe flash tube, modeling light,and power supply built into a sin-gle unit that can be mounted on alight stand. Monolights are avail-able in AC-only and battery-packversions, although an externalbattery eliminates some of theadvantages of having a flashwith everything in one unit.


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Monolights can be considerablymore economical, with 200 to1600 watt-second units availablefor about $200 to $400. Theyare certainly more portable,because all you need is a casefor the monolight itself, plus thestands and other accessories youwant to carry along. Becausethese units are so popular withphotographers who are not full-time professionals, the lower-costmonolights are often designed forlighter duty than professional stu-dio flash. That doesn’t mean theyaren’t rugged; you’ll just need tohandle them with a little morecare, and, perhaps, not expectthem to be used eight hours aday for weeks on end. In mostother respects, however, mono-lights are the equal of traditionalstudio flash units in terms of fastrecycling, built-in modelinglamps, adjustable power, and soforth.

Here are some features to lookfor in your studio flash units:

◆ Build quality. Some units aremore rugged than others, andyou’ll pay extra for that durability.You’ll want flash units that havelightweight bodies of polycarbon-ate or some other tough material(up to and including aluminum),with all fittings (especially theadjustments for angle) toughenough to withstand frequentchanges. If you plan to set up yourlights in a studio and never movethem, you can go with slightly lesssturdy equipment and save somemoney.

◆ Built-in slave trigger. Virtuallyall new units have a sensor thattriggers the flash when it detectsthe burst of another strobe. Youshould be aware that there may bea small lag before the additionalflash units fire; it’s often wise to setyour camera’s sync speed one set-ting slower than the max (say,1/200th second instead of1/250th second) to allow for this.

Figure 4.13 This Alien Bee monolight has flash, modeling light, power supply,and all electronics in a single compact housing.


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◆ Wireless option. If you want toavoid a long cable between yourcamera and the primary flash unit,look for strobes with a wirelessoption. Mine uses a radio triggerthat mounts on the hot shoe of mycamera and sends a signal to themain flash to fire it. The remainingunits can be set off in response tothe main flash or, optionally, canbe attached to their own wirelessreceivers so that they all fire at thesame time.

◆ Adjustable power levels.Some older studio flash I own havea limited number of power settingsset by toggle switches, so that only1/2 and 1/4 power can beselected. Newer units may allowcontinuous settings with a slider, allthe way from full power to 1/32power, like my Alien Bee unit,shown in Figure 4.14. However,reducing power may change thecolor temperature of the flash, asI’ll explain in Chapter 6.

Figure 4.14 The power levels of this monolight can be adjusted from full power to 1/32 power with this slider control.


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◆ Modeling light options. Amodeling light is a given. But doesthe flash unit use an inexpensiveincandescent bulb, like the mono-light shown in Figure 4.15, or doesit require a special light source?

Can you set the modeling light to“track” the flash’s power setting, ordoes it remain at the same bright-ness level? Are the modeling lightsproportionate among units from thesame vendor with different power

capabilities? The modeling light foran 800ws unit should be twice asbright at full power than the lightfor a 400ws unit, and half asbright as the modeling light of a

1600ws flash from the same com-pany. Can you set the modelinglight so that it turns off briefly afterthe flash has fired, as a confirma-tion that the unit has, indeed, doneits job? Or, if you’d rather avoidthe distraction, can the modelinglight be set to remain on at alltimes?

◆ Power options. Some flash areAC-only units. Others can be fittedwith an optional battery pack. Ifyou shoot in locations where nopower is available, the batterypack option may be important.

◆ Accessory options. You’ll findthat life is easier if you can get allthe accessories you need for yourflash from the same company thatbuilds the flash unit. You’ll want asource for soft boxes, speed ringsthat attach the soft boxes directly toyour flash, snoots, barndoors (likethe ones shown in Figure 4.13),and “beauty dishes” (large reflec-tors that soften the light, but not asmuch as umbrellas or soft boxes).I’ll explain the use of these tools inmore detail in Chapter 5.

Figure 4.15 This monolight uses an inexpensive household bulb as a modeling light.


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Fill FlashOne of the most useful applica-tions for electronic flash is to fillin inky shadows, brightening upsubjects to reveal detail thatwould otherwise be obscured inthe murky depths. As you’velearned by now, shadows them-selves are not a bad thing: Theyprovide modeling and shape tosubjects by emphasizing contoursand texture. Nor are dark shad-ows always evil; properly used,shadows with no detail can makea suitable image look more dra-matic, imposing, or threatening.

Somewhere between shadowlesslighting and light-eating blackholes are shadows that containenough detail to show us some-thing about our subject, withoutdistracting from the main focus ofthe image (which is almostalways to be found in the bright-est areas of the photo). Becausedigital cameras (and film cam-eras before them) are incapableof reproducing detail in both thebrightest highlights and darkestshadows, a secondary source of illumination is often used as a

fill-in. Reflectors can do the job insome cases, but I’ve found thatone seriously underused andvaluable tool is fill flash.

Fill flash is closely related to thefill lights I’ll describe in the studiolighting sections in Chapters 5and 6. Outside the studio, how-ever, electronic flash fill is almostalways used outdoors, in brightdaylight, using the flash built intothe camera. Because of the envi-ronment in which it is used, fillflash is both easier and morecomplex to apply than studio fill.Here are some considerationswhen using fill flash:

◆ Must supplement sunlight ormain source of illumination.You don’t want your fill flash tooverpower your main source of illu-mination. If it does, the fill flashbecomes your main light, and youprobably won’t like the effect, par-ticularly outdoors. Your shot willend up looking like a publicity stillfrom Baywatch—or worse.However, sometimes an overpower-ing fill flash can work. Figure 4.16shows a picture I grabbed at a CivilWar re-enactment on an excessively

Figure 4.16 Heavy use of fill flash can completely wash out the existingillumination, even in daylight.


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bright summer’s day. “GeneralGrant” was largely in shadow, somuch so that the background com-pletely washed out. I used fill flashbut ended up with too much, so thatthe main illumination of the photocame from my flash.

◆ Use balance fill setting. If yourflash or camera has a “balancedfill setting” automatic exposuremode, use it. The camera will cal-culate the correct overall exposurefor the scene, then instruct the elec-tronic flash to emit a scaled-backburst of light of sufficient strength tofill in the shadows without over-powering the highlights.

◆ Consider Manual exposuremode. Remember that properapplication of fill flash meansadjusting the flash exposure, notthe overall exposure, which youwant to remain at its normal set-ting. So, if you don’t have a bal-anced fill option, consider settingyour flash to Manual exposure andincreasing or reducing the flash’soutput as required to produce theproper amount of fill.

◆ Watch lighting ratios. The rela-tionship between the main lightand your fill is important. The filllight should be half or one-third aspotent, which you can ensure byreducing your flash’s output, per-haps to one half or one quarter itsnormal value. I’ll discuss lightingratios in more detail in Chapters 5and 6.

◆ Sync speed limits use out-doors. The biggest limitation ofworking with fill flash outdoors isthat your shutter speed generallycan’t be higher than your camera’sfastest sync speed (described ear-lier in this chapter). That speedmay be as slow as 1/160th sec-ond, or as high as 1/500th sec-ond, but is generally in the1/200th-1/250th second range.With that constraint, you’ll have touse a low ISO setting (which maybe good, because it reduces the“power” of your flash at a givendistance), and exposure combina-tions like 1/200th second at f/16at ISO 200 in bright sunlight. Asyou can see, action photographywith fill flash can be tricky—orimpossible—unless you’re willingto risk a little subject motion blur.

◆ Great for adding catchlight.One of my favorite applications offill flash outdoors is to add a littlecatchlight to my subjects’ eyes.

◆ Use with hats. Hats cast shad-ows. Fill flash can illuminate theface under those shadows, asshown in my shot of “GeneralRobert E. Lee” in Figure 4.17.Unlike my “Grant” photo, thisimage provides a good balancebetween available light and fillflash, and did a great job of light-ing up the shadows cast by theConfederate general’s broad-brimmed hat. Figure 4.17 Fill flash is a great tool for lighting up shadows cast by broad-

brimmed hats.

In Chapter 6, I’m going to show you how to set up and use someof the most popular portrait lighting techniques. But, before we canjump into that topic, it’s necessary to define some of the tools that

you’ll work with (such as main lights, fill lights, or background lights)and the characteristics of those tools. In this chapter, I’m going toexplain (or review) some of the properties of light that are especiallyimportant when working with these techniques, and show you exactlyhow to think of the different kinds of lighting equipment you’ll beusing.

When you’ve absorbed everything here, you can jump directly to thenext chapter and begin applying the techniques that I recommendthere. I’ll start off with a review of the character of light, which can bejust as important as the direction it comes from. You probably alreadyknow that light can be hard and harsh, or soft and gentle. Neitherend of the spectrum is “good” or “bad.” Each type of light, and allthe gradations in between, has its own advantages and disadvan-tages. Some portrait subjects benefit from a softer light, while otherscall for a harder, more direct light. You should learn to use both.

Using Portrait Lighting Tools5


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Soft Lighting and DistanceA spotlight or a lamp in a reflec-tor, or an electronic flash pointeddirectly at a subject is highlydirectional and produces a hardeffect. Hard light is harshbecause all the light comes froma relatively small source. Thiskind of light can be good if youwant to emphasize the texture ofa subject and are looking for asmuch detail and sharpness aspossible. Many portraits of menuse more direct lighting, althoughit’s easy to be too harsh if you’renot careful.

Most portrait subjects, especiallyof females and teens, benefitfrom a softer light. People rarelylook their best under a directlight, because even a baby’s skinis subject to imperfections that wedon’t see under home illumina-tion. You can soften portrait lightin many ways, using umbrellas,diffusers, and other techniques.It’s even possible to add a littlesoftness in Photoshop.

Most portraits are made usingslightly softer illumination, such asthat produced by passing thelight through a diffuser such as asoft box, or by bouncing it off anumbrella. You can even shootthrough a translucent umbrella.As the light strikes the umbrella(or other soft reflector), the lightscatters. It bounces back towardsthe subject and appears to comefrom a much larger source—theumbrella itself rather than thebulb or flash unit that producedit. Soft boxes operate in the sameway, spreading the light as it isdiffused by the fabric cover of thebox.

You can understand the effect byfirst looking at looking at Figure5.1, which is a bird’s-eye view ofa fanciful representation of animaginary “cone” of light cast bya light bouncing off an umbrellaonto a seated subject. Of course,

the light is bouncing in all direc-tions and spreading out, but myillustration shows just the cone oflight falling on the seated subject.The blunt “apex” of this cone getssmaller the farther away youmove the light, and larger thecloser it gets.

But you probably alreadyguessed by now that the distanceof the light source from the sub-ject also has a bearing on thequality of light. In Figure 5.1, theumbrella is fairly far from the sub-ject, so the light source seems tocome from a relatively smallarea, even though it’s bouncingoff an umbrella. The effect is lessharsh than direct light, of course,but still not as good as we canachieve.

For Figure 5.2, I moved the imag-inary umbrella in much closer tothe subject, making the blunt endof the cone of light larger. The

apparent source of the light isnow much broader, relativelyspeaking, and correspondinglysofter. You’ll need to keep thischaracteristic in mind as you setup your lights for portraiture. Ifyou need to move a light backfarther from the subject, you’llalso need to take into account thechanging nature of the light. Alarger umbrella may help keepthe lighting soft and gentle. Or,you simply might want to haveslightly “edgier” lighting for yoursubject. As long as you areaware of the effect, you can con-trol it.

So, keep in mind that moving alight closer to your subject makesit softer; moving it farther awaymakes it harsher. That movementalso increases or decreases theamount of light falling on yoursubject, and that’s the subject ofthe section that follows this one.

Using Portrait Lighting Tools

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Figure 5.1 The farther away from the subject the light is placed, the smaller andharsher the cone of illumination it casts.

Figure 5.2 As the light source is moved closer to the subject, it becomes largerand more diffuse.


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Balancing LightAs you’ll see in this chapter andthe next, you’ll often be usingmultiple illumination sources tolight your portraits. It’s importantto understand some of the princi-ples that go into balancing lightfrom several different sources in asingle photograph. The first thingto understand is the inversesquare law, which will governwhat happens when you movelights around as you create yoursetups.

The Inverse SquareLawWhen setting up portrait lights,you may find yourself moving agiven light source closer to or farther away from your subject, if only to change the softness/harshness of the light. You mightwant to bring a light in very closeto create a soft, wrap-aroundlighting effect. Or you might want

to move the light farther back tocreate a harder light that empha-sizes texture and detail. But youneed to simultaneously rememberthat this movement provides achange in the amount of light onyour subject—in a non-intuitiveway.

You see, moving a light sourcetwice as far away doesn’t cut thelight in half, as you might expect.Instead, doubling the distancereduces the light to one-quarter itsoriginal value. That translates intotwo f/stops worth of light, notone f/stop. A light source placedfour feet from your subject willprovide four times as much illumi-nation as the same sourcelocated just eight feet from thesubject. After moving the lighttwice as close, you’d have toclose your aperture by twof/stops to keep the same expo-sure, as shown in Figure 5.3.

You can make the inverse squarelaw work for you or against you.If you find a source is too strong,either by itself or relative to otherlight sources you’re using, simplymoving it twice as far away willreduce its strength to one-quarterits previous value. Or, should youneed more light, you can gaintwo f/stops by moving a lightsource twice as close.

The big problem with thisapproach is that this movementwill increase/decrease the soft-ness of the light source. That maynot be a factor for some types oflights, such as the light cast on abackground or used to illuminateyour subject’s hair. You can movethe light closer or farther away ineither case to reduce or increaseits intensity. However, for themain lights used for portraits,you’re usually better off changingthe actual intensity of the light.This can often be done by usinga lower power setting on yourflash.

Using Lighting RatiosAnother consideration whenarranging lights is the balancebetween the multiple sources ofillumination used in a portraitsetup. As you’ll learn, most tech-niques call for one main light thatprovides the primary light sourcefor the scene. Sources called filllights do what you might expect:fill in or brighten the shadowscast by the main light. Otheraccent lights may be used to illu-minate specific parts of thescene. The relationship of theintensity of these lights is impor-tant, with the chief concern beingthe lighting ratio between themain light and fill light(s).

For example, suppose that themain light for a portrait providesenough illumination that youwould use an aperture of f/11.The supplementary or fill light isless intense, and would require,all by itself, an exposure of f/5.6.


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Figure 5.3 A light source placed four feet from a subject provides four times as much illumination as the same source located twice as far away.


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That translates into two f/stops’difference or, putting it anotherway, the main light source is fourtimes as intense as the fill light.You can express this absoluterelationship as the ratio 4:1.Because the main light is used toilluminate the highlight portion ofyour image, while the secondarylight is used to fill in the darkshadow areas left by the mainlight, this ratio tells us a lot aboutthe lighting contrast for the scene.

In fact, that 4:1 lighting ratio isquite dramatic and can leave youwith fairly dark shadows to con-trast with your highlights. Most ofthe time, a lighting ratio of 4:1will be too high for a satisfactoryportrait. The most common ratiois a 3:1 relationship, with the filllight about 1 2/3 stops less thanthe main light (in our example,that would be about f/6.3).Some portraits may call for a 2:1ratio, with the main light twice asbright as the fill, for an f/11 tof/8 relationship. You want tohave shadows that define theshape of your subject withoutcloaking parts in inky blackness.Figures 5.4-5.7 illustrate variouslighting ratios.

Measure your lighting ratiosusing one of these methods:

◆ Visually. If you use incandescentlighting or electronic flashequipped with modeling lights, inpractice you will rarely calculatelighting ratios while you shoot.Instead, you’ll base your lightingintensity settings on how the subjectlooks, making your shadows lighteror darker depending on the effectyou want, and which you gaugeby eye. This usually works, andyou’ll become better at it the moreyou practice.

◆ Use your camera’s meter. Ifyou’re working with incandescentor flash with a modeling light thatis proportional to the flash it is cou-pled with, you can switch off eachlight in turn, and measure theactual light reflected from theshadow and highlight areas ofyour subject, respectively. Use yourcamera’s “Spot” metering settingso you can zero in on one area,then switch the lights and measurethe other. If you have a handheldlight meter, preferably an incidentmodel that is held at the subject’sposition, you can measure thelight/modeling light with that.

◆ Use a flash meter. There arehandheld “spot” and incident flashmeters designed to measure thelight emitted by an electronic flash.Use the meter, and trip each flashin turn to evaluate the light, andthen calculate a lighting ratio.

◆ Use your dedicated flash’sfeatures. If you’re using the dedi-cated flash units sold for your cam-era, they probably have anintelligent flash feature that meas-ures actual light from multipleflashes and balances the light foryou, so that one unit can functionas a main light, while the second isused as balanced fill. Such unitsalso have a manual feature thatallows you to set the main flash forfull power (or less), while dialingdown the second flash to a lowerpower level. I recommend the sec-ond option if you’re forced to useelectronic flash without a modelinglight. It’s relatively easy to placeboth units at equal distances fromyour subject, bounce them off simi-lar diffusing surfaces, and simplyhave one flash fire at half power togive you an easy 2:1 ratio. Theautomated balanced flash routinemay be too difficult to rememberhow to implement unless it’s a regularly-used part of your repertoire.

◆ Use a tape measure. If you’remathematically inclined, you cantake a tape measure and deter-mine the actual distance betweeneach flash and subject, and dividethat value into the guide number ofyour flash. (Your flash’s manual willtell you what the guide number isfor a particular flash at a givenISO setting.) Remember to compen-sate for light lost to any diffusers orbouncing surfaces involved. Forexample, if your main light has aguide number (GN) of 55 at theISO you are using, at a distance offive feet, the exposure will call foran aperture of about f/11. For afill flash of similar power locatedsix feet from your subject, the cor-rect aperture would be f/9. Set theflash to half power, and you’d endup with a recommended exposurefor the fill light of f/6.3—givingyou a perfect 3:1 ratio. Thismethod is a bit more work, but you can learn to make your calculations quickly as you gainexperience.


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Figure 5.4 A 2:1 lighting ratio. Figure 5.5 A 3:1 lighting ratio. Figure 5.6 A 4:1 lighting ratio. Figure 5.7 A 5:1 lighting ratio.

HOW IT’S LITFor the images illustratinglighting ratios, I placed a

main light to the right of the subject, andslightly behind her, with a fill light next tothe camera. The fill was adjusted inbrightness to produce the different ratios.This setup is called short lighting, and willbe explained in Chapter 6.

Figure 5.8The same setupwas used for allfour lighting ratioillustrations.


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Using a Main LightThe best portrait lighting ofteninvolves at least two, and some-times three or more light sources,all set up using the techniques Ioutline for you in Chapter 6. Themain, or key, light that sets thestage for all the other lightsources used in these setups is,amazingly enough, called themain or key light. You’ll find theterms used interchangeably, butI’m going to stick to “main” lightfor most of this book, to help youremember that it is, indeed, themain light you need to be con-cerned with.

The main light is the primary lightsource used to illuminate a por-trait. It may, in fact, be the onlylight you use, or you may aug-ment it with other light sources.The main light is most oftenplaced in front of the subject andon one side of the camera or theother, as shown in Figures 5.9and 5.10. It’s not usually placedexactly at the camera position, asthis would create very flat light-ing, unless the main light is

raised up relatively high over-head to produce certain kinds ofglamour lighting, explained in thenext chapter.

Placed to the side, at a 90-degree angle from the camera’saxis, the main light becomes asidelight that illuminates one sideor the profile of a subject who isfacing the light. Placed behind

angle from the axis of the cameraand subject. The main lightshould be placed a little higherthan the subject’s head—theexact elevation determined by thetype of lighting setup you’reusing. Some kinds of lightingsetups do call for the main light tobe placed relatively high, abovethe subject’s eye-level, or lower ateye-level. You usually won’t put a

Figure 5.9 The main, or key, lightprovides the primary illumination fora lighting setup.

HOW IT’S LITFor Figure 5.9, I arranged the main, or key, light to the rightof the camera, with a fill light at roughly the camera position.

Figure 5.10The main light isusually placedoff to one side,in front of orslightly behindthe subject.

the subject, the main light canproduce a silhouette effect if noother lights are used, or a backliteffect if additional lighting is usedto illuminate the subject from thefront. I’ll show you how to createlighting effects using the mainlight in Chapter 6.

Usually the main light is posi-tioned at roughly a 45-degree


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main light lower than that, unlessyou’re looking for amonster/crypt-keeper effect.

One thing to watch out for is thepresence or absence of catchlights in the subject’s eyes. Youwant one catch light in each eye,which gives the eye a slightsparkle. If you imagine the pupilsof the eyes to be a clock face,you want the catch lights placedat either the 11 o’clock or 1o’clock position. You might haveto raise or lower the main light toget the catch light exactly right.

You most definitely do not wanttwo catch lights (because you’reusing both main and fill lights) orno catch light at all. If you havetwo catch lights, the eyes willlook extra sparkly, but strange.With no catch light, the eyes willhave a dead look to them, as atleft in Figure 5.11, where Iretouched the catch lights out ofthe image, compared to the origi-nal version (at right) with thecatch lights left alone. Sometimesyou can retouch out an extracatch light, or add one withPhotoshop, but the best practiceis to place them correctly in thefirst place.

As you set up your main light andbegin posing your subject, you’llwant to keep these tips in mind.

◆ Eyes have it. The eyes are themost important component of anyportrait, as they will always be thecenter of attention. They must besharp and lively, even if you’regoing for a softer look in the rest ofthe portrait. Make sure your mainlight properly illuminates your sub-ject’s eyes.

◆ Hands down. Depending onhow close you’re shooting to yoursubject, you may need to illumi-nate/feature the hands or (worse)bare feet. So, remember that theedges of hands are more attractivethan the backs or palms of hands.You can sometimes de-emphasizehands by using less main light onthem. Of course, the bottoms offeet are downright ugly, but youcan sometimes get away with sideviews if the feet are young enoughand there are other things to lookat in the photo.

◆ Bare pates. Bald heads arepretty cool these days, but if yoursubject is sensitive about a nakedcranium, make sure the main lightdoesn’t glare off that bare pate. AsI’ll show you in Chapter 6, you canelevate your victim’s chin andlower your camera slightly.

◆ Nose knows. For long, large, orangular noses, try having your sub-ject face directly into the camera,and arrange your main light sothat huge shadows are not cast ontheir faces.

◆ ‘Ear, ‘ear. To minimize prominentears, try shooting your subject inprofile, or use short lighting, dis-cussed in Chapter 6, so the earnearest the camera is in shadow.

◆ Wrinkle me this. If you want tominimize wrinkles or facial defectssuch as scars or a bad complex-ion, use softer, more diffuse light-ing for your main light. Or take a

step backwards and photographyour subject from the waist up toreduce the relative size of the face;keep the main light at eye-level soit doesn’t cast shadows; considerusing a diffusing filter (or add diffu-sion later in your image editor).

◆ Glasses passes. If your subjectis wearing glasses, be wary ofreflections of the main light off theglass. Have him or her raise orlower his chin slightly, and makesure your main light is bouncing offthe face at an angle, rather thanstraight on.

Figure 5.11 At left, the catch lights have been removed. The eyes look dull andlifeless. At right, with the catch lights restored, the eyes sparkle.


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Fill LightThe fill light is usually the second-most powerful light used to illumi-nate a portrait. Fill light lightensthe shadows cast by the mainlight, as you can see in Figure5.12. Fill lights are usually posi-tioned on the opposite side of thecamera from the main light.

The relationship between themain light and fill light deter-mines, in part, the contrast of ascene, as you learned in the sec-tion on calculating lighting ratios.If the main and fill are almostequal, the picture will be rela-tively low in contrast. If the mainlight is much more powerful thanthe fill light, the shadows will besomewhat darker and the imagewill have higher contrast. Filllights are most often placed at thecamera position so they will fillthe shadows that the camera“sees” from the main light. Figure

HOW IT’S LITFor the Figure 5.12 example, the main light was located tothe left and behind the subject (in the traditional short light-

ing setup I’ll show you in Chapter 6), while the fill light is a less intenselight placed to the right of the camera.

Figure 5.13The main lightand fill light inthis exampleuse thetraditional shortlighting setup.

Figure 5.12 The fill light illuminatesthe shadows on the right side of thesubject’s face.

5.13 shows a main light and filllight in a typical lighting setup. I’llshow you the effects of usingmain and fill lights in the sectionsthat follow.

As I noted, you normally placethe fill light on the opposite sideof the camera from the mainlight. The fill light usually needs tobe a much lower power unit thanthe main light. If you use too

much fill, you’ll lose the effect ofthe lighting style. The purpose ofthe fill light is to add just enoughlight to soften the shadows cre-ated by the main light.


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The fill light is used to control con-trast. By increasing the power ofthe fill, you reduce the contrast inthe photo. By decreasing theamount of light from the fill, youwill increase contrast. When set-ting the distance of your fill light,watch how noticeable theshadow from the main light is.This will be your guide to hownoticeable it will be in the finalimage. The fill light will almostalways add a second lower pairof catch lights. This is usuallyobjectionable because it givesthe impression that the subjecthas a directionless stare. This sec-ond pair of catch lights should beretouched from the final photo.Also watch for reflections if yoursubject wears glasses. You mayhave to reposition the fill lightslightly to eliminate eyeglassreflections, as described in theprevious section, or ask your subject to tilt his head up ordown slightly until the reflectionsdisappear.

LIGHT INTENSITIES AND COLOR TEMPERATURE“Dirty little secrets” are unfortunate things that should be more widely known than they actually are. That term is usu-ally a gimmick to get you to read a Top Ten Problems list. For electronic flash units that incorporate modeling lampsand which have variable light outputs, the “secret” is that as you dial down the intensity of the light, it’s quite com-mon for the color temperature to change. In truth, this is not really being kept a secret. It’s just that the flash unit man-ufacturers aren’t listing this tendency in their feature list, and most photographers purchasing these lights aren’t doingquite enough research. But the effects are important, nevertheless. If you reduce the output of many “studio” typeflashes, the color temperature of the flash changes, too—sometimes significantly. That can lead to mixed lightingeffects that you don’t want to contend with in Photoshop.

Not all studio flash units have shifting color temperatures. It’s possible to design electronic flash units that have a con-stant color temperature, but it is more expensive. For dedicated non-studio flash units, the camera vendor oftenincludes a provision that allows the flash to tell the camera what the true color temperature is for any given burst,because the amount of light these units emit will vary for just about any exposure. With studio flash, it’s a differentstory. The worst color shifts come when you dial down the flash to its lowest power levels, while keeping other unitsin the same setup at full power. There’s not a lot you can do that’s easy to implement. (Who wants to put color filterson their flashes?) What I do is purchase studio flash units with a couple different power ratings, and use the ones thatare most appropriate for a setup, reducing the need to cut intensity with a switch. You’ve been warned.


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Other LightsOnce you get beyond the mainand fill light, the other lights in asetup, often called accent lights,may be optional. Certain subjectsand compositions may call forthem; others may not. This sectionwill introduce you to the mostpopular auxiliary light sources,including the background lightand hair light.

Background LightA light illuminating the back-ground is another common lightsource used in portraits.Background lights are low powerlights that provide depth or sepa-ration in your image, as shown inFigures 5.14 and 5.15. Place thebackground light low on a shortlight stand about halfwaybetween your subject and thebackground, so that the subjecthides the actual light from view.This light can also provide inter-esting lighting effects on the back-ground when used with coloredgels or cookies. You can eventurn the background light towards

the back of the subject, produc-ing a halo or backlight effect.

Background lights can be used toilluminate the background, gain-ing more depth or separation inyour image. This light is usuallyplaced low to the ground on asmall stand about halfway

between your subject and thebackground. A low-power light isgenerally used. You can dramati-cally change the look of the shotby adding a gel to backgroundlight. Just remember when usinggels you have to use a strongerlight to compensate for the illumi-nation being lost through the gel.

Hair LightA hair light is usually a small lightdirected at the hair of the subjectto provide an attractive highlight.Often, a snoot or barndoor is usedto keep the hair light from spillingdown on the subject’s face. A hairlight must be controlled carefullyso it doesn’t form an overexposed

HOW IT’S LITFigure 5.15 shows a lighting setup you’ll learn about inChapter 6 called broad lighting. I added a background light

behind the subject to add some separation.

Figure 5.15The backgroundlight should beplaced behindthe subject,facing thebackground,and pointedupwards.

Figure 5.14 I’ve exaggerated theamount of background light used toillustrate how such illumination canprovide separation between thesubject and her surroundings.


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hot spot on the subject’s head. Alow-power light like the back-ground light, the hair light alsoprovides separation from the back-ground, which can be very impor-tant if your subject has dark hairand is posed against a dark back-ground. Place the hair light in ahigh position shining down on thesubject’s head, then move it for-ward until the light spills overslightly onto the subject’s face. Atthat point, tilt the light back againuntil it is no longer illuminating thesubject’s face.

If you get daring enough to use ahair light, cones and snoots willallow you to control the light so

that it only illuminates the hairand doesn’t spill onto the shoul-ders and face of your subject.

For Figure 5.16, I used no hairlight (at right), which caused thesubject’s head to blend into thebackground, as only a singlemain light (placed at left) wasused to illuminate the photo. Atright in the figure, I positioned ahair light high up and behind thesubject, brushing a little lightacross the back of her head, withsome spilling over onto the back-ground to illuminate it and addeven more separation. Figure5.17 shows the lighting setup.

ReflectorsEven if you’re using electronicflash or incandescent lights, youcan still benefit from an inexpen-sive standby light source: reflec-tors. You’ve got your main and filllights in place, have illuminatedthe background, and accentedyour subject’s pate with a hairlight. Then you look at the sceneand still find areas that are too

dark. That’s where reflectorscome in. A simple card can beinserted somewhere out of frameto bounce a little light into amurky area. Some of these havea gold and silver side, so youcan choose between neutral lightor a golden glow. Check Chapter3, and Figure 3.12 for moreabout reflectors.

HOW IT’S LITFor the images illustrating lighting ratios, I placed a mainlight to the right of the subject, and slightly behind her, with

a fill light next to the camera. The fill was adjusted in brightness to pro-duce the different ratios. This setup is called short lighting, and will beexplained in Chapter 6.

Figure 5.17The hair light isnormally placed onthe same side of thesubject as the mainlight, but I wantedto accentuate theback of the head,so I moved it to theopposite side andraked the lightacross the crown ofher head.

Figure 5.16 With no hair light (at left), the subject blends into the background inthis single-light portrait. A hair light (right) separates the head, and illuminatesthe background, too.


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UmbrellasYou’ll find mention of soft boxesand umbrellas throughout thisbook. They are my favorite lightsources for a variety of subjects,both in the studio and on loca-tion. I worked extensively withumbrellas for many years, evenwhen I was traveling around thecountry as a photojournalist. Myhandheld umbrella/flash tech-nique for impromptu indoor por-traits is legendary among friendsand colleagues who wish I’d shutup about it.

As you’ve learned, direct flash israrely useful, because it’s tooharsh, too direct, and too difficultto control. Umbrellas are anessential tool to let you shape thelight so it has the qualities youneed, while directing it into areasof the scene that need it. Photoumbrellas (like the one shown inFigure 5.18) are just that: largefold-out reflectors just like thoseyou use to shield your form fromthe rain or sun, but with some

specialized qualities that makethem especially suitable for pho-tography. The advantage ofumbrellas are many:

◆ Cheap. You can buy a 40-inchumbrella specifically designed forphotography for $20 or less. Isometimes use actual white Totesrain umbrellas, which are evensmaller when I’m in photojournal-ism mode. But true photo umbrellasare better for studio or locationphotography.

◆ Transportable. Umbrellas folddown to umbrella size, and can bestashed in a duffle. I don’t evenbother putting them in a protectivecase. A few smudges on anumbrella won’t affect their reflec-tive powers, and when onebecomes too soiled, I just buy anew one.

◆ Flexible. You can move the lightsource closer to the umbrella’s cen-ter, or farther away to change thesize and diffusion of the light. Turnthe umbrella around and shootthrough it, if it’s of the translucentvariety.

Figure 5.18Umbrellas canbe attached toelectronic flashor incandescentlighting fixtures.

◆ Easy to set up. Open theumbrella. That’s it. I have ownedsoft boxes that put your life in dan-ger when you attempted to flextheir support rods to insert themcarefully into the mounting holes inthe speed ring that attached to theelectronic flash. One was so vex-ing that I never dismantled it, and

carried it around, fully assembled,in the back of my vehicle. Anotherphotographer saw me swearing atit during a fashion shoot and gra-ciously offered to take it off myhands for a few dollars. Give mean umbrella, or one of the new softboxes I’ve purchased, any day.


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◆ Aimable. As you become skilledin the use of umbrellas, you’ll findit easy to feather or aim the light,so it provides a soft light exactlywhere you want it to go.Feathering an umbrella is easiest ifyou have one of the pro modelswith a white or silver reflectiveinside surface, and a removableblack outer cover that keeps lightfrom escaping out the back of theumbrella. Thanks to your modelinglight, you can see exactly wherethe edge of the umbrella’s illumina-tion stops, and, if desired, controlthe amount of spill on your subject.

The key attributes to be aware ofwhen purchasing an umbrellaare:

◆ Size. The larger the umbrella, thelarger the area the light from yourflash is spread over. That meanssofter light, but also the potentialfor reduced illumination—particu-larly if your umbrella is of thetranslucent variety. You can findumbrellas as small as 30 inches,but the 40-inch variety is amongthe most popular. If you want avery broad, diffuse light source,look for 50- and 60-inch umbrellas.

◆ Translucency. A significantamount of light can go rightthrough a white umbrella, ratherthan reflect back at your subject. In

addition, the light that keeps ongoing will eventually bounce offsomething and back towards yoursubject. You might not want thatuncontrolled ambient light. Thereare white umbrellas with black out-side surfaces that absorb the lightthat doesn’t reflect back. The blackouter cover may be removable soyou can take it off when you dowant the light to bounce aroundbehind the umbrella, or when youwant to turn the umbrella aroundand make an exposure using theeven softer light that goes throughthe fabric onto your subject.

◆ Contrast. You can vary the qual-ity of the light reaching your sub-ject by choosing your umbrella’sfabric carefully. A soft whiteumbrella provides the most diffuseillumination (see Figure 5.19). Asilver inside surface will producemore contrast and sharper high-lights in your images. Various silversurfaces are available, rangingfrom diffuse silver to very shiny.

◆ Color. Umbrellas are available invarious colors, too. Gold umbrellasare prized for the warm skin tonesthey produce. Shiny blue-tonedumbrellas are also available for acolder look. Once you becomedeeply involved with studio work,you’ll probably want at least a fewumbrellas in different sizes, tex-tures, and colors.

Figure 5.19 A photographic umbrella provides a soft, even light.


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Soft BoxesAlthough I still use umbrellas,today, I find that soft boxes havemore flexibility, and I own severalof them, ranging from a small 24× 36-inch unit, through a jumbo30 × 60-inch box that’s tallerthan some of the kids I photo-graph. This section will tell youeverything you need to knowabout soft boxes.

Soft boxes are large square orrectangular devices that mayresemble a square or rectangularumbrella with a front cover, andproduce a similar lighting effect.(Soft boxes are also available inoctagonal and other configura-tions.) They can extend from afew feet square to massive boxesthat stand five or six feet tall—virtually a wall of light, as youcan see in Figure 5.20, whichshows one of my Paul C. Buff softboxes from Alien Bees. With aflash unit or two inside a soft

box, you have a very large, semi-directional light source that’svery diffuse and very flatteringfor portraiture and other peoplephotography.

Soft boxes are also handy forphotographing shiny objects.They not only provide a soft light,

but if the box itself happens toreflect in the subject (say you’rephotographing a chromiumtoaster), the box will provide aninteresting highlight that’s indis-tinct and not distracting. You canbuy soft boxes or make yourown. Some lengths of friction-fitplastic pipe and a lot of muslin

cut and sewed just so may be allthat you need.

Here are the key components ofa soft box setup:

◆ Soft box. The soft box itself willbe a rugged foldable fabric boxthat opens up into a square, rectan-gular, or other shaped box. Theinterior of the fabric will be a crin-kled aluminum textured materialthat reflects all the light from yourelectronic flash around in the softbox, so it can escape only throughthe front of the box. The exterior ofthe fabric will be black matte toabsorb light, so that it doesn’tbecome a reflector itself. The boxmay have Velcro fasteners to helpbutton it up tight, and perhapsflaps with Velcro closures, so youcan open up peep holes in the sideof the box to insert various lightsources, or to allow heat to escapewhen using incandescent lights.

◆ Support rods. These stiffen thesoft box and provide its shape,and fasten to the speed ring. Youcan see an interior view of a softbox in Figure 5.21.

Figure 5.20Soft boxes arejust that—largeboxes thatprovide diffuseillumination.


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Figure 5.21 An interior view of a soft box.

Supporting rodsReflective interior fabric Speed ring Inner diffusing panel (peeled back)


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◆ Speed ring. This is at the backend of the box and connects withthe box’s support rods, while con-necting to the flash unit itself. Eachspeed ring will be designed specifi-cally for the flash it mates to, whichis why it’s usually a good idea tobuy the ring from the vendor ofyour flash. Personally, I prefer fold-able soft boxes, like those fromAlien Bees (www.alienbees.com),which have the support rods per-manently attached to both the boxand speed ring. You open the softbox like an umbrella, and securethe support rods to the speed ringusing a thumbscrew.

◆ Inside diffuser. A translucent dif-fusing cloth will fasten inside thesoft box, about halfway betweenthe light source and the front of thebox, using snaps or Velcro. Usethis inside diffuser when you wantthe maximum amount of softnessfrom your light. Remove it whenyou want a slightly harder lightsource.

◆ Front diffuser. This translucentcloth fits over the front of the softbox to provide the main diffusion.It usually fastens using Velcro stripson the cloth that mate with theopposite Velcro strips on the outeredges of the soft box.

◆ Light modifiers. Optional lightmodifiers are available that fastento the outer edge of the front of thesoft box, in front of the main dif-fuser panel. These include:

◆ Grids. These are black egg-crate modules that look just likegrids, and which provide aslightly more directional light forthe soft box.

◆ Round modifiers. These areblack panels with a round open-ing that reduce the size of asquare soft box while convertingit to a rounded configuration. Ifyou don’t like square catchlights, this accessory producesthe round catch lights like thosecreated by umbrellas—with theadvantage that, unlike umbrel-las, the flat edges and ribs of theumbrella don’t show in your sub-ject’s eyes.

◆ Size reducers. Is your soft boxtoo large? Get one of thesemodifiers, which are black pan-els with a square or rectangularopening—just like your originalsoft box—but with a smalleraperture. They effectively con-vert your larger soft box into asmaller one.

Strip LightsStrip lights are a special type ofsoft box. Unlike square or mostrectangular soft boxes, strip lightsare much taller than they arewide, effectively serving as along, narrow soft box. (SeeFigure 5.22 for a look at myAlien Bees strip box.) Afteryou’ve been using conventionalsoft boxes for awhile andbecome adept in their use, you’llfind yourself wishing for some-thing slightly different, somethingwith the characteristics of a stripbox.

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Figure 5.22A strip box is aversatile alternativeto a conventionalsoft box.

Here’s why you’ve been yearningfor this tool:

◆ Soft boxes are hard to aim.Whether you’re using a square,round, or moderately rectangularsoft box, you end up with a wrap-around light that has soft edges.This illuminates your subjects withdiffuse light, but it goes everywhereit’s pointed. A strip light also cre-ates soft light, but the illuminationis in a thin strip that you canmanipulate to light up only the por-tions of your subject that you want.For example, you can illuminate aportrait subject’s face or figure withminimal spill onto your back-ground. (More on portrait lightingin Chapter 6.)

◆ Strip lights produce a moreeven lighting effect. Althoughknown for their—relatively—evenlight output, a conventional softbox, even with both diffusersmounted, still gives you a beam oflight that’s brighter in the center,and less bright at the edges. A baf-fle can be used to even out thelight, but that cuts down theamount of light available from thebox. A strip box gives you a long,narrow strip of light that’s even andcan be aimed where you want it.

◆ Easier to transport. I have a 36× 36-inch soft box. I also own a 10× 36-inch strip box. Guess whichone is easier to fold up, transport,set up, and manipulate? If youabsolutely don’t need a huge,wraparound soft box, a strip lightcan be a useful alternative thatgives you some creative optionswith its “aimability,” too.

Don’t be misled by the title of this chapter. I could easily havecalled it “Lighting Techniques.” Virtually everything you’ll learnhere can be applied to every other type of photography that

you’ll do in which you have some control of the lighting (indoors orout), and are close enough to your subject(s) to apply the tips I pro-vide on positioning and modulating the lights.

The techniques in this chapter apply equally well to product photogra-phy, close-up tabletop photography, or photos of your pets. I titled thechapter “Portrait Lighting Techniques” in part because all the illustra-tions are of portrait subjects. The simple reason for that is by using thesame type of subject for every example, you can clearly see how dif-ferent techniques change the way the subject looks. Certainly, youcan light a locomotive the same way you light a portrait, but whenlearning different kinds of lighting, you’ll find it easier to visualizeeffects using that most common of subjects—human beings.

Of course, the title I did choose is a little broader than the content ofthis chapter, too, but “Techniques for Lighting Single (Not Group)Portrait Subjects with One or More Illumination Sources” may beaccurate, but it’s unwieldy. So I’m going to go with the title I settled onin this introduction to working with lights to illuminate your subject.

I’m going to provide lighting diagrams of the “How It’s Lit” variety forevery lighting setup in this chapter. I’m going to keep things simpleand concentrate on the position of the main and fill lights. I’m concen-trating on the lighting placement, not their intensity for the most part.If you want more information on lighting ratios, or how to add back-ground and hair lights, or other accent lights, use the recommenda-tions I provided in Chapter 5. I’m also going to provide real-worldexample shots using models that I’ve worked with.

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Lighting Setup BasicsI explained about using one ormore light sources as main (orkey), fill, hair, or backgroundlights in Chapter 5. Those sourcesare your basic tools for creatinga lighting setup. In this chapter,I’m going to show you how toarrange lights (or, alternatively,reflectors that substitute for anactual light source) to createthose setups. But, before Idescribe specific setup tech-niques, there are a few basics toget out of the way.

From a lighting and composi-tional standpoint, you need to beaware that portraits can be cate-gorized by the view of the subjectthat you want to capture. Themore you show of your subject(s),the more complicated the lightingpotentially becomes. The “hierar-chy” of subject matter looks some-thing like this:

◆ Groups (large and small).When shooting more than one per-son, you have less control over thelighting of each individual. Indeed,your main concern may be simplyto provide an overall even lighting

effect that doesn’t cast shadows onanyone’s face. You may picturesome groups in full-length gangportraits (think glee club photos forthe yearbook), or narrow your cov-erage down to a head and shoul-ders photo of fewer than half adozen members of a weddingparty. I’m not going to addresslighting groups in this chapter, asthe topic is beyond the scope ofthis introductory lighting book.

◆ Full-length individual por-trait. A full-length photo, fromhead to toe, is an absolute neces-sity for, say, a model’s portfolio orfor portraits in which the subject’scostume or clothing is an importantpart of the picture. You’ll need toarrange flattering lighting for theindividual’s face, as described laterin this chapter, while making surethat the outfit is well-lit, too. Thebackground setting becomes espe-cially important in a full-length por-trait, because so much of it isvisible, and you’ll have to lightthat, too (but in such a way that itdoesn’t become the focus of atten-tion). Of course, a full-length por-trait needn’t be taken with yoursubject standing up, as you cansee in Figure 6.1.

◆ Three-quarters portraits.More intimate than a full-lengthportrait, the three-quarters view pic-tures your subject from head downto just above the knees. This typeof portrait allows you to concen-trate on lighting the individual’sface. Often, the clothing from the shoulders down is given less

illumination, and takes on a moresubordinate role in the image.Cropping a little more tightly topresent your subject just from thewaist up tends to be less interest-ing, and the person may appear tobe cut in half. If you want a tightercomposition than the three-quartersportrait, go directly to the head-and-shoulders portrait, describednext.

◆ Head-and-shoulders. This isthe most common portrait framing(see Figure 6.2). It allows you toconcentrate lighting on the face,but enough of the subject’s clothingappears in the shot to allow theoutfit to contribute to the overallcharacter of the image (formal,casual, festive, and so forth).

◆ Face close-ups. Regardless ofthe framing of the image, in a por-trait, the focus is almost always onthe face. Most of the referencesyou’ll find on portrait lighting con-centrate on lighting the human faceitself (the “mask”), plus neck, hair,and any accessories such as ear-rings or necklaces. That’s becausethe face is the most importantaspect of any portrait. In this chap-ter, I’m going to deal primarily withlighting the face for close-ups orhead-and-shoulders portraits.

Figure 6.1 A “full-length” portrait canbe taken with your subject in a seatedposition.

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Lighting techniques are called byvarious names. You may see ref-erences to “loop lighting,” which,in its various forms, encompassesseveral lighting techniques, suchas the “short lighting” and“broad lighting” techniquesdescribed in the sections that follow. With loop lighting, theintent is to create a shadow from the nose that points downtowards the corner of the mouth,without actually touching the cor-ner of the mouth. This shadowmay be more or less distinct,depending on the hardness orsoftness of the light.

Other lighting effects may becalled “side lighting,” “profilelighting,” or “rim lighting.” Thenames used aren’t as importantas what each kind of light does.The actual results you’ll getdepend on the position of thesubject, the position of the cam-era, and the position of the lightsthemselves. You’ll find that thesethree are all related, in the follow-ing ways:

◆ Position of the subject. Thesubject will be in front of the cam-era, of course, but will either havehis or her face pointed directly atthe lens or, as is most common and

usually preferable, be pointinghis/her nose to one side of thecamera or the other. This anglingof the face can be slight; the sub-ject can be turned 90 degrees fromthe camera and photographed inprofile, or have his/her back to thecamera and be looking away, seenin profile, or looking over the shoul-der at the camera.

◆ Position of the camera. Thecamera is most often placed at eyelevel to the subject, but there aresome compositions and facial typesthat work better with the cameraraised slightly. (It should go withoutsaying that subjects with bald orthinning hair probably won’t looktheir best with the camera ele-vated. The camera can also belowered below eye level in specialcases, but this perspective usuallydoesn’t work, because a low angleemphasizes the underside of thechin and the subject’s nostrils. Ofcourse, if the subject isn’t seatedstaidly on a stool, and is assuminga more casual pose (reclining, forexample), all bets are off on thecamera position.

◆ Position of the lights. For mostlighting setups, the lights are posi-tioned at subject level or higher, inan imaginary ring around the sub-ject that includes the camera, bothsides, and back. Lights positionedmuch lower than eye level result in“monster” lighting that is used onlyfor special or dramatic effects.

Figure 6.2 The head-and-shoulders shot is the most common portrait framing.


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Split LightingSplit lighting is a technique thatemphasizes just one side of theface. With split lighting, the sub-ject is, more or less, facing thecamera with the main lightplaced 90 degrees to one side ofthe lens axis. You can use only asingle light, or you can add areflector or fill light to partiallyilluminate the shadows. The main(or only) light source can be softand diffuse, or hard; each modeprovides different effects.

You can achieve dramatic splitlighting simply by lighting half thesubject’s face, from either side,leaving the other half in completeor near-complete shadow, asshown in Figure 6.3. You can usethe technique for “half-face”effects like the Fab Four on themuch copied/parodied cover ofMeet the Beatles/With theBeatles. It also works very wellwith subjects who are wearing ahat. The drama comes from theshadows cast on the illuminatedside of the face, which empha-size the texture of the subject’sfeatures.

HOW IT’S LITThis image was lit with a main light, placed to the right ofthe subject, and a little behind her, as shown in Figure 6.4. I

added a background light to accentuate the hair.

Figure 6.4

Figure 6.3 Split lighting shows justone side of the face, which can beuseful even if your subject is not theHunchback of Notre Dame.


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If your subject has a less-than-perfect complexion, you’ll wantto use soft lighting, with yoursource bounced off an umbrellaor through a soft box. The side ofthe face that you choose to illumi-nate may not matter, or you maydiscover that your subject has a“better” side and you can hidereal or imagined facial imperfec-tions by featuring the oppositeside.

Position your lights as follows:

◆ Main light. You may want toplace the main light slightly behindthe subject to minimize the amountof light that spills over onto theshadowed side. Note that a sub-ject with long hair that covers thecheeks may have most of the faceobscured or in shadow when sidelit in this way. Either comb the hairback or go for a mysterious look.

◆ Fill light. The amount of fill lightdetermines how dramatic this effectis. Use none at all to create a starklook, or gradually increase theamount of fill to soften the effect.You can use a reflector to bounce alittle illumination from the main

light into the shadows, or, if youhave lights with adjustable output,crank them down to a very lowlevel. Use none at all to create astark look, or gradually increasethe amount of fill to soften theeffect, as was done for Figure 6.5.

◆ Background light. Skip thebackground light altogether for the most stark, dramatic look. Or, point this light directly onto aplain background. The image willhave slightly less drama, but willstill be more distinctive than a traditionally-lit portrait. For myexample illustration, I turned thebackground light around and usedit as a backlight to create an inter-esting effect.

◆ Hair light. If you eschew a back-ground light entirely, you mightwant to use a hair light to providesome separation between your sub-ject and the background, espe-cially with a dark-haired individualwhose head will otherwise blend inwith the surroundings. The hairlight should always be on the sameside as the main light, but placedcloser to the background and feath-ered so it just brushes over the hair,with no light spilling onto the faceto spoil the main light’s effects.

Figure 6.5 Some gentle fill light will soften the effects of split lighting.


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Side/Profile LightingProfile lighting is another dra-matic lighting technique that isvery similar to split lighting whenit comes to implementation: A sin-gle light is placed off to the rightor left. However, the subject isphotographed looking directlyinto that light, so that the edge ofthe face receives the most light,while the side facing the camera

is in partial or complete shadow,as shown in Figure 6.6. As withsplit lighting, you can achieve thiseffect using only a single light, oryou can add a reflector or filllight to brighten the shadows. Themain light can be hard when youwant to emphasize the facial tex-ture (usually when photographingmen or older adults who are

proud/comfortable with theircharacter lines), or use softerlighting for a more flattering orromantic look.

Choose your subjects for profilelighting carefully. Someone witha huge nose may not want to callattention to that feature, althoughfor some, the “schnozz” canfamously become a trademark.

Usually, the side of the faceselected won’t matter, but somefolks do have a better side thatyou can choose to highlightinstead of the other. Ask the sub-ject to turn very slightly towardsthe camera, which will allowmore of the pupil to show.Position your lights as follows:

◆ Main light. Although the mainlight will always be approximatelyat eye level or slightly higher, off toone side, where you position thissource can change the look of theimage dramatically. With the lightat a 90-degree angle from thecamera axis, there will be lots oflight spilling over onto the side ofthe face closest to the lens, produc-ing a less distinctive portrait thathas less emphasis on the texture ofthe subject’s face. It’s more com-mon to position the main light at a45-degree angle from the side ofthe face that’s farthest from thecamera. The effect changes fromstrict side lighting to a rim oralmost backlit effect, putting moreof the near side of the face inshadow. One thing you usuallywant to avoid is having some light

HOW IT’S LITA single light, off to the right, was the only source used forthe setup shown in Figure 6.7.

Figure 6.7

Figure 6.6 Have the subject face themain light, which is placed to oneside, to achieve profile lighting.


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spill onto your subject’s ears, mak-ing them pop out of the shadows. Ifyour subject has long hair, the earscan be tucked behind a strand ortwo.

◆ Fill light. Depending on whereyou place the main light, fill maybe needed to illuminate the shad-ows. No fill, coupled with adirect/harsh light source creates a

stark look. More fill and a softerlight generates a more romanticlook. As with most lighting setups,you can use a reflector to fill in theshadows, or adjust the output ofthe source you are using as a filllight. For Figure 6.8, I positioned areflector used as fill under thebride’s chin to balance the mainlight coming from the upper right.

◆ Background light. As with splitlighting, you can skip the back-ground light entirely to create themost dramatic effect. This may bea good idea if you don’t have anattractive background. I once shota profile image with a kitchen sinkin the background; it didn’t receiveany illumination, so the back-ground was black and the sinkinvisible.

◆ Hair light. Unless the main lightis elevated slightly, the top of thesubject’s head may have no illumi-nation at all. A hair light, placedon the same side as the main lightand slightly closer to the back-ground, can separate the top of thehead from the background. Watchto make sure the hair light doesn’tspill over onto the shadow side ofyour profile.

BacklightingWith a backlit photo, such asFigure 6.3, much of the illumina-tion comes from behind the sub-ject and doesn’t really light thesubject as much as it defines itsedges. Use additional fill light toprovide for detail in the subject’sfront. You can use the back-ground light for backlighting, andput your main and fill lights towork in a subordinate role byreducing their intensity. Or, youcan use the main light as thebacklight, (place it below orabove the camera’s field ofview), and fill in the shadowswith your fill light.

Figure 6.8Profile lightingcan beaugmented withfill light increative ways.


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45-Degree LightingMost portraits are taken with thesubject’s head turned slightlyaway from the camera. As you’lllearn from later sections, thatapproach gives you the most flex-ibility in using creative lightingtechniques, and in emphasizingor de-emphasizing your subject’sfacial features. But, there are situ-ations in which your subject willend up looking directly towardsthe camera. Yearbook photos,head shots used on businesscards or web pages, and othergeneric facial images are oftentaken full face. If that’s your endproduct, you may find that a sim-ple 45-degree lighting setup isyour best bet.

Of course, there’s no rule thatsays your subject has to face thecamera, shoulders squared, as iffor a mug shot, as in Figure 6.9.It’s often a good idea to have theindividual swivel his or her bodyat an angle to the camera, andthen turn to look at the lens. Your45-degree lighting can then be

applied to provide flattering illu-mination for the face, when com-pared to the flat lighting you’dget if the light were coming fromthe camera position. This tech-nique is a good “beginner”arrangement that you can usebefore advancing to more sophis-ticated lighting setups describedin this chapter. Position yourlights as follows:

◆ Main light. This is a no brainer.Your subject is facing the camera,and the main light is placed at a45-degree angle from the subject’snose, which will be the lens axis ifthe subject is looking directly at thecamera, as shown in Figure 6.10.The main light should be placedslightly higher than eye level(remember, low lighting angles pro-duce “monster” lighting). The light-ing angle produces shadows onthe face that provide shape andtexture to the features. The effectsyou get should be satisfactory formost portraits; if you want to con-trol the look and feel of these shad-ows, you’ll use one of the moreadvanced setups described later.The important thing to remember is

Figure 6.9 You’ll find that 45-degree lighting is one of the easiest setups towork with.


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that the 45-degree angle refers tothe subject’s face, not the camera.If the subject turns away from thecamera, even slightly, then you’llhave to move the light to maintainthe 45-degree relationship.

◆ Fill light. As with the other light-ing setups described so far, if youskip the fill light, the shadows willbe relatively dark, and the imagemore dramatic. Usually, however,you’ll want to brighten up the shad-ows with a fill light or reflectorplaced approximately at the

camera position, and on the oppo-site side of the camera from themain light. If you happen to beusing a longer lens—longer than105mm on a full-frame camera, or its 70-75mm equivalent on acamera with a sensor smaller than24 × 36mm (i.e., most digitalSLRs—place the fill light closer thanthe camera position to maintain theproper soft, diffuse quality youwant from fill. Remember, the far-ther you move a light back, theharsher it becomes.

◆ Background light. It’s often agood idea to have a backgroundlight to provide separationbetween your subject and the back-ground. Most often, this light isplaced low and behind the subject,pointing towards the backgroundto provide a circle of light thatfades off towards the corners. Thatgives you an automatic vignettingeffect that draws attention to thesubject’s face. In Figure 6.12, Iused a background light tobrighten the area behind themodel, to add some atmosphere tothis location—not studio—shot.

◆ Hair light. If you want to use ahair light, it should be positionedbehind the subject at about 90degrees from the main light (whichwould put it at a 45-degree anglefrom the back of the subject’shead). The hair light should bequite a bit higher than the mainlight, and angled down so it illumi-nates the back of the head withoutspilling over onto the face.

HOW IT’S LITAs you can see in Figure 6.11, 45-degree lighting involvesnothing more than placing main light at a 45-degree angle

from the direction the model is looking. Use a fill light, if you like, tobrighten shadows, and add hair or background lights using my recommen-dations in Chapter 5.

Figure 6.11

Figure 6.10 Just place the main lightat a 45-degree angle to the subject’snose.

Figure 6.12 Augment 45-degreelighting with some subtle backgroundlighting to create separation betweenthe subject and her surroundings.


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Short LightingShort lighting and broad lighting(discussed next) are moreadvanced versions of the 45-degree lighting discussed in thelast section. Together, they aresometimes referred to as “three-quarter lighting,” because in bothcases the face is turned to oneside so that three-quarters of theface is turned toward the camera,and one-quarter of the face isturned away from the camera.

Short lighting, also called narrowlighting, is produced when themain light illuminates the side ofthe face turned away from thecamera. You’ll find that most peo-ple prefer short lighting for theirportraits, as it is the most flatter-ing style for everyone exceptthose who have very thin faces.You can see in Figure 6.13 thatthe face of my “model” appearsthinner than it does in bothFigures 6.10 (a head-on shot)and Figure 6.16 (which usesbroad lighting).

It’s easy to set up short lighting,as you can see in Figure 6.14.With the subject facing 45degrees away from the cameraaxis, place the main light behindthe subject at a 90-degree anglefrom that (or a 135-degree anglefrom the camera axis), and

slightly above eye level, andhave the subject angle his or herhead so it is turned slightlytowards the light. The side far-thest from the camera will be fullyilluminated, and the side closestto the camera will be in full or

partial shadow (depending onhow much fill you use).

This technique is used with men,women, and children, and isexcellent for highlighting thosewith average oval-shaped faces,or those with broader faces.

HOW IT’S LITFigure 6.14 shows how I placed a main light to the right ofthe subject, and slightly behind her, with a fill light next to

the camera. The fill was adjusted in brightness to produce the differentratios. This setup is called short lighting.

Figure 6.14

Figure 6.13 Short lighting has theeffect of making a face appearnarrower.


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Because three-quarters of the faceis in some degree of shadow andonly the “short” portion is illumi-nated, this type of lighting tendsto emphasize facial contours andnarrow faces that are too wide—especially compared to shots inwhich a round-faced subject islooking directly into the camera.Short lighting tends to make faceslook narrower because the “fat”side of the face is shadowed.Although I wanted a full face shotof the model in Figure 6.15, Ihad her turn her head slightly tomy right so I could use a modi-fied short lighting to make herface seem just a tad narrower.

To further slim round faces, ele-vate the camera slightly, whichde-emphasizes the chin andlower portion of the face, whereplumpness is most obvious. (Usecaution when raising the camerawith subjects who have baldheads or thinning hair.)

◆ Main light. Place the main light135 degrees from the camera axis,with your subject facing about 45degrees from the camera. Use aharder light to emphasize texture

with male subjects, and a softerlight to flatter teenagers and femalesubjects. The main light should beplaced slightly higher than eyelevel.

◆ Fill light. The fill light illuminatesthe shadows. Because the goal ofshort lighting is to de-emphasizethe side of the face closest to thecamera, use less fill light for mostteen and female subjects, and evenless with men.

◆ Background light. If you’reusing short lighting to de-emphasizethe shape of a wide face, keep thebackground lighting somewhat sub-dued. Indeed, the background andshadow side of the face should beof similar tone so they will blendtogether. The illuminated portion ofthe face will automatically haveseparation from a darker back-ground, but it’s okay to brightenthis portion of the background toreduce that contrast if you want.

◆ Hair light. If you want to use ahair light, it should be positionedbehind the subject at about 90degrees from the main light. Thehair light should be quite a bithigher than the main light, andangled down so it illuminates theback of the head without spillingover onto the face.

Figure 6.15 Turn the subject’s head slightly to one side and illuminatethat side to add a bit of the short lighting effect to a full-face portrait.


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Broad LightingIn many ways, broad lighting, theother three-quarter lighting tech-nique, is the opposite of shortlighting. The main light illumi-nates the side of the face turnedtoward the camera. Because mostof the face is flooded with softlight (assuming you’re using anumbrella or other diffuse lightsource, as you should), it de-emphasizes facial textures(teenagers may love this effect)and widens narrow or thin faces.

Broad lighting illuminates thelarger portion of the face visibleto the camera, as you can see inFigure 6.16. The area of the facethat is highlighted is now largerthan the area in shadow.Because of this, the face looksslightly larger and fatter, whichthose with thin faces may prefer.However, broad lighting can beused by those with wider faces ifthey have long hair that coversthe side of the face closest to thecamera.

To set up broad lighting, simplyplace the lights the opposite ofhow you would for short lighting.The subject will turn 45 degreesfrom the camera axis, and themain light will be located at a

45-degree angle on the oppositeside of the camera. Have yoursubject turn his or her head away from the main light, toexpose more of the illuminatedarea to the lens. Don’t have a

short-haired subject turn too farfrom the main light, or the earwill be illuminated sharplyagainst a darker background.

HOW IT’S LITFor broad lighting, position the main light as shown in Figure6.17 to illuminate the part of the face closest to the camera.

Fill light, if used, needs to be positioned on the opposite side, and slightlybehind the subject.

Figure 6.17

Figure 6.16 Broad lightingconcentrates the main light on theside of the face closest to the camera.


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Position your lights like this:

◆ Main light. Place the main light45 degrees from the camera axis,with your subject facing about 45degrees from the camera in theother direction. A softer lightsource is generally best, particu-larly for female subjects and teens.The main light should be placedslightly higher than eye level.

◆ Fill light. Use the fill light to illumi-nate the shadows on the side of theface away from the camera. Crankdown the power of the fill lightwhen shooting masculine subjects.

Figure 6.18 A small dose of background illumination can be helpful when usingbroad lighting.

◆ Background light. Unlike shortlighting, it’s okay to have a slightlystronger background light, to differ-entiate the darker side of the facethat’s away from the camera, as inFigure 6.18. As with short lighting,the illuminated portion of the facewill automatically have separationfrom a darker background, but it’sokay to darken this portion of thebackground to increase that con-trast if you want.

◆ Hair light. If you want to use ahair light, it should be positionedbehind the subject at the sideopposite the main light. As always,the hair light should be quite a bithigher than the main light, andangled down so it illuminates theback of the head without spillingover onto the face.


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Butterfly LightingButterfly lighting, also calledParamount Lighting after theHollywood studio that popular-ized the technique, was one ofthe original “glamour” lightingeffects. The main light is placeddirectly in front of the face aboveeye level and casts a shadowunderneath the nose. This is agreat lighting technique to use forwomen, because it accentuatesthe eyes and eyelashes, andemphasizes any hollowness inthe cheeks, sometimes givingyour model attractive cheekboneswhere none exist. Butterfly light-ing de-emphasizes lines aroundthe eyes, any wrinkles in the fore-head, and unflattering shadowsaround the mouth. Women lovethis technique, for obvious rea-sons. Butterfly lighting also tendsto emphasize the ears, making ita bad choice for men andwomen whose hairstyle featurespulling the hair back and behindthe ears. It’s a great technique forthose with normal, oval faces.

Butterfly lighting creates the effectshown in Figure 6.19. Just placethe main light directly in front ofthe subject’s face, and raise ithigh enough above eye level toproduce a shadow under, and inline with, the nose of the subject.

Don’t raise the light so high theshadow extends down to his orher mouth. The exact position willvary from person to person. If asubject has a short nose, raisethe light to lengthen the shadowand increase the apparent length

of the nose. If your victim has along nose, or is smiling broadly(which reduces the distancebetween the bottom of the noseand the upper lip), lower the lightto shorten the shadow.

HOW IT’S LITFor glamorous butterfly or “Paramount” lighting, position themain light directly in front of your subject, as shown in Figure

6.20, and raise it high until a shadow forms under the nose. A fill light atroughly the same position, but located at camera or eye level, can be usedto brighten the shadows. Hair lights or background lights can be added.

Figure 6.20

Figure 6.19


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You can use a fill light if youwant, also placed close to thecamera, but lower than the mainlight, and set at a much lowerintensity, to reduce the inkiness ofthe shadows. Notice that the earsaren’t a problem with this por-trait, because they are hiddenbehind the model’s hair. Positionyour lights like this:

◆ Main light. Place the main lightdirectly in front of the subject’sface, raised high above the cam-era. I like to use a large soft boxelevated above my head level, andpositioned in the direction themodel is looking (which can bedirectly at the camera, so you endup with the light above the cameraitself). Be careful to avoid havingthe eyes in shadow, which is easyto do if you’ve placed the mainlight too high. A softer light sourceis generally best for this glamourlighting technique, as you can seein Figure 6.21.

◆ Fill light. Use the fill light, ifneeded, to illuminate the shadowson the face. Locate the fill some-what lower than the main light(usually directly under it, at eyelevel), but with a lower intensity.The fill illumination should be dif-fuse, too. Some photographers usea reflector instead of a fill light,often placing the reflector underthe face to brighten the shadowsunder the chin.

◆ Background light. You’ll find alot of the light from the elevatedmain light may spill over onto thebackground, making a backgroundlight unnecessary. Consider using alight with dark-haired subjects toprovide the necessary separationbetween subject and the back-ground.

◆ Hair light. If you want to use ahair light, it should be positionedbehind the subject at the sideopposite the main light. As always,the hair light should be quite a bithigher than the main light, andangled down so it illuminates theback of the head without spillingover onto the face.

Figure 6.21 A single light in a soft box raised high above the model’s head wasthe only illumination needed for this glamour portrait.


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Rembrandt LightingRembrandt lighting is another flat-tering lighting technique that isbetter for men. It’s a combinationof short lighting (which you’llrecall is good for men) and but-terfly lighting (which you’ll recallis glamorous, and therefore goodfor ugly men). The main light isplaced high and favoring theside of the face turned away fromthe camera. The side of the faceturned towards the camera willbe partially in shadow, typicallywith a roughly triangular high-light shaped like an invertedpyramid under the eye on theside of the face that is closest tothe camera, as you can see inFigure 6.22.

To achieve the Rembrandt lightingeffect, place the light facing theside of the face turned away fromthe camera, just as you did withshort lighting, but move the lightup above eye level. If you dothis, the side of the face closest tothe camera will be in shadow.

HOW IT’S LITFor the Rembrandt lighting effect, I positioned the main lightas if for short lighting, then raised it up high until the triangu-

lar highlight appeared on the cheek, as you can see in Figure 6.23. Youmay need to move the main light until the highlight has the proper shape—it should not extend down past the nose and touch the mouth. Some prefera smaller and less distinct triangle highlight, but I made it big and sharp soyou wouldn’t miss it. A small amount of fill light was used, with the sourcepositioned to the left of the camera.

Figure 6.23

Figure 6.22 The hallmark ofRembrandt lighting is the triangular-shaped highlight on the cheek that’sclosest to the camera.


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Move the light a little moretowards the camera to reduce theamount of shadow, and producea more blended, subtle triangleeffect. Both eyes should be welllit, except when you want tobreak the rules, as was done inFigure 6.24. But most of the timeyou'll want to avoid having thetriangular highlight reachingdown past the nose and touchingthe mouth. Eliminate or reducethe strength of the fill light for adramatic effect, or soften theshadows further with fill light.

As with short lighting, Rembrandtlighting is excellent for subjectswho have scars or blemishes ontheir faces, because the shadowson the near side of the face de-emphasize any such defects. It’sconsidered more dramatic thanstandard short lighting, and somay be excellent for characterstudies.

Position your lights like this:

◆ Main light. Place the main lightabout 45 degrees from the cam-era/subject axis. Raise or lowerthe main light until the catch lightsin the subject’s eyes are clearly visi-ble at either the 1 o’clock or 11o’clock positions, depending onwhich side of the subject the mainline resides. That will prevent hav-ing the eyes in shadow, which canhappen if the main light is toohigh. A softer light source is gener-ally best for this lighting technique.

◆ Fill light. Use fill light cautiouslyto brighten shadows, but avoidoveruse, as Rembrandt lighting isintended to be dramatic. You don’twant to wash out that triangle oflight on the cheek.

◆ Background light. If you thinklike Rembrandt, you’ll minimize useof background light, because youdon’t want a lot of detail. Thebackground light should be murky,at best, to retain the Old Masterslook.

◆ Hair light. A hair light can beused behind the subject on theopposite side from the main light.Rake the light across the top of thehead until it just spills over on theface, then retreat a little.

Figure 6.24 It’s okay to break the rules sometimes. This “near” Rembrandtrendition includes a triangular shadow that extends down to the mouth, and theeyes aren't fully lit, but the effect is dramatic.

W e’d all love to get sports and action photos like the “bigguns” at Sports Illustrated and other publications. There’sno reason why you can’t get memorable pictures, even

though the pro sports photographers have some significant advan-tages—access, equipment, experience, talent, and, in some cases,lighting tools. What we have going for us is persistence. For an ama-teur, the key to shooting great action pictures is to make the best ofwhat you’ve got, and that includes working with the light that is avail-able, rather than succumbing to its limitations.

Pros have access: They are provided choice locations next to thedugout, along the sidelines, or near the basket at professional sporting

events. They may have better equipment: You can’t beat a 600mm f/4lens for isolating an athlete by throwing the background completelyout of focus, and an 11 frames-per-second shooting rate has someadvantages. Certainly, their experience and talent gives the pros a legup, and, from a lighting perspective, the value of mounting powerfulradio-controlled strobes from the rafters at an indoor event can’t beargued.

So, for amateur photographers, photographing action may be moreof a challenge. But isn’t that what makes photography fun? This chap-ter will show you how to use the lighting you have at action-filledevents to capture compelling photos.

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Indoor LightingIndoor lighting for action usuallymeans working in gymnasiums,indoor swimming pools, and simi-lar sports-oriented venues. Thatalmost always involves shootingby available light, too. While proarenas allow pro photographersto mount remote-controlled elec-tronic flash units pretty muchwherever the shooter pleases,from the NCAA down to elemen-tary school basketball, strobe isfrowned upon or prohibited. Thatdoesn’t mean that plenty of par-ents won’t be firing away withtheir point-and-shoot camerasand flash. They will. But you, asan avid photographer, probablywill want to take more than thehalf-dozen shots the average par-ent shoots, and that’s where theline is usually drawn. Plan onusing available light for most ofyour indoor sports photography.

That’s not necessarily a badthing. Many venues are well illu-minated (although, admittedly,there are some older facilities thatare lit like a dungeon). Couplerelatively high levels of light with

the improved high-ISO perform-ance of the latest cameras, andyou can safely shoot action athigh shutter speeds and reason-able f/stops. A local Division IIIcollege gym where I shoot fre-quently has enough illuminationto allow taking action photos at1/800 second at f/4 with mycamera set on ISO 3200. I findthe color images I can captureare far superior to the newspapersports photos I took many agesago with (ASA/ISO 400) Tri-Xfilm at 1/125th second andf/2.8.

Figure 7.1 shows a typical imagetaken in that gym. There wasenough light from the overheaddaylight fluorescent illuminationfor an action-freezing 1/1,000thsecond shutter speed, but I hadan additional advantage. Both ofthe moving players—as well asthe volleyball—were at the top oftheir arcs and moving relativelyslowly. If either player had beensmashing the ball, or if the ballitself had been just hit, there

Here are some things to keep inmind when working with lightindoors at action events.

◆ A high ceiling is your friend.The higher the ceiling and thehigher the placement of the lightsin a venue, the better. The “inversesquare” law discussed in Chapter4 is the reason. With lights placed40-feet overhead (or higher), a six-foot tall player’s head will receiveabout one-third-f/stop’s worth oflight more than that player’s feet,because the light fall-off is relativelysmall over that distance. But if theceiling lights were mounted only20 feet above the floor (which isn’tgonna happen), the illuminationdifference between that player’shead and feet is a full f/stop,enough to be visible in the photo-graph.

◆ Time of day may make a dif-ference. My favorite gym hashuge frosted windows (which youcan see in Figure 7.2) placed highabove the floor. They complementthe overhead lights, which are fluo-rescents that produce illuminationthat is very close to daylight incolor balance. So, if I have achoice, I prefer Saturday afternoonbasketball games at that site over

Figure 7.1 A brightly lit gymnasiumallowed a high shutter speed for thisvolleyball shot.

would be a lot more blur. Somemotion blur can add interest toaction shots, but too much canrender the photo either useless ornudge it into the realm of theabstract. (While abstract sportsphotos can be cool, too, most ofus want to see at least a fewsharp components in our actionpictures.)

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their weekly Wednesday night con-tests, because the levels of lightand the evenness of the illumina-tion is a little better.

◆ Don’t allow the lights tointrude into the photo. Theceiling and window light sourcescan be distracting. At basketballgames, there is a tendency to wantto sit on the floor behind the basketand shoot upwards at the actionaround the hoop. When I take thatvantage point, I make sure that thestrongest lights are behind thebackboard supports, or otherwisenot shining directly into the cam-era. Or, a photo can be croppedto eliminate the distracting lightsources. While Figure 7.2 shows a

taller player towering over theshooter, the cropped version inFigure 7.3 has, I think, even moreimpact, and focuses attention onthe player with the ball who is, fig-uratively “up against a wall.”

◆ Watch color balance. Takesome time to evaluate the color bal-ance of the indoor illumination.You may have daylight coming inthrough windows, added to over-head lamps of similar (or different)color balance. Or, you might beworking strictly with tungsten or flu-orescent illumination. Getting theright color balance can eliminate alot of correction in your image edi-tor later on.

Figure 7.2 Diffuse window light can provide strong illumination while fillingin the shadows on the playing field.

Figure 7.3If the lightsource appearsin the photo-graph, some-times croppingit out canproduce abetter photo.


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Fast Shutter SpeedsShutter speeds, at least thoseallowed by the lighting you haveat your disposal, can be used toadd or (in some cases) detractfrom the excitement of youraction shot. Today’s camerasallow shutter speeds as fast as1/4,000th to 1/8,000th second,and as slow as an automatedelapsed interval of 30 seconds ormore (using Bulb) exposure. Itwasn’t that long ago that a shut-ter speed range like that wasn’tvery practical. Film cameras pro-duced their best, grain-free resultsat ISO ratings of 125 or lowerand ISO 400 was for many yearsthe upper limit for quality work(unless you wanted to use grainas a creative element). The firstdigital cameras did their bestwork at ISO 80, and untilrecently even the top-end digitalcameras produced excellentresults at settings no higher thanISO 800 or lower. Unless youhad a phenomenal amount oflight available or a very fast lens,

or were willing to “push” yourfilm or “boost” your digital cam-era’s ISO sensitivity, shutterspeeds indoors were usually lim-ited to 1/250th second, and out-doors speeds of more than1/1,000th second were rare.

That was then; this is now. Wehave a much broader range ofshutter speeds to play with. Atone end of the spectrum, thereare fast shutter speeds that freezemotion, capturing an instant of

time that we might not be able tosee at all if it weren’t for the mira-cle of photography. Figure 7.4shows a high jumper at1/2,000th second, taken at theinstant of passing over the bar, a

Figure 7.4A high shutterspeed capturedthis high jumpertopping the bar.

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moment that lasts a fraction of asecond, and which is impossibleto study without a still photographor stop-motion video to evaluate.

You can find some specific tipsfor choosing an action-stoppingshutter speed in Chapter 2 in the“Shutter Priority” section. Torecap, you’ll need faster shutterspeeds to stop action that’s closerto the camera and/or crossingthe frame, while slower shutterspeeds will suffice for movementthat’s farther from the cameraand/or headed toward or awayfrom the lens.

The speed you’ll need willdepend on whether you want toabsolutely stop the action (as inFigure 7.5) or don’t mind a littlemotion blur. As I’ll explain in thenext section, there are timeswhen you want some blur toenhance the feeling of movementin the photograph. For Figure7.5, I wanted to show themotocross jumper frozen in mid-air to emphasize the breathtaking

Figure 7.5 Freezing the motocross rider in mid-air made this breathtaking instant more compelling.


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moment when he floated free,inches away from the “safety” ofhis bike. I used a 1/2,000th sec-ond shutter speed, which froze allmotion, including the rotation ofthe bike’s wheels. We still know

that this is an action shot, and notsome posed image, because it’sobviously not possible to posesomeone floating 30 feet in theair. The trickiest part of this shotwas choosing an angle where the

daredevil was illuminated (andnot in shadow) so I could bal-ance the exposure between therider and the clouds that formedthe backdrop.

You can decide whether a fastshutter speed will help or hurtyour image by considering thesefactors:

◆ Will the viewer know it’s anaction shot? You don’t want yourpicture to be mistaken for a posedshot, so look for other clues thatwill show that a sharp image is atrue action image. While a person“floating in mid-air” as in Figure7.5 is a good bet, the tip-offs neednot be so blatant. We instantlyknow that Figure 7.6 was taken asthe sport watercraft was skimmingalong the surface of a lakebecause the bow is raised, and aspray of turbulent water trails it.

◆ Does freezing the momentheighten the tension? A gri-mace on the face of a player, anawkward posture as a catcherthrusts an arm in to tag a runnerout (see Figure 7.7), or other com-positional elements can producethe kind of tension that adds to theexcitement of a photo. Merelyfreezing a random moment in timemay add nothing to the picture.

◆ Will the fast shutter speedforce you (or enable you) touse the right f/stop for thepicture? I love to shoot certainsports (particularly track) with atelephoto lens wide open at f/2.8.The large f/stop helps isolate theFigure 7.6 We know this is an action shot because of the raised bow and plume of water behind the sport craft.

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athlete, while throwing the distract-ing background out of focus. (SeeFigure 2.5 in Chapter 2 for anexample.) A fast shutter speedmakes that wide aperture possible,while serving to counter camerashake and minimize blur from sub-ject movement. On the other hand,if you’re using a fast shutter speedto stop action under less than opti-mal lighting, you may be forced touse an aperture that doesn’t pro-vide sufficient depth-of-field.

◆ Do you want to use flash?Electronic flash has its place insports photography, if only as fill-inwhen shooting outdoors. If youreally need to use flash, you mayfind that the shutter speeds you canuse are limited. Most cameras syn-chronize with flash at 1/250th sec-ond or slower, while a few allowusing speeds as fast as 1/500thssecond. That limitation can reduceyour flexibility when using flash forfill. If the flash happens to be yourmain source of illumination, theduration of its burst provides theeffective (“real”) shutter speed, butthen when ambient (existing) lightlevels are high, you have to worryabout the “ghosting” problemsdescribed in Chapter 4.

Figure 7.7 Freezing a moment can heighten the tension of an action shot.


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Slow Shutter SpeedsAs you must know by now, freez-ing movement in its tracks is notthe only way to capture an actionphoto. So, you need not be dis-tressed when the amount of lightavailable limits the shutter speedyou can use. Indeed, some typesof action images benefit fromusing a slower shutter speed,even if the illumination levelsallow a faster setting.

As I noted in Chapter 2, somesubjects almost demand a lowershutter speed. A motocross bikerleaning into a curve as he roundsa turn shouldn’t be frozen in time.If you don’t have at least a littleblur in the wheels of the bike, itwill look like the rider is station-ary and parked, albeit at an oddangle. Although you might find aphoto of a helicopter in mid-airwith its rotors stopped interesting,others will probably look at yourpicture and wonder if the chop-per crashed a few seconds afterit was taken.

Figure 7.8 The slight amount of blur in this action shot adds a gritty feeling, but otherwise isn’t an essential part of theimage.

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While slower shutter speeds maynot be mandatory for someimages, they may not detractfrom the picture, either. ForFigure 7.8, I was forced by dimillumination and ISO setting con-straints to shoot this football

action photo at 1/500th second.There’s a slight amount of blur vis-ible, particularly in the ball car-rier’s hands. While the blurringdidn’t necessarily improve thisparticular picture, it didn’t harmthe effect, either.

Slow shutter speeds can enhancethe feeling of motion when youuse a technique called panning.For the image in Figure 7.9, Isupported my camera with amonopod, which I planted firmlyin the ground a few feet from the

track where a distance runnerwould be racing past. I set theshutter speed for 1/4, which hap-pened to produce an exposureproblem: Regular exposure at mylens’s smallest f/stop would have

Figure 7.9 Panning the camera during a 1/4 second exposure blurred an ugly background, but captured a runner in motion.


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been 1/50th second at f/22when using an ISO 100 setting.An ND8 (three stop) neutral den-sity filter would let me shoot at1/8th second, which test shotstold me was “too fast” for theamount of blur I wanted to cre-ate. So, I went ahead and shot at1/4 second at f/22, andaccepted that the picture wouldbe overexposed. I’d fix it up asmuch as I could in my image editor.

I prefocused manually on the por-tion of the track the runner wouldpass over, then swiveled the cam-era to the left to follow her motionas she approached the area infront of me. Smoothly trackingher progress, I released the shut-ter at the right moment and con-tinued the rotation of the cameraon the monopod for the full 1/4

second exposure. (Actually, Itracked her for longer than that.) Iended up with the shot you see,in which the background is seri-ously blurred, and the runner issharp(er). The blurring of her legsand arms really imparts a feelingof motion to this shot.

Not all action takes place in asports venue, of course. Figure7.10 shows a moment at a ballet,captured using the miracle ofmodern camera technology. Icombined a relatively slow shutterspeed with in-camera multipleexposures to simulate a photo-graphic stroboscopic effect, with-out the use of a repeating flashunit. If your camera has multipleexposure capabilities, I urge youto experiment with this effect foryour action photography.

Here’s what you need:

◆ A camera with multipleexposure capabilities. Natch!Set your camera to expose three orfour images simultaneously on thesame frame. Some cameras let youspecify whether each image in thesequence will receive the sameamount of exposure (in which case,overlapping portions may over-power each other), or whether indi-vidual images receive a fractional,proportionate amount of exposure,which allows them to blendsmoothly without overexposing anyportion of the photo.

◆ A subject against a darkbackground. The dark back-ground will allow multiple shots ofyour subject to be shown easilywithout clashing with the objects inthe background. In this case, thedark curtain on the stage was perfect.

◆ A solid tripod. You want thecamera to remain steady duringthe sequence, so the individualexposures are shown in theirproper relationship, while the back-ground remains constant.

◆ A remote release. You’ll needthis to trip the shutter without jig-gling the camera.

◆ Continuous Shooting mode.Depending on how fast the actionmoves, you will want to shoot anywhere from two frames per second to five or more. Your cam-era may be locked into a specificcontinuous shooting speed, such as three frames per second. If youcan adjust the interval betweenframes in the burst, you have extraflexibility.

◆ Good timing. Watch for somemotion you want to capture withyour “strobe.” Trip the release atthe beginning of the motion, as Idid when the dancers began theirmaneuver. (I’m not conversant withballet terminology; I’m sure thismotion has a name.)

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Figure 7.10In-camera multipleexposures at ashutter speed of1/60th second(for each “frame”)produced thisfaux strobeimage.


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Outdoor LightingIf you don’t like the lightingyou’re faced with outdoors, waita few minutes. It may change—for better or for worse. It’s com-mon for lighting to be too brightand contrasty at one moment,

and then a cloud passes in frontof the sun and it’s suddenly toodark and the light is bland andshadow-free. Or, a sunny daycan turn into a torrential down-pour, which may or may not

affect your shooting. Baseballgames are called on account ofrain, football contests are not.

You’ll need to make the best outof any kind of lighting youencounter outdoors. Figure 7.11

was shot on an overcast day fol-lowing a rain shower. The lightwas very dull and low in contrast,although the difference in theplayers’ uniforms (bright whiteversus a very dark blue) made up

Figure 7.11Flat lighting can stillresult in an imagewith contrast if yoursubjects wearcontrasting clothing.

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for the flat lighting. The goodnews was that there was suffi-cient light to allow a high shutterspeed to stop the action as thebase runner made a dive for second base. And, I was still able to use a large enough f/stopto blur the distracting fence in thebackground.

The image shown in Figure 7.12is at the opposite end of the spec-trum, from a lighting standpoint.It was a bright sunny day, andthe football players were bathedwith intense sunlight that castdeep shadows. I had to exposefor the shadows to keep detail inthe face of the running back withthe ball, and allow the brightesthighlights to become overex-posed. Reflectors and fill light areobviously not possible with actionshots of this sort, so you have tocount on the latitude of your cam-era’s sensor to provide enoughdetail in highlights and shadowsto give you a useable shot.

Figure 7.12 In high-contrast lighting, expose for the shadows when details in the darkest portions of the image are important.


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Even with high shutter speeds,you’ll want to choose your anglescarefully to optimize the action-freezing effect (if that’s whatyou’re going for). For Figure7.13, I selected a curve ratherthan a straightaway portion ofthe track for two reasons. Thatangle allowed me to capture therunner going diagonally, partiallytoward the camera rather thanacross the frame, to stop her in amid-step stance that emphasizedthe concentration on her face.The angle also made it possibleto include an out-of-focus trailingrunner in the frame to add a bitof competitive impact.

Aerial action adds one specificchallenge: How do you picturethe sky? The exposure latitude ofmost digital cameras makes it dif-ficult to include fluffy clouds in thesame picture as foreground sub-jects. Expose for the action sub-ject, and the clouds may beoverexposed; expose for theclouds, and the subject may beunderexposed.

There are three ways to over-come this problem. The leastdesirable way is to use manipula-tions in your image editor to bal-ance the clouds and othersubject. It’s easy to fix the photo-graph so much that it’s ruined.The second way is to changeyour shooting angle so that thesun is behind you, or to the siderather than directly in front ofyou. It’s possible to get balancedphotos of clouds/foreground ifyou just change your position. Apolarizing filter can help a littleby darkening the sky—but suchfilters work best only when thesun is 90 degrees from the lensaxis (to your right or left).

The third way is the method Iused for Figure 7.14. I exposedfor the sky (actually, underex-posed it a little) and underex-posed the subject, a poweredparaglider, so it became silhouet-ted against the canopy of clouds.That solution is not always possi-ble for action shots, but in somecases, like this one, it works well.

Figure 7.13 The angle you choose can help to improve the composition of youroutdoor action picture.

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Figure 7.14 To capture clouds realistically, you may need to let your main subject become a silhouette.


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Flash or Existing Light?With certain outdoor action activ-ities, you have a choice whetherthe event is photographed atnight or during the day. Untilrecently, nighttime events weredefinitely the most challenging,because most digital camerasperformed poorly at the high ISOsettings that are called for underlow light conditions. Figure 7.15,which I took at a night baseballgame under tungsten lights, is abit flat and a lot grainier than Iwould have liked. It probablywould have been a great shottaken in the daylight (or underhigher illumination levels, or witha camera that performed betterthan this one did at ISO 800). Asit is, it’s clearly an “also ran.”

When players are hundreds offeet from your camera, existinglight is your only option, ofcourse. But other nighttime sportscan be photographed from closerdistances. I shoot a lot of highschool football, where I am ableto prowl the sidelines. I own ahuge “potato masher” externalflash that attaches to the side of

the camera and provides prodi-gious amounts of light. If I ampatient enough to wait for theaction to run down the sidelineson my half of the field, the flash

provides plenty of light.Moreover, I’ve used this flashwith a camera that synchronizesat 1/500th second, too, so theghost images described in

Chapter 4 aren’t much of a prob-lem. Yet, I rarely use this flash atfootball games anymore, eventhough it served me well back inthe film era.

Figure 7.15 A grain-producing high ISO setting was required to shoot this night baseball game by existing light.

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Why not? I find that the ability toshoot this sport under existinglight gives me a lot more flexibil-ity than I ever had with flash. The“inverse square” law mentionedearlier in this chapter comes intoplay again. The light fall-off asthe distance of the players fromthe camera increases is too great.Typically, a runner doing an endsweep in my direction will pass

within 10 yards or so of my cam-era. But other players will typi-cally be located 20 yards away,and the light falls off by two stopsor more at that distance. It’s diffi-cult to expose a group of playersof any size with flash, as you cansee in Figure 7.16. Indeed, theclosest players are overexposed,while those in the distance areunderexposed.

Of course, when I am using flash,I have to wait for the action tocome within range, which is usu-ally no closer than mid-field, andmore frequently involves action atthe nearest hash mark. So,instead of flash, I gain flexibilitythese days by almost always rely-ing on existing light. As you cansee in Figure 7.17, higher ISOsettings (up to ISO 3200 withvery little visual noise) allow

capturing everyone on the fieldembraced by my aperture’sdepth-of-field, and even the oppo-site sideline is lit well enough toadd some bench atmosphere tothe photo. For outdoors action,flash isn’t really useful anymore,except as fill-in daylight. Indoorsis another matter, assuming youown some radio controlledstrobes and a tall ladder.

Figure 7.16 Light fall-off limits the usefulness of electronic flash for actions. Figure 7.17 Available light is more flexible for outdoors action—assuming yourcamera performs well at sensitivity settings from ISO 1600-3200.

P roviding the proper lighting for macro photography is exactingwork. But, fortunately, many kinds of close-up pictures involveinanimate objects that will remain patiently in front of your

camera for hours while you arrange lighting and choose the perfectangle. This is one type of photography you can use to hone your lighting skills and gain experience in the finer points of illuminatingsubjects. You’ll often have the time to do this, and the results will beworth it.

Of course, other macro photographs picture living creatures that canscarcely be coaxed to remain in the frame long enough for an expo-sure or two, presenting more of a challenge from the lighting stand-point. You may take close-up pictures indoors in a mini-studio of yourdevising, or take your work outdoors and suffer the vagaries of theenvironment. Given the right subject and right lighting, macro photo-graphs can picture the familiar in new ways, or result in images thatare abstract and thought provoking.

Above all, macro photography is convenient. You don’t necessarilyhave to jump into your car or travel by plane to photograph some-thing that’s out of the ordinary. That weird crystal saltshaker youfound at a garage sale might be a perfect subject when you zoom inclose to capture its angles and texture. You can find many close-upsubjects right in your own backyard. And if you do need to travel totake your macro shots, you don’t need a ton of equipment. A camera,sturdy tripod, perhaps a macro lens or close-up attachment, somereflectors, and an off-camera flash are all you need.

In some ways, close-up lighting is a lot like lighting portraits, as dis-cussed earlier in this book. So, I’m not going to repeat all the tips onusing multiple lights, fill lights, and other typical people picture light-ing effects here. Instead, I’ll concentrate on the special requirementsof lighting close-up subjects.

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Lighting ChallengesLighting macro and close-up sub-jects presents a whole new set ofchallenges, whether you’re shoot-ing under semi-controlled lightingconditions in a living room “stu-dio” or outdoors in the wild. I’lladdress some of the best ways todeal with these challenges laterin this chapter, but here’s a sum-mary of some of the factors youmight be up against:

◆ Bad lighting angle. If you wantto use your camera’s built-in flashfor close-up photography of objectsthat are very near the camera (andin most cases, you shouldn’t,except for fill), the internal flash isso high, relative to the position ofyour subject, that it is probablyaimed “over” it and either won’tilluminate the subject at all or willonly partially illuminate it.

◆ Too much light. Built-in flashmay be too powerful for close-upphotos, and you may be unable toreduce power enough to compen-sate for the close distance. Backingoff your light source to reduce lightlevels changes the character of thelight, turning a soft, diffuse sourceof illumination harder and moredirectional as the distanceincreases.

◆ Lighting obstructions. Yourcamera’s lens or the lens hooditself may cast a shadow on thesubject, either from your flash orfrom other illumination you use.

◆ Bad lighting angles. Becauseof the limited working space youmay have, it’s possible that yourlight source may be visible in theframe, or cause glare.

◆ No room to maneuver. Thecamera may be so close to the sub-ject that there isn’t room to light thefront of the subject. Unless you’relooking for a totally backlit effect,the results may not be pleasing.One solution may be to move thecamera farther back and use alonger focal length lens to producethe same magnification, but thatcreates new problems, as I’lldescribe in the next section.

Figure 8.1 is a good example ofthe bad lighting angle syndrome.(The “needle” in the How It’s Litfigure represents the position ofthe subject only; a “bird’s eye”view would render it unrecogniz-able, of course.) I was trying fora backlit approach that would sil-houette the needle while transillu-minating the translucent thread.But with the light behind the sub-ject and just slightly to the left, all I got was a photo with glarein it, which you can see at top. I switched to side lighting and produced a more dynamic andvivid effect, shown at bottom inthe figure.

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Figure 8.1 If you’re not careful, your backlight source can intrude into thephoto, or cause glare (top). Switch to side lighting for better illumination.

HOW IT’S LITAt left, the light was positioned behind the needle, whichcaused glare. By moving the light to the right, a glare-free

exposure was possible. The light is still dramatic, showing the texture ofthe needle and thread.


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Magnification and PerspectiveGet too close to your subject, andyou may not have enough roomto position your lights properly. InFigure 8.2, you’ll see what hap-pens when you don’t have suffi-cient room to manipulate your

lights. The dandelion is so closeto the camera that there was noroom to light up the front prop-erly. Even with lights to the leftand right of the camera, the lensitself cast a shadow. In this case,

I liked the backlit effect. If not, Icould have moved the cameraback and used a longer focallength lens to produce the samemagnification from a greater distance.

But, retaining the same magnifi-cation from a greater distancecauses problems with perspec-tive. In close-up photography, it’snot how close you can get toyour subject, but how large your

Figure 8.2 When shooting extreme close-ups, you may not have room to place light in front of your subject.

HOW IT’S LITThe light was positioned behindthe subject to produce a back-liteffect.


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subject appears in the frame.Take a photograph of a coineight inches away using a normalor wide-angle setting of 50mm(your camera’s “crop factor”doesn’t matter for this example).Now, move the camera back soit’s 16 inches away from thecoin, but change to a 100mmfocal length. You can probablyguess the result: The coin will beexactly the same size in bothimages. Indeed, with a flat sub-ject like a coin, the focal lengthand distance don’t make muchdifference, as long as youachieve the magnification you’relooking for. In fact, the specifica-tions of lenses intended specifi-cally for close-up photographyare described in terms of magnifi-cation: A lens with a 1:1 magnifi-cation ratio produces an imagethat is life size on the sensor; onethat has a ratio of 1:2 creates ahalf life size image; a 2:1 ratiogenerates an image that is twicelife size, and so on.

However, if you’ve shot portraits,in particular, you know that animage that is technically the same

size won’t be the same from aperspective and, consequently,an aesthetic standpoint. A head-and-shoulders portrait taken froma foot away with a wide-anglelens will distort your subject: Earswill appear too small, noses, toolarge. A human face pho-tographed with a short telephotolens (50-85mm, accounting for“crop” factors) looks normal. Aface cropped to the same sizetaken from a distance with a verylong telephoto lens may appearto be too flat.

This distortion of perspectiveapplies to close-up and macrosubjects as well. The effects maybe more subtle and harder to dis-cern, because we aren’t as sensi-tive to the proportions of thetypical macro image as we are topictures of people. The mostimportant types of subjectsaffected by perspective concernsare tabletop setups such as archi-tectural models and model rail-road layouts. Use the rightperspective, and your model maylook like a full-scale subject. Withthe wrong perspective, the modellooks exactly like what it is: a tinymock-up.

Figure 8.3 (top) shows an aloevera plant photographed fromabout two feet away using theequivalent of a 28mm wide-anglelens. For the bottom version, I

moved back to about 5.5 feetand shot at the 80mm zoom set-ting. Note that the magnificationof each image is exactly thesame (at least, in terms of theflowerpot), even though onephoto was taken at a distancethat’s nearly three times as far.The difference in perspective canbe seen by comparing the twoversions. Check out the stool seatthe plant is resting on. At top, thestool seat looks larger and“wider,” whereas at bottom, theseat is more compressed (whichis what telephoto lenses do).When changing focal lengths togive yourself more room to lightyour image, choose the focallength of your lens carefully toprovide the kind of perspectivethat you’re looking for.

Figure 8.3 Although the size of themain subject is the same in bothversions, the perspective of the wide-angle shot (top) is different from theone taken with a telephoto lens(bottom).


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Working with Existing LightLighting for close-ups can makethe difference between a success-ful picture and a so-so effort. Youcan choose from the existing light(modified with reflectors if needbe), electronic flash units (orincandescent illumination such asphotoflood lights), high intensitylamps, or other auxiliary lighting.If you want to be pedantic, youcan also shoot close-ups with lightemitted by the subject itself, so ifyou have some lighted candles orlightning bugs to capture, knockyourself out.

The existing light that already illu-minates your subject may be themost realistic and easy to useoption for close-up photos, aslong as you’re prepared tomanipulate the light a bit toachieve the best effect. That’s par-ticularly true when you’re shoot-ing on location or outdoors.Making the most of the existinglight means not having to set upspecial light sources or possiblylocating a source of electricalpower (not always an option out-doors).

Figure 8.4Natural daylightprovided theperfect illuminationfor this close-up ofa tiny frog.


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Figure 8.4 shows an apparentlyunintimidated frog I corneredunder an overhanging rock at theedge of a pond. The little fellowwas less than an inch long, and Iended up taking his picture witha 200mm lens from a few feetaway, which seemed to be fine

with him. In this case, the skylighton an overcast day providedplenty of illumination with enoughcontrast, and the “fill” light camefrom the light-colored stones onthe bottom of the pond. The natural lighting made a natural-looking picture.

Although Figure 8.5 almost looksas if it could be a studio shot, it,too, was taken outdoors on abright, sunny day. It was just afternoon, and the light was comingfrom directly overhead. I droppeddown flat in my front yard andfocused on this dandelion from

only two inches away with a55mm macro lens. The woodslocated behind the flower provided a suitable dark back-ground for this extreme close-up.Naturally, the camera was lockeddown on a mini-tripod, whichrose only four inches from thelawn.

While the camera was rock-steady, I had to contend withslight breezes that caused theblossom to, at best, quiverslightly, and, at worst, driftentirely out of the frame. You’llfind that reflectors (discussed laterin this chapter) can be your friendin more ways than one. Not onlydo they fill in the shadows, butthey can provide a wind break toshield outdoor subjects.

Figure 8.5 The sun overhead was bright enough to allow an f/22 aperture needed to increase depth-of-field for this shot.


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Working with Electronic FlashThe electronic flash built into yourdigital camera may work fine forquick and dirty pictures, but usu-ally it will provide illuminationthat is too bright, too harsh, andmight not cover your subject com-pletely. This is because built-inflash are typically “aimed” tolight subjects that are at least afew feet away from the camera.It’s more difficult to visualize howelectronic flash illumination willlook in the finished picture. Whileavailable light provides an auto-matic “preview,” with electronicflash, what you get may be atotal surprise. On the plus side,the short duration of electronicflash will freeze any moving sub-ject this side of a hummingbird.

In many cases, electronic flash ismost applicable to macro workindoors, especially if you plan towork with several lights and setthem up on stands. Outdoors,you might be limited to one ortwo battery-operated flash units.But even a single flash can beuseful. You can dial it down toprovide fill-in flash. I like to use

flash when shooting living macrosubjects to add a life-like “catchlight” to the eyes, as you can seeat bottom in Figure 8.6. The col-orful parrot in question was eye-ing me closely but was turned sothat the side of his head was indeep shadow. I popped up myelectronic flash, set it for 1/128thpower, and snapped the bottompicture. You can compare theresults with flash with the sameparrot’s eye photographed a fewminutes earlier with no flash fill(top).

Here are some of your choicesfor electronic flash used for close-up photography:

◆ Built-in flash. This is the flashunit built into your digital camera.You’ll find that in most extremeclose-ups, the light it produces willlook unnatural and may not illumi-nate your subject evenly. You prob-ably can’t aim the built-in flash inany meaningful way, and you mayfind that the lens casts a shadowon your close-up subject. Use it forfill, or to add a catch light, as I didfor Figure 8.6. Figure 8.6 Outdoors, electronic flash filled in the

shadows and added a catch light to the parrot’s eye.


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◆ External flash units. As I men-tioned earlier in this book, manydigital cameras have a connectorfor attaching an external flash unit.These can be inexpensive flashunits, or more elaborate (and morecostly) devices with modelinglights, which are extra incandes-cent lamps that mimic the light thatwill be emitted by the flash.Modeling lights are most usefulindoors, or in dark locales wherethe ambient illumination won’t dis-guise their effect.

◆ Slave flash. These are electronicflash units with light-detecting cir-cuitry that automatically triggerthem when another flash goes off.You can also purchase add-onslave detectors that set off anyflash. Slaves are useful when youwant to use two or more electronicflash units. Keep in mind that youmay need to disable your mainflash’s preflash feature to avoidtripping the slave too early.

◆ Ringlights. These are specializedelectronic flash units made espe-cially for close-up photography.They have circular tubes that fitaround the outside of a cameralens, providing very even lightingfor close-ups. Ringlights are gener-ally a professional tool used bythose who take many close-ups,particularly with interchangeablelens cameras. If you can afford anSLR digital camera, and do enoughclose-up work to justify a ringlight,

they make a great accessory.Models like the terrific Alien Beesmodel (www.alienbees.com) shownin Figure 8.7 are even used forportraits!

When working with flash forclose-up photography, lack oflight will rarely be a problem. In

fact, you may find yourself withtoo much light even at your lens’ssmallest f/stop, and end up witha washed-out picture. Here areseveral possible solutions:

◆ Dial down ISO. If your flash istoo powerful, choose the lowestISO setting your camera offers.

◆ Add a neutral density filter. Aneutral density filter in one-, two-,or three-stop values can reduce theamount of light reaching the sensorand prevent overexposures.

◆ Move back. Step back a littleand use a tighter zoom setting toproduce the same size image,while keeping in mind the potentialperspective problems I mentionedearlier in this chapter. As you movethe flash farther from your subject,it will be less likely to wash out thepicture. If you need yet anotherreminder, remember that electronicflash obeys the inverse-square law:A light source that is 12 inchesaway from your subject producesonly one-quarter as much illumina-tion as it does when it’s six inchesaway.

◆ Fool the meter. If you’re using adedicated flash unit (either yourcamera’s internal flash or a flashdesigned to work with the auto-matic exposure features of yourcamera), use your camera’s expo-sure value (EV) control to deliber-ately “under” expose the picture,thus fooling the flash autoexposuremechanism.

◆ Cover up. Consider coveringyour flash with a layer or two of tis-sue paper or other neutral translu-cent covering. You’ll cut down onthe light, and soften it a bit at thesame time.Figure 8.7 Ringlights provide soft, even lighting.

www.alienbees.com


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Working with Continuous LightingGood old-fashioned incandescentor even fluorescent lights (bothfalling under the umbrella of“continuous lighting”) are usuallyyour best tool for lighting indoorclose-ups of things that don’t hoparound or wiggle. While not asintense as electronic flash, that’snot usually a problem with yourcamera locked down on a tripodand with longer exposures. Manyof the close-up illustrations in thisbook were taken with continuouslighting. The main advantage isthat you see exactly what yourlighting effect will be (indeed, asI noted, studio flash units usuallyhave an incandescent light, too,not for illumination but as a“modeling light”).

Continuous lights are cheap, too,so you can use several to achievethe exact lighting effect you want.The most important thing toremember when using them is toset your white balance manually,or make sure your camera’s auto-matic white balance control isturned on. These lights are muchmore reddish than daylight orelectronic flash.

Any gooseneck high-intensitylamp or table lamp, like the oneshown in Figure 8.8, that youcan twist and turn to adjust itsangle will work great as illumina-tion for close-up pictures. Othertypes of lamps can also be used,but will be less flexible, so tospeak, when it comes to position-ing. High-intensity bulbs may

Figure 8.8 An ordinary desk lamp can be used for close-up photography.


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have too much contrast, espe-cially for shiny objects. You canuse reflectors to soften their light,or investigate adjustable necklamps that can use conventional“soft-white” light bulbs. Watchout for the heat generated byyour incandescent lamps! Theyare a poor choice for photo-graphing ice sculptures or choco-late candies, but a good choicefor illuminating burgers and friesyou want to be toasty warm afterthe shoot is over.

The flower shown in Figure 8.9was photographed with that sin-gle high intensity lamp, placedoff to the left and slightly behindthe blossom to backlight it a little.You can see the lamp itselfreflected in the shiny ceramicvase the flower was nestled in. Ifeathered the light a little—justusing the lamp’s “focused” beamto direct light on the flower itself,rather than on the vase, to pro-vide a high-contrast look in whichonly the flower was brightly lit.

Figure 8.9 A single high-intensity lamp placed off to the left provided all the illumination needed for this shot.


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Once you’ve got the single-lightroutine working, you’ll want toadd lights to give you some flexi-bility. If you’re shooting in a mini-studio, you’ll probably want touse at least two light sources toilluminate your subject from bothsides. Shine the lights directlyonto your subject, or bounce thelight off a reflector like thosedescribed in Chapter 3. Just aswith portrait lighting, you’ll wantto make sure there is some lighton the background to separateyour subject from its surround-ings, unless you’re going for adramatic look, as in Figure 8.9.

As you light your scene, remem-ber that depth-of-field is alwayslimited when taking close-ups, soanything you can do to increasethe amount of light available willmake it possible to shoot at asmaller aperture, which in turnincreases depth-of-field. Figure8.10 shows a close-up of a dan-delion taken with the lens wideopen, while Figure 8.11 is the

Figure 8.10 With the lens wide open, only the closest portion of the dandelion is in focus.


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same shot with the aperturestopped down to increase depth-of-field. (These are the final dan-delion photos of this chapter, Ipromise you; my backyard is a lit-tle sparse when it comes to moreexotic blooms.) To get thatsmaller f/stop, you can increasethe amount of light falling on thesubject, use a slower shutterspeed, add some light, or raisethe ISO. Going the additionallight route can be especially help-ful if you’re shooting without a tri-pod and can’t really lengthen theshutter speed any more.

Watch for glare reflecting offshiny objects. If you’re not usinga tent (discussed at the end of thischapter), you may have toarrange your lights carefully toprevent reflections from ruiningyour shot.

Figure 8.11 If you stop down the lens to a smaller aperture, the depth-of-field increases.


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High- and Low-Contrast Close-upsAlthough high-contrast and low-contrast lighting has been cov-ered multiple times in this book, itmight be helpful to revisit thetopic as it applies to close-up andmacro photography. The qualitiesof soft and hard lighting men-tioned earlier apply equally tothis kind of picture taking, butsome of them take on specialimportance. Here are somethings to consider:

◆ Disguise flaws. Extreme close-ups can reveal tiny flaws that aren’tapparent when examining anobject from ordinary viewing dis-tances. Soft lighting can help dis-guise those defects. The crayonspictured in Figure 8.12 were takenfrom a brand-new box purchasedspecifically for a photographic ses-sion. Yet, even these minty-freshcrayons had multiple chips anddings, and even some ugly dustspots that weren’t readily appar-ent, but which showed up underhigh magnification. So, to hide thedefects, and, as a creative option, Iused low-contrast lighting and awide aperture. The soft light andshallow depth-of-field emphasizedthe color of the crayons, ratherthan their blemishes.

Figure 8.12 This low-contrast image, combined with a wide aperture and shallow depth-of-field, reduces the garishness ofthe colors and de-emphasizes any chips and dings in the crayons.


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◆ Emphasize texture. Later in thesame shooting session, I decided Iwanted to highlight the shiny tex-ture of the crayons. So, I pho-tographed them from aboveilluminated by harsh, direct lightingrather than the soft bounce lightingI’d used earlier, as you can see inFigure 8.13. This lighting gave thecrayons an almost metallic look. Iused a smaller aperture, too, toprovide additional depth-of-field.

Of course, because the crayonswere shot head on (so to speak)rather than at an angle, they wereall more or less in the same planeof focus, anyway.

◆ Desaturate or enrich colors.The soft lighting in Figure 8.12tones down the richness of the col-ors (which is, admittedly, not thateasy to do with a box of such gar-ish colors). This effect is why you

might want to choose your cam-era’s Vivid setting on an overcastday (and why film photographersfavor Kodak Ektachrome or FujifilmVelvia under such conditions). Asyou can see when you compareboth of our crayon images, thedirect light used in Figure 8.13provides much richer colors—with-out touching the camera’s satura-tion controls.

◆ Create a high-key look withhigh contrast. Emphasizingbright tones with few middle tonesand almost no shadows creates adistinctive high-key look, as I firstdescribed in Chapter 1. High keycan be especially effective whenshooting close-up pictures, like the one in Figure 8.14. The high-contrast lighting offers two of theeffects already mentioned in thislist: It emphasizes the texture of thepeppers and enriches the colors.

Figure 8.13 High-contrast lighting, on the other hand, enriches the colors andemphasizes the texture.

Figure 8.14 High-contrast lighting with few middle tones and no shadowsproduces a high-key look that works with some close-up subjects.


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Tent LightingLighting tents are closely relatedto those photographic soft boxesdescribed earlier in this book. Asyou’ll recall, a soft box is a largebox-like affair holding a lightsource and having a large diffus-ing surface on the front to softenthe light. They’re widely used toprovide flattering lighting for por-traits and for product photogra-phy where glare might be aproblem. A tent turns the soft boxconcept inside out: The translu-cent material wraps around thesubject and diffuses the light pen-etrating its sides, producing a softlight that can be used to photo-graph the object inside the tent. Ithink a tent might be more usefulfor some kinds of close-ups,because it almost ensures a glare-free image with no reflections ofthe lights used to illuminate theimage. When photographingwith direct lights, umbrellas, oreven soft boxes, reflections of thelight source on the subject itselfcan be a problem.

For very small objects, you canmake your own tent out of anordinary one-gallon plastic milkcontainer. You’ll want the kindthat is white and translucent.Clean the jug carefully and cut

off the bottom so you can place itover your subject. Enlarge theopening in the top so your cam-era lens will fit through. You canlight the jug from all sides to pro-vide a soft, even lighting, while

photographing the subjectthrough the top.

More versatile commercial tentscome in various sizes and cancost as little as $50. They fold

Figure 8.15 A tent provides soft, shadow free lighting.


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down and set up easily andquickly. You can use the tent asis, or place your own back-ground (seamless or otherwise)inside. A cubical tent like the oneshown in Figure 8.15 offers allkinds of flexibility in terms of useand how you light it. For exam-ple, you can place stronger lightson one side and slightly weakerlights on the other to provide asoft modeling effect. Or hit all thesides with bright lights for flat,low-contrast illumination. Figure8.16 shows a photograph of afigurine made inside a tent. Therewas enough directional quality tothe light so that the raised fea-tures of the knight can still beseen easily. Yet, nearly all theglare that a direct light sourcewould produce has been elimi-nated. You can see how the softlighting has no glare to interferewith viewing the knight’s features,but there is still enough contrastto see the texture of the figurine.

In the version at left, you can seethe background of the tent. If youwant a plain background, youcan use a piece of poster boardto provide a seamless surface. It’s simple to drop out the back-

ground entirely in an image edi-tor, producing the “catalog” shotshown at right.

Tents provide a slit in one sidethat you can shoot through, so

that only the lens of the cameracan possibly reflect off a shinysurface. I like to set the tent apparatus on a tall barstool so I can get close from any angleand move around for the best

perspective. As you might guess,product photographers use tentsextensively, but there are lots ofapplications for other kinds ofclose-up and macro photography.

Figure 8.16 Tent lighting can be directional, yet soft and without glare.

T here are two types of travel and architectural photography.One variety involves the slick, polished pictorial representa-tion of scenes, native populations, and structures, with a

great deal of control exercised over angles, lighting, and, even, con-tent (for example, whether or not people appear in the photos). Thesekinds of travel and architectural photographs end up published inmagazines, from National Geographic to House Beautiful. Most of us don’t aspire to take such pictures and, in fact, probably feel thatsuch photography doesn’t reflect the reality of our own styles andexperiences.

The second type of travel and architectural photography is more per-sonal, and a bit looser. When you’re on a trip to a part of the country

you enjoy, or maybe visiting some foreign land, you want to savor theexperience as well as capture it photographically. Photographingbuildings and structures is a part of travel photography, but also canbe enjoyed close to home for the pleasure to be found in architecturalphotography. Although I frequently travel solo specifically to shootphotos, I still enjoy soaking in the scenery, interacting with the peoplein the places I visit, and studying the interesting architecture.

As a result, like you, I don’t worry about having absolute control overthe lighting in any of these situations. That’s often too much to hopefor, in any case. So, this chapter will deal primarily with ways to opti-mize the lighting that is already present for your travel and architec-ture photos.

Travel and Architecture9


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Choosing the Best Light and Best AngleEvery exterior scene has a “best”angle, the one that provides theoptimum view. However, depend-ing on the time of day, that anglemight not put your subject in itsbest light—both figuratively andliterally. If you can’t choose yourangle, then choose the time ofday that provides the best light-ing. And, if you can’t choose

your lighting, your best bet is tochoose a different angle, even ifit’s not the very best perspective.And, of course, even though thisis a lighting book, I’d be remiss ifI didn’t mention that lens focallength or zoom setting also fac-tors into the best use of light andangle.

Figures 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3 showthe changes possible whenswitching angle and time of day.I arrived at this hilltop castleabout an hour before sunset, withthe sun low in the sky. The per-spective that showed the castle’smost attractive side, as well asthe town below, happened tohave the worst possible light, as

shown in Figure 9.1. The sun wasbehind the castle, and a little offto the right, providing backlight-ing that cast the side facing me inshadows that revealed almostnothing of the structure’s interest-ing texture. Worse, when expos-ing to capture detail in theshadow, the sky was washed out.Although this view was probably

Figure 9.1 Sometimes, the “best” angle has the least attractive lighting. Figure 9.2 Choose a different angle to improve the lighting.

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the best angle to shoot from picto-rially, the light from this stand-point was atrocious.

So, I clambered around to a viewon the other side, with the sunshining directly on the castle fromthe left, as shown in Figure 9.2.Instead of the picturesque town inthe valley, this angle showed anagricultural field that was smokyfrom a burn-off, so I cropped itout. Although this wasn’t the bestpossible view, the lighting wasmuch better, and showed off therough texture of the 15th Centurystructure.

I returned the next day to takeanother shot at photographingthe castle from the “best” angle,producing the image shown inFigure 9.3. The mid-day sun wasa bit harsh, but I was able to cap-ture the most attractive all-aroundview. Sometimes changing anglesand choosing a different time ofday can be your best option.

Figure 9.3 Or, come back at a different time when the lighting is better.


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Monuments and MuseumsDuring your travels, you’ll dis-cover that some of the most inter-esting architecture will be found inmonuments and museums. In somelocations, these will be majorattractions in their own right, adestination where travelers marvelat the grandeur of the structure, orrevel in the richness of the artworkand exhibits. But don’t overlookthe smaller museums and lessimportant monuments, which havea charm of their own.

These subjects frequently offerlighting challenges that awaityour creative interpretation. Hereare some techniques you can use:

◆ Use lighting as a frame. Oneinteresting approach that I like is touse lighting to help frame a build-ing in an interesting way. Figure9.4 shows a cathedral basking infull mid-morning sunlight. It waslocated down the street from anarchway that was only dimly illumi-nated. By composing the photo sothe archway forms a frame, theshadowy area in the foregroundprovides a picturesque setting thatestablishes the medieval environ-ment that surrounds the cathedral.

◆ Capture details. If a structure isunevenly lit or poorly lit, you canstill come away with an interestingphotograph if you zero in onimportant details that tell a story oftheir own. Figure 9.5 shows a pairof lions that guard the aptly-namedPuerta de los Leones outside theToledo Cathedral in Spain. Aftercapturing the shot that resulted inFigure 9.4, I continued to walkaround the cathedral and foundthese stone creatures illuminated bythe mid-morning sunshine. Izoomed in on one of them, andcaptured this detail. Later, on theshady (sombra) side of the cathe-dral, I found some carvings and aknocker on a centuries-old woodendoor. The lighting was too flat toshow the texture, so I used an off-camera flash to cast some shad-ows, as shown in Figure 9.6.

◆ Exploit the available lighting.Uneven lighting isn’t always aproblem. It actually adds a mood,and helps show how the sceneactually looked in real life. Yourgoal shouldn’t be for bland lightingthat masks the character of themonument or building. Learn to usethe light that is actually there.

Figure 9.4 The darker area of the archway provides a frame for the sunlitcathedral.


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◆ Work with a monopod. Insidea museum interior, you’ll want touse a monopod to steady the cam-era so you can take longer expo-sures in the dim lighting withoutresorting to astronomically high(and visual noise-inducing) ISOsensitivity settings. Most museums

and many religious structures (and,indeed, in Europe, especially,you’ll find they are often one andthe same) won’t allow tripods.Many do permit monopods. You’llfind more on shooting interiors inthe next section.

Figure 9.5 A detail can sometimes be more interesting than the full structure. Figure 9.6 The detail on this centuries-old door was revealed with the additionof some direct flash, placed off to one side.


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InteriorsShooting under indoor lighting ispotentially one of the most chal-lenging kinds of architecturalphotography. Unless the interioris huge, your widest wide-anglesetting may not provide enoughof a view, and there certainly isno way you can back off further(although I’ve sometimes resortedto stepping outside and shootingthrough an open window). In addition, the lighting is likely to be problematic, presenting one or more of the followingpredicaments:

◆ Insufficient light. The illumina-tion is so dim you’re forced tomake a long exposure with thecamera mounted on a tripod.

◆ Harsh illumination. Glaringlighting can give an image exces-sive contrast.

◆ Uneven illumination. The lightmay be strong in one area of theinterior and dim in another, makingit difficult to evenly expose theentire image.

◆ Mixed illumination. You mayhave daylight streaming in the win-dows, mixing its blue light with theorangish incandescent illuminationof the room. I’ll address this type ofsituation in the section that followsthis one, because mixed illumina-tion can be present indoors or out.

◆ Off-color illumination. Thelight in the interior may be distrib-uted evenly, diffuse and pleasant—and entirely the wrong color,thanks to fluorescent lighting or,worse, colored illumination. Yourdigital camera’s white-balance con-trols might or might not be able tocorrect for this problem.

Insufficient illumination can some-times be countered by using a tripod-mounted camera and along exposure. If the light isevenly distributed and otherwisepleasing, a longer exposure maydo the trick, as long as your cam-era isn’t subject to excessivenoise during long and time expo-sures (or, if it is, you can correctthe noise in your camera orimage editor). Sometimes using alower ISO setting helps reducenoise, although at the cost ofeven longer exposures. Manypublic buildings don’t allowtripods, but you might be able toget special permission to shoot ata certain time.

Harsh lighting adds contrast,and, indoors when shooting alarge space, as shown in Figure9.7, there is not a lot you can doabout it. The vaulted corridor wasrelatively dimly-lit compared tothe apse that adjoined it, but inthis case, I wanted the ceiling toshow up clearly, so I went aheadand overexposed. That causedsome areas to be unacceptablybright. By cropping tightly at theright side of the photo, I was ableto eliminate the most blatantlyoverexposed parts of the image.That’s crucial, because the eye isinherently drawn to the brightestportion of an image, even if it’snot the most important subject.


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Uneven illumination can be yourenemy or your friend. It can makea particular shot difficult to cap-ture, or can add some extradrama to your image. Uneven(and harsh illumination) can becompensated for by additionallighting, softening existing light,or, perhaps by using reflectors tospread the illumination around.But if you don’t have that option,as in Figure 9.8, you can makethe best of the existing light toproduce a dramatic effect. Theversion at left shows a statue illu-minated by an overhead spot-light, with enough light bouncingaround to partially fill in the shad-ows. At right, the exposure wasreduced by a little more than onef/stop, and the contrast of theresulting underexposed imageincreased to create an imagewith more impact.

Off-color illumination and mixedlighting (discussed in the next sec-tion) can often be partially com-pensated for by setting the rightcolor balance—but only if onelight source predominates. Figure9.9 shows the interior of a formermosque that was primarily lit byvery warm incandescent illumina-tion, with only a little daylightspilling in through small windowsin the walls. By adjusting thewhite balance for the incandes-cent lights, a fairly natural colorbalance results.

Figure 9.7 Fairly dim areas can be captured if you are able to provide enoughexposure, even if that’s at the expense of other portions of the image.


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Figure 9.8 At left, a properly exposed image; at right, slight underexposure and a contrast boost in Photoshop produces a more dramatic version using the existingspotlighting.


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Figure 9.9 If off-color illumination is the predominant light source, you can often compensate for it using your camera’s White Balance controls.


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Mixed IlluminationMixed illumination is createdwhen more than one light sourceprovides the lighting, and the dif-ferent sources are mismatched.This can happen when an interiorlit by incandescent or fluorescentlighting also has some windowlight bathing the scene. The “pro”solution is to use orange coloredgels on the windows themselves,which converts the daylight to theequivalent of a tungsten whitebalance.

I sometimes use mixed illumina-tion as a special effect. It can becarried to extremes by placingcolored filters or gels over lightsources to get, not only warmand cool lighting mixtures, butmixed red/green or other combi-nations. One of my favorite tricksis to set my camera up on a tri-pod at night, and take a longexposure with an electronic flashlighting up the foreground.

The background illuminated bytungsten light ends up with anorange tint that contrasts with thebluer illumination in the foreground.

You can see an example of thistechnique in Figure 9.10, a fish-eye shot that took advantage ofthe camera’s built-in flash, which

couldn’t cover the fish-eye’s view,and instead provided a bluish cir-cle of illumination that added tothe distorted effect.

Figure 9.10 The wide angle of the fish-eye lens caused the camera’s built-in flash to produce a circle of blue light.


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If you encounter mixed illumina-tion and don’t want to use it as aspecial effect, your best bet is tosettle on one source or anotherand stick with that. If you want touse the blue daylight comingthrough a window, you’ll have todim the room’s incandescent illu-mination and, perhaps, substitutesoft, diffuse electronic flash (say,bounced off a piece of whitecardboard, such as the reverseside of a poster you bought in atourist shop). Or, cut the roomlights entirely and use reflectors,as was done for the photographin Figure 9.11.

This room in a converted castletower in Villaba, Spain, hadwalls that were five feet thick. Thelight streaming in from the openwindow was used to illuminatethe whole room, with reflectorsoff to the left behind the camera.I let the furniture and other fore-ground details go dark in orderto preserve the Medieval mood ofthis photograph.

Figure 9.11Solve mixed lightingproblems by eliminatingone of the light sources.In this case, windowillumination was usedinstead of the room’sincandescent lighting.


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Sunsets and SunrisesSunsets and sunrises are popularsubjects because they’re beautiful,colorful, and their images oftenlook as if a lot of thought wentinto them, even if you just pointthe camera and fire away. Somephotographers specialize in them.Although photographically theyare almost identical, sunsets seemto be photographed most often.Perhaps it’s because most of usare awake for sunset, but fewermanage to make it out of bed intime to photograph a sunrise. Ofcourse, for those who don’t likecold weather, but who live inhigher latitudes, for much of theyear it’s a lot warmer at sundownthan at sunrise. Finally, to photo-graph a sunset, you can spendhours looking for just the rightspot and use the waning daylightto decide exactly where to standto capture the sunset as the sundips below the horizon. Dawn, insharp contrast, occurs after areally dark period (night), andyou may have difficulty planning

your shot in the relatively shortinterval just before sunrise.

Sometimes, the look of the twoevents can be quite different. Onone photo shoot, I arrived at ahilltop overlooking the Spanishplain about an hour before sun-set, and took a series of photos,culminating with the one shown

at left in Figure 9.12. I returnedthe next morning to shoot thesame windmill from the oppositeside, an hour after sunrise, whenthe sun was still low on the hori-zon, and the fog and dew of thenew day hadn’t been burned off.Both pictures show the windmillilluminated from the rear, but thelook is very different.

Here are some tips for takingadvantage of the gorgeous light-ing effects you find during sunsets(or sunrises):

◆ If your camera has an automaticwhite balance control that can beoverridden, see if you have aSunset/Sunrise white balance set-ting as well as a Sunset/Sunriseprogrammed exposure mode. Theformer will let you avoid having thedesired warm tones of the sunsetneutralized by the white balancecontrol, and the latter can allowyou to get a correct exposuredespite the backlighting providedby the sun. With sunset photos,you generally want a dark, silhou-ette effect punctuated by the brightorb of the sun.

◆ Don’t stare at the sun, even throughthe viewfinder. I usually composemy sunset photos with the sunslightly out of the frame, thenrecompose just before taking thephoto.

Figure 9.12 Sunset (left) and sunrise (right) can have very different looks.


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◆ Avoid splitting your photo in halfwith the horizon in the middle.Your picture will be more interest-ing if the horizon is about one-thirdup from the bottom (to emphasizethe sky) or one-third down from thetop (to emphasize the foreground).But don’t shy away from breakingthat rule if the image you want tocapture dictates it, as I did forFigure 9.13.

◆ Sunsets don’t have to be composedhorizontally! Vertically orientedshots, like the one shown in Figure

9.14, can be interesting. In thatphoto, I broke several “rules” byusing vertical orientation for a“landscape” photo, and didn’t waituntil the last moment to shoot. Truesunset was actually about 30 min-utes away when the picture wastaken. I deliberately underexposedthe photo to create a sunset image.

◆ Take advantage of the sun’s back-lighting to get some good silhou-ettes, whether the silhouette is atree or a windmill (as in Figure9.12), a church spire, or some

other subject matter. Use your cam-era’s exposure value (EV) compen-sation to reduce exposure by twostops.

◆ If you have a person or otherobject in the near foreground thatyou don’t want in silhouette, try afew shots with your camera’s flashturned on. The mixed lighting effectcan be dramatic.

◆ Plan carefully and work fast. Oncethe sun starts to set, you mighthave only a few minutes to shootyour pictures, so be ready, have

your camera settings locked in,and take many pictures. If someprove to be duds, you can alwayserase them.

◆ Make sure your lens is focused atinfinity. Sunsets can fool the autofo-cus mechanisms of some cameras.Use manual focus if you must.

◆ Exposures can be longer than youmight have expected when the sundips behind the trees or below thehorizon, so have a tripod handy.

Figure 9.13 Never let the horizon divide the frame in half—unless you want to.Rules are made to be broken.

Figure 9.14Here’s anotherbroken rule:shoot verticalsunset “land-scape” shotsand don’t waituntil the sunreaches the horizon.


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Night LightingOnce the sun has gone down,photography becomes more of achallenge, because there is muchless light available to take thephoto, and any supplementarylight you add tends to make theimage look less realistic.Auxiliary light sources, includingelectronic flash, can be used onlyas a last resort, because as soonas you add a light, the sceneimmediately loses its nighttimecharm. Unless you’re looking forthe look of Speed Graphic-totingphotojournalists of the 1950s,flash at night is an imperfect solu-tion.

The goal of most night andevening photography is to repro-duce a scene much as it appearsto the unaided eye, or, alterna-tively, with blur, streaking lights,or other effects added thatenhance the mood or create an

effect. Because night photogra-phy is so challenging technically,you’ll find it an excellent test ofyour skills, and an opportunity tocreate some interesting images.

Your first challenge will be toboost the amount of light thatreaches your sensor. That can beaccomplished using several differ-ent techniques, alone or in combi-nations. For example, you canuse the largest f/stop available toyou. A fast prime lens, with amaximum aperture of f/1.8 tof/1.4, may allow you to shootsome brightly lit night sceneshandheld using reasonably shortshutter speeds. Or, you can resortto the longest exposure time youcan hand-hold. For most people,1/30th second is about thelongest exposure that can beused without a tripod with awide-angle or normal lens focallength. Short telephoto focal

lengths require 1/60th to1/125th second, making themless suitable for night photogra-phy without a tripod. However,lenses with vibration reduction/image stabilization built in canoften be handheld for exposuresof 1/15th second or longer.

If light is exceptionally dim, use atripod, monopod, or other handysupport. Brace your camera or fixit tight and you can take shake-free photos of several seconds to30 seconds or longer. Figure9.15 shows a lakeside phototaken at 10 p.m., and illuminatedsolely by starlight, a glow at thehorizon from a distant city, and(at right) from light spilling intothe scene from an adjacent park-ing lot.

To reduce the length of expo-sures, increase the ISO sensitivity.When you boost the sensor’s sen-sitivity, it magnifies the available

light. Unfortunately, raising theISO setting also magnifies thegrainy visual effect known asnoise. If you’re not in a hurry, useyour camera’s noise-reductionoptions (there are two options:long exposure noise reductionand high ISO noise reduction).

The former tool takes a second,blank frame for the same intervalas your original exposure, andthen subtracts the noise found inthis dark frame from the equiva-lent pixels in your original shot.This step effectively doubles thetime needed to take a picture,meaning you’ll have a 30-secondwait following a 30-second expo-sure before you can take the nextpicture. High ISO noise reductionoften involves algorithms thatremove as much visual noise aspossible. Both options tend tomask detail as they turn noiseinto mush, and should be usedwith caution.


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Figure 9.15 Although it was 10 p.m. on a moonless night, a 30 second exposure revealed this lake-side scene.


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Here are some more suggestions:

◆ Bracket exposures. Preciseexposure at night is tricky evenunder the best circumstances, soit’s difficult to determine the “ideal”exposure. Instead of fretting overthe perfect settings, try bracketing.A photo that’s half a stop or moreunder- or overexposed can have acompletely different look and canbe of higher quality than if you pro-duced the same result in an imageeditor. For the skyline scene shownin Figure 9.16, I set my camera upon a solid tripod and took a seriesof exposures at 8, 15, and 30 sec-onds. This eight-second photo wasthe best of the lot.

◆ Shoot in twilight. This allowsyou to get a nighttime look thattakes advantage of the remainingillumination from the setting sun.

◆ Add interest with filters. Anordinary shot can be spiced upwith filters, like the star filter usedfor Figure 9.17. If you don’t own astar filter, and ordinary piece ofwindow screen (or two) can addthe same effect, turning all thebright point sources in your photosinto multi-pointed stars.

◆ If possible, choose a nightwith a full moon. The extralight from the moon can providemore detail without spoiling thenight-scene look of your photo.

◆ If you absolutely must useflash, use Slow-Sync mode.This allows use of longer shutterspeeds with your flash. Then, theexisting light in a scene can supple-ment the flash illumination. Withany luck, you’ll get a good bal-ance and reduce the direct flashlook in your final image.

◆ When blur is unavoidabledue to long exposure times,use it as a picture element.Streaking light trails can enhancean otherwise ordinary night-scenephoto. You can find out more abouta particular kind of light trail in thenext section, which deals with fire-works.

Figure 9.16 Out of four or five bracketed exposures of this skyline, this one hadthe most detail in the distant skyscrapers.


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Figure 9.17 A cross-screen filter turned all the point light sources into multi-pointed stars for this night shot.


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FireworksFireworks are fun to shoot, andit’s easy to get spectacular results.I got some great fireworks shotsduring the last Fourth of July cele-bration. My big complaint is thatI didn’t get to see the fireworks! Iwas so busy fiddling with my dig-ital camera and the tripod andtrying to push the shutter releaseat exactly the right time that Ireally saw only glimpses of theshow, and only then through the viewfinder of my camera. You can do better if you followthese tips:

◆ Use a tripod. Fireworks expo-sures usually require a second ortwo to make, and nobody canhandhold a camera for that long.Set up the tripod and point thecamera at the part of the skywhere you expect the fireworks tounfold, and be ready to trip theshutter. Use a remote release soyou don’t have to touch the cam-era, and possibly introduce somevibration.

◆ Capture multiple bursts. Tryleaving your shutter open for sev-eral sets of displays. Cover the lenswith your hand between displaysto capture several in one exposure,as shown in Figure 9.18.

◆ Incorporate your surround-ings. Some of the best fireworksphotos show bursts of light againsta city skyline or other backdrop. Ifyou live in the boonies, like me, it’s

worth making a trip to the big cityto get a shot like the one shown inFigure 9.19, taken after aCleveland Indians victory atProgressive Field.

Figure 9.18Leave the shut-ter open for aslong as fourseconds tocombine sev-eral bursts intoone shot.


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◆ Take the photo before theburst appears. Watch as theskyrockets shoot up in the sky; youcan usually time the start of theexposure for the moment justbefore they reach the top of theirarc. With the camera set on timeexposure, trip the shutter using aremote release (or a steady finger)and let the shutter remain open forall or part of the burst. Usually anexposure of 1 to 4 seconds works.

◆ Adjust your exposure. Reviewyour shots and adjust your f/stopso you won’t overexpose theimage. Washed-out fireworks arethe pits. At ISO 100, you’ll beworking with an f/stop of aboutf/5.6 to f/11.

◆ Tolerate noise. Expect somenoise in your photos. Most digitalcameras produce noise duringlong exposures, especially if youboost the ISO rating to 200 or400.

◆ Let there be light. Take along apenlight so you can check yourcamera settings and make manualadjustments. It’s going to be dark,and your camera’s LCD illuminatoronly shows you the settings—notwhere particular knobs and buttonsmight be located!

Figure 9.19 Try to include some of the surroundings to add interest to your fireworks photos.


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Water, Beaches, and SnowWhether you’re at the ocean, bya lake, alongside a river, beneatha waterfall, or following the tow-path of a canal, beaches, water,and snow make for some greatscenic photography, not only forthe beauty of the scene itself, butfor the reflections and the excite-ment when the water is moving.Your images might take a languidapproach, or mix in a bit ofkinetic energy from the ocean ora roiling stream or river, like thatpictured in Figure 9.20. Here aresome tips for water and beachphotos:

◆ Watch your exposures at theocean. The bright sand can foolthe exposure meter of your cam-era, giving you underexposed pic-tures. Review your first few shotson the LCD and dial in some EVcorrections if necessary. But don’toverexpose, unless you want avery high key look as shown inFigure 9.21. Figure 9.20 Although some water scenes can be calm and cool, movement and vivid lighting make for a more exciting

photo.


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◆ Incorporate the reflections inthe water into your photo-graphs. Many good scenic pho-tos use water and reflections togood effect. Light bouncing off thesurface of the water has a speciallook and you’ll find the reflectionsadd interest to your image.

◆ Use a tripod and long expo-sures to capture waterfallsand streams. Mount your cam-era on a tripod, add at least an 8Xneutral density filter to your lens,and try a long exposure that letsthe water merge into a foamy blur.At ISO 200 with an ND filter, youshould be able to shoot at 1/15thsecond at f/32, or 1/8th secondat f/32 on an overcast day. The

water will appear silky smooth, giv-ing you the next best thing to lami-nar flow in a photograph. Thetripod keeps the rest of the imagerock solid and sharp. If you don’thave a neutral density filter toachieve a long enough exposure indaylight, try streams and waterfallsin open shade or later in the day,rather than shooting those in fullsunlight.

◆ Vary your angles. Instead ofstanding at one end of a beachand pointing your camera up ordown the shore, find a way to posi-tion yourself offshore, and shootthe beach from the perspective of abreaker. A fishing pier that extendsout from the shore is a good placeto start. You can also shoot fromthis vantage point onboard a boatthat’s brought to a halt a safe dis-tance from shore. Or, shoot down

Figure 9.21Bright light atthe beach willoften produce ahigh-key look.


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on the shore from a nearby cliff, alighthouse that’s open to the public,or, if you’re adventurous, a hang-glider. Try a low angle. Get downso your camera is almost resting onthe sand (but keep the sand out ofyour camera!) and try someseascapes that are heavy on fore-ground emphasis and quite unlikeanything you’ve seen before.

◆ Remember the tides. High tidewill provide a clean beach, but lowtide leaves behind a treasury ofshells, seaweed, and other objects(including old shoes and tires) thatcan enhance or detract from yourphotos. Learn which time of day aparticular seashore is most photo-genic before setting out on yourseascape trek.

Photographing in snow is a lotlike photographing at the beach:You have to watch out for glareand overexposures. You’ll oftenend up with high key photos, likethe one shown in Figure 9.22.

Batteries of all types put out lessjuice in cold temperatures, andthose in your digital camera areno exception. Keep your camerawarm if you want it to perform asyou expect.

Figure 9.22 High key lighting shows up in snow scenes, too.

Also, watch out for condensationon the camera, particularly onthe lens, which can occur whenyou bring your cold camera intoa warmer, humid environment,like your automobile, even if only

for a few moments. (Perhapsyou’re ducking in and out of theshelter of a car between shots, asI often do in colder climes.) Then,when you go back out in thecold, you’ve got a moist camera

in your hands. If your camerauses an optical viewfinderinstead of an electronicviewfinder or SLR system, youmay not notice water drops onyour lens until it’s too late.


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Consider using a skylight filterthat you can clean off with a softcloth as necessary. These filtersare tougher than the glass of yourlens and cheaper to replace ifthey get scratched.

In terms of lighting, snow andbeach photography share a greatdeal with other kinds of outdoorspictures: the best illumination isoften found at the beginning orend of the day, three to fourhours before sunset, or after sun-rise. Figure 9.23 was taken latein the afternoon, with the sun lowenough in the sky to backlight theice that clung to the trees.Remember that in regions farenough north to have snow, thesun is lower in the sky for most ofthe day than it is for the entirerest of the year.

Figure 9.23 Snow scenes are often best captured early or late in the day, when the sun is low.

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Glossaryambient lighting Diffusenondirectional lighting that does-n’t appear to come from a spe-cific source but, rather, bouncesoff walls, ceilings, and otherobjects in the scene when a pic-ture is taken.

angle of view The area of ascene that a lens can capture,determined by the focal length ofthe lens. Lenses with a shorterfocal length have a wider angleof view than lenses with a longerfocal length.

Aperture-Priority A camerasetting that allows you to specifythe lens opening or f/stop thatyou want to use, with the cameraselecting the required shutterspeed automatically based on itslight-meter reading.

Autofocus A camera settingthat allows the camera to choosethe correct focus distance for you,usually based on the contrast ofan image (the image will be atmaximum contrast when in sharp

focus) or a mechanism such as aninfrared sensor that measures theactual distance to the subject.Cameras can be set for SingleAutofocus (the lens is not focuseduntil the shutter release is partiallydepressed) or ContinuousAutofocus (the lens refocuses con-stantly as you frame and reframethe image).

averaging meter A light-measuring device that calculatesexposure based on the overallbrightness of the entire imagearea. Averaging tends to producethe best exposure when a sceneis evenly lit or contains equalamounts of bright and dark areasthat contain detail. Most digitalcameras use much more sophisti-cated exposure measuring sys-tems based in center-weighting,spot-reading, or calculating expo-sure from a matrix of many differ-ent picture areas. See also spotmeter.

B (bulb) A camera setting formaking long exposures. Pressdown the shutter button and theshutter remains open until theshutter button is released. Bulbexposures can also be madeusing a camera’s electronicremote control, or a cable releasecord that fits to the camera.

backlighting A lighting effectproduced when the main lightsource is located behind the sub-ject. Backlighting can be used tocreate a silhouette effect, or toilluminate translucent objects. Seealso front lighting, fill lighting,and ambient lighting.Backlighting is also a technologyfor illuminating an LCD displayfrom the rear, making it easier toview under high ambient lightingconditions.

barrel distortion A defectfound in some wide-angle primeand zoom lenses that causesstraight lines at the top or sideedges of an image to bow out-ward into a barrel shape.

blooming An image distortioncaused when a photosite in animage sensor has absorbed allthe photons it can handle, so thatadditional photons reaching thatpixel overflow to affect surround-ing pixels producing unwantedbrightness and overexposurearound the edges of objects. Alsoknown as “blown highlights.”

blur In photography, to softenan image or part of an image bythrowing it out of focus, or byallowing it to become soft due tosubject or camera motion (inten-tionally or accidentally). In imageediting, blurring is the softeningof an area by reducing the con-trast between pixels that form theedges.

bokeh A buzzword used todescribe the aesthetic qualities ofthe out-of-focus parts of animage, with some lenses produc-ing “good” bokeh and othersoffering “bad” bokeh. Boke is aJapanese word for “blur,” andthe h was added to keep English

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speakers from rhyming it withbroke.

Out-of-focus points of lightbecome discs, called the circle ofconfusion. Some lenses producea uniformly illuminated disc.Others, most notably mirror orcatadioptic lenses, produce adisc that has a bright edge and adark center, producing a “dough-nut” effect, which is the worstfrom a bokeh standpoint. Lensesthat generate a bright center thatfades to a darker edge arefavored, because their bokehallows the circle of confusion toblend more smoothly with the sur-roundings. The bokeh characteris-tics of a lens are most importantwhen you are using selectivefocus (say, when shooting a por-trait) to deemphasize the back-ground, or when shallowdepth-of-field is a given becauseyou’re working with a macrolens, long telephoto, or with awide-open aperture. See also circle of confusion.

bounce lighting Lightbounced off a reflector, includingceiling and walls, to provide asoft, natural-looking light.

bracketing Taking a series ofphotographs of the same subjectat different settings to help ensurethat one setting will be the correctone. Many digital cameras willautomatically snap off a series ofbracketed exposures for you.Other settings, such as color andwhite balance, can also be“bracketed” with some models.Digital SLRs may even allow youto choose the order in whichbracketed settings are applied.

brightness The amount of lightand dark shades in an image,usually represented as a percent-age from 0 percent (black) to100 percent (white).

burn A darkroom technique,mimicked in image editing, whichinvolves exposing part of a printfor a longer period, making itdarker than it would be with astraight exposure.

burst mode The digital cam-era’s equivalent of the film cam-era’s “motor drive,” used to takemultiple shots within a shortperiod of time.

calibration A process used tocorrect for the differences in theoutput of a printer or monitor

when compared to the originalimage. Once you’ve calibratedyour scanner, monitor, and/oryour image editor, the imagesyou see on the screen moreclosely represent what you’ll getfrom your printer, even thoughcalibration is never perfect.

camera shake Movement ofthe camera, aggravated byslower shutter speeds, which pro-duces a blurred image. Some ofthe latest digital cameras haveimage stabilization features thatcorrect for camera shake, while afew high-end interchangeablelenses have a similar vibrationcorrection or reduction feature.See also image stabilization.

cast An undesirable tinge ofcolor in an image.

center-weighted meter Alight-measuring device thatemphasizes the area in the mid-dle of the frame when calculatingthe correct exposure for animage. See also averaging meterand spot meter.

chroma Color or hue.

circle of confusion A termapplied to the fuzzy discs

produced when a point of light isout of focus. The circle of confu-sion is not a fixed size. The view-ing distance and amount ofenlargement of the image deter-mine whether we see a particularspot on the image as a point oras a disc.

color correction Changing therelative amounts of color in animage to produce a desiredeffect, typically a more accuraterepresentation of those colors.Color correction can fix faultycolor balance in the originalimage, or compensate for thedeficiencies of the inks used toreproduce the image.

contrast The range betweenthe lightest and darkest tones inan image. A high-contrast imageis one in which the shades fall atthe extremes of the rangebetween white and black. In alow-contrast image, the tones arecloser together.

crop To trim an image or pageby adjusting its boundaries.

dedicated flash An electronicflash unit designed to work withthe automatic exposure featuresof a specific camera.

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density The ability of an objectto stop or absorb light. The lesslight reflected or transmitted byan object, the higher its density.

depth-of-field A distancerange in a photograph in whichall included portions of an imageare at least acceptably sharp.With many dSLRs, you can seethe available depth-of-field at thetaking aperture by pressing thedepth-of-field preview button, orestimate the range by viewing thedepth-of-field scale found onmany lenses.

desaturate To reduce thepurity or vividness of a color,making a color appear to bewashed out or diluted.

diaphragm An adjustablecomponent, similar to the iris inthe human eye, which can openand close to provide specificsized lens openings, or f/stops.See also f/stop and iris.

diffraction The loss of sharp-ness due to light scattering as animage passes through smallerand smaller f/stop openings.Diffraction is dependent only onthe actual f/stop used, and thewavelength of the light.

diffuse lighting Soft, low-contrast lighting.

diffusion Softening of detail inan image by randomly distribut-ing gray tones in an area of animage to produce a fuzzy effect.Diffusion can be added when thepicture is taken, often through theuse of diffusion filters, or in post-processing with an image editor.Diffusion can be beneficial to dis-guise defects in an image and isparticularly useful for portraits ofwomen.

dodging A darkroom term forblocking part of an image as it isexposed, lightening its tones.Image editors can mimic thiseffect by lightening portions of animage using a brush-like tool. Seealso burn.

Exif Exchangeable Image FileFormat. Developed to standard-ize the exchange of image databetween hardware devices andsoftware. A variation on JPEG,Exif is used by most digital cam-eras, and includes informationsuch as the date and time aphoto was taken, the camera set-tings, resolution, amount of com-pression, and other data.

existing light In photography,the illumination that is alreadypresent in a scene. Existing lightcan include daylight or the artifi-cial lighting currently being used,but is not considered to be elec-tronic flash or additional lampsset up by the photographer.

exposure The amount of lightallowed to reach the film or sen-sor, determined by the intensity ofthe light, the amount admitted bythe iris of the lens, and the lengthof time determined by the shutterspeed.

exposure program An auto-matic setting in a digital camerathat provides the optimum combi-nation of shutter speed and f/stopat a given level of illumination.For example a “sports” exposureprogram would use a faster,action-stopping shutter speed andlarger lens opening instead of thesmaller, depth-of-field-enhancinglens opening and slower shutterspeed that might be favored by a“close-up” program at exactly thesame light level.

exposure values (EV) EVsettings are a way of adding or decreasing exposure withoutthe need to reference f/stops or

shutter speeds. For example, ifyou tell your camera to add+1EV, it will provide twice asmuch exposure, either by using alarger f/stop, slower shutterspeed, or both.

fill lighting In photography,lighting used to illuminate shad-ows. Reflectors or additionalincandescent lighting or elec-tronic flash can be used tobrighten shadows. One commontechnique outdoors is to use thecamera’s flash as a fill.

filter In photography, a devicethat fits over the lens, changingthe light in some way. In imageediting, a feature that changesthe pixels in an image to produceblurring, sharpening, and otherspecial effects. Photoshop CSincludes several new filter effects,including Lens Blur and PhotoFilters.

flash sync The timing mecha-nism that ensures that an internalor external electronic flash fires atthe correct time during the expo-sure cycle. A dSLR’s flash syncspeed is the highest shutter speedthat can be used with flash. Seealso front-curtain sync and rear-curtain sync.


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flat An image with low contrast.

focal length The distancebetween the film and the opticalcenter of the lens when the lens isfocused on infinity, usually meas-ured in millimeters.

framing In photography, com-posing your image in theviewfinder. In composition, usingelements of an image to form asort of picture frame around animportant subject.

fringing A chromatic aberra-tion that produces fringes of coloraround the edges of subjects,caused by a lens’ inability tofocus the various wavelengths oflight onto the same spot. Purplefringing is especially troublesomewith backlit images, but cansometimes be fixed with someimage editors.

front-curtain sync The defaultkind of electronic flash synchro-nization technique, originallyassociated with focal plane shut-ters, which consist of a travelingset of curtains, including a frontcurtain (which opens to reveal thefilm or sensor) and a rear curtain(which follows at a distancedetermined by shutter speed to

conceal the film or sensor at theconclusion of the exposure).

For a flash picture to be taken,the entire sensor must be exposedat one time to the brief flashexposure, so the image isexposed after the front curtainhas reached the other side of thefocal plane, but before the rearcurtain begins to move.

Front-curtain sync causes the flashto fire at the beginning of thisperiod when the shutter is com-pletely open, in the instant thatthe first curtain of the focal planeshutter finishes its movementacross the film or sensor plane.With slow shutter speeds, this fea-ture can create a blur effect fromthe ambient light, showing as pat-terns that follow a moving subjectwith subject shown sharply frozenat the beginning of the blur trail(think of an image of The Flashrunning backwards). See alsorear-curtain sync.

front lighting Illumination thatcomes from the direction of thecamera. See also backlightingand sidelighting.

f/stop The relative size of thelens aperture, which helps

determine both exposure anddepth-of-field. The larger thef/stop number, the smaller thef/stop itself. It helps to think off/stops as denominators of frac-tions, so that f/2 is larger thanf/4, which is larger than f/8, justas 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 representever-smaller fractions. In photog-raphy, a given f/stop number ismultiplied by 1.4 to arrive at thenext number that admits exactlyhalf as much light. So, f/1.4 istwice as large as f/2.0 (1.4 ×1.4), which is twice as large asf/2.8 (2 × 1.4), which is twice aslarge as f/4 (2.8 × 1.4). Thef/stops that follow are f/5.6, f/8,f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, and soon. See also diaphragm.

gamut The range of viewableand printable colors for a particu-lar color model, such as RGB(used for monitors) or CMYK(used for printing).

Gaussian blur A method ofdiffusing an image using a bell-shaped curve to calculate the pix-els that will be blurred, ratherthan blurring all pixels, produc-ing a more random, less“processed” look.

graduated filter A lensattachment with variable densityor color from one edge toanother. A graduated neutraldensity filter, for example, can beoriented so the neutral densityportion is concentrated at the topof the lens’ view with the lessdense or clear portion at the bot-tom, thus reducing the amount oflight from a very bright sky whilenot interfering with the exposureof the landscape in the fore-ground. Graduated filters canalso be split into several colorsections to provide a color gradi-ent between portions of theimage.

gray card A piece of card-board or other material with astandardized 18-percentreflectance. Gray cards can beused as a reference for determin-ing correct exposure.

highlights The brightest partsof an image containing detail.

histogram A kind of chartshowing the relationship of tonesin an image using a series of256 vertical “bars,” one for eachbrightness level. A histogramchart typically looks like a curve

Glossary

192

with one or more slopes andpeaks, depending on how manyhighlight, midtone, and shadowtones are present in the image.

hyperfocal distance A pointof focus where everything fromhalf that distance to infinityappears to be acceptably sharp.For example, if your lens has ahyperfocal distance of four feet,everything from two feet to infin-ity would be sharp. The hyperfo-cal distance varies by the lensand the aperture in use. If youknow you’ll be making a “grab”shot without warning, sometimesit is useful to turn off your cam-era’s automatic focus and set thelens to infinity, or, better yet, thehyperfocal distance. Then, youcan snap off a quick picture with-out having to wait for the lag thatoccurs with most digital camerasas their autofocus locks in.

image stabilization A tech-nology, also called vibrationreduction and anti-shake, thatcompensates for camera shake,usually by adjusting the positionof the camera sensor or lens ele-ments in response to movementsof the camera.

incident light Light falling on asurface.

infinity A distance so great thatany object at that distance will bereproduced sharply if the lens isfocused at the infinity position.

interchangeable lens Lensdesigned to be readily attachedto and detached from a camera;a feature found in more sophisti-cated digital cameras.

International Organizationfor Standardization (ISO) Agoverning body that providesstandards such as those used torepresent film speed, or the equiv-alent sensitivity of a digital cam-era’s sensor. Digital camerasensitivity is expressed in ISO set-tings.

interpolation A technique dig-ital cameras, scanners, andimage editors use to create newpixels required whenever youresize or change the resolution ofan image based on the values ofsurrounding pixels. Devices suchas scanners and digital camerasas well as image editors can alsouse interpolation to create pixelsin addition to those actually cap-tured, thereby increasing the

apparent resolution or color infor-mation in an image.

invert In image editing, tochange an image into its nega-tive; black becomes white, whitebecomes black, dark graybecomes light gray, and so forth.Colors are also changed to thecomplementary color; greenbecomes magenta, blue turns toyellow, and red is changed tocyan.

iris A set of thin overlappingmetal leaves in a camera lens,also called a diaphragm, thatpivot outwards to form a circularopening of variable size to con-trol the amount of light that canpass through a lens.

Kelvin (K) A unit of measure-ment based on the absolute tem-perature scale in which absolutezero is zero; used to describe thecolor of continuous spectrum lightsources, such as tungsten illumi-nation (3200 to 3400K) anddaylight (5500 to 6000K).

latitude The range of cameraexposures that produces accept-able images with a particular dig-ital sensor or film.

lens One or more elements ofoptical glass or similar materialdesigned to collect and focusrays of light to form a sharpimage on the film, paper, sensor,or a screen.

lens aperture The lens open-ing, or iris, that admits light to thefilm or sensor. The size of the lensaperture is usually measured inf/stops. See also f/stop and iris.

lens flare A feature of conven-tional photography that is both abane and creative outlet. It is aneffect produced by the reflectionof light internally among elementsof an optical lens. Bright lightsources within or just outside thefield of view cause lens flare.Flare can be reduced by the useof coatings on the lens elementsor with the use of lens hoods.Photographers sometimes use theeffect as a creative technique,and Photoshop includes a filterthat lets you add lens flare atyour whim.

lens hood A device thatshades the lens, protecting it fromextraneous light outside theactual picture area, which canreduce the contrast of the image,or allow lens flare.


193

lighting ratio The proportionalrelationship between the amountof light falling on the subject fromthe main light and other lights,expressed in a ratio, such as 3:1.

luminance The brightness orintensity of an image, determinedby the amount of gray in a hue.

macro lens A lens that pro-vides continuous focusing frominfinity to extreme close-ups, oftento a reproduction ratio of 1:2(half life-size) or 1:1 (life-size).

magnification ratio A rela-tionship that represents theamount of enlargement providedby the macro setting of the zoomlens, macro lens, or with otherclose-up devices.

Matrix metering A system ofexposure calculation that looks atmany different segments of animage to determine the brightestand darkest portions, often com-paring your image with storedimage examples.

maximum aperture Thelargest lens opening or f/stopavailable with a particular lens,or with a zoom lens at a particu-lar magnification.

midtones Parts of an imagewith tones of an intermediatevalue, usually in the 25 to 75percent range. Many image-editing features allow you tomanipulate midtones independ-ently from the highlights andshadows.

monochrome Having a singlecolor, plus white. Grayscaleimages are monochrome (shadesof gray and white only).

neutral density filter A graycamera filter reduces the amountof light entering the camera with-out affecting the colors.

noise In an image, pixels withrandomly distributed color values.Noise in digital photographstends to be the product of low-light conditions and long expo-sures, particularly when you haveset your camera to a higher ISOrating than normal.

noise reduction A technologyused to cut down on the amountof random information in a digi-tal picture, usually caused bylong exposures at increased sen-sitivity ratings. Noise reductioninvolves the camera automaticallytaking a second blank/dark

exposure at the same settings thatcontain only noise, and thenusing the blank photo’s informa-tion to cancel out the noise in theoriginal picture. With most cam-eras, the process is very quick,but does double the amount oftime required to take the photo.Noise reduction can also be per-formed within image editors andstand-alone noise reduction appli-cations.

overexposure A condition inwhich too much light reaches thefilm or sensor, producing a densenegative or a very bright/lightprint, slide, or digital image.

panning Moving the camera sothat the image of a moving objectremains in the same relative posi-tion in the viewfinder as you takea picture. The eventual effect cre-ates a strong sense of movement.

panorama A broad view, usu-ally scenic. Photoshop’s newPhotomerge feature helps you cre-ate panoramas from several pho-tos. Many digital cameras have apanorama assist mode thatmakes it easier to shoot severalphotos that can be stitchedtogether later.

perspective The rendition ofapparent space in a photograph,such as how far the foregroundand background appear to beseparated from each other.Perspective is determined by thedistance of the camera to the sub-ject. Objects that are closeappear large, while distantobjects appear to be far away.

pixel The smallest element of ascreen display that can beassigned a color. The term is acontraction of “picture element.”

polarizing filter A filter thatforces light, which normallyvibrates in all directions, tovibrate only in a single plane,reducing or removing the specu-lar reflections from the surface ofobjects and emphasizing the blueof skies in color images.

prime A camera lens with a sin-gle fixed focal length, asopposed to a zoom lens.

RAW An image file formatoffered by many digital camerasthat includes all the unprocessedinformation captured by the cam-era. RAW files are very large,and must be processed by a

Glossary

194

special program supplied bycamera makers, image editors, orthird parties, after being down-loaded from the camera.

rear-curtain sync An optionalkind of electronic flash synchro-nization technique, originallyassociated with focal plane shut-ters, which consist of a travelingset of curtains, including a frontcurtain (which opens to reveal thefilm or sensor) and a rear curtain(which follows at a distancedetermined by shutter speed toconceal the film or sensor at theconclusion of the exposure).

For a flash picture to be taken,the entire sensor must be exposedat one time to the brief flashexposure, so the image isexposed after the front curtainhas reached the other side of thefocal plane, but before the rearcurtain begins to move.

Rear-curtain sync causes the flashto fire at the end of the exposure,an instant before the second orrear curtain of the focal planeshutter begins to move. With slow shutter speeds, this featurecan create a blur effect from the

ambient light, showing as pat-terns that follow a moving subjectwith subject shown sharply frozenat the end of the blur trail. If youwere shooting a photo of TheFlash, the superhero wouldappear sharp, with a ghostly trailbehind him.

red eye An effect from flashphotography that appears tomake a person’s eyes glow red,or an animal’s yellow or green.It’s caused by light bouncing fromthe retina of the eye, and is mostpronounced in dim illumination(when the irises are wide open)and when the electronic flash isclose to the lens and thereforeprone to reflect directly back.Image editors can fix red eyethrough cloning other pixels overthe offending red or orange ones.

red-eye reduction A way ofreducing or eliminating the red-eye phenomenon. Some camerasoffer a red-eye reduction modethat uses a preflash that causesthe irises of the subjects’ eyes toclose down just prior to a sec-ond, stronger flash used to takethe picture.

reflector Any device used toreflect light onto a subject toimprove balance of exposure(contrast). Another way is to usefill-in flash.

reproduction ratio Used inmacrophotography to indicatethe magnification of a subject.

resample To change the sizeor resolution of an image.Resampling down discards pixelinformation in an image; resam-pling up adds pixel informationthrough interpolation.

resolution In image editing,the number of pixels per inchused to determine the size of theimage when printed. That is, an8 × 10-inch image that is savedwith 300 pixels per inch resolu-tion will print in an 8 × 10-inchsize on a 300 dpi printer, or 4 ×5-inches on a 600 dpi printer. Indigital photography, resolution isthe number of pixels a camera orscanner can capture.

saturation The purity of color;the amount by which a pure coloris diluted with white or gray.

selective focus Choosing alens opening that produces a

shallow depth-of-field. Usually thisis used to isolate a subject bycausing most other elements inthe scene to be blurred.

sensitivity A measure of thedegree of response of a film orsensor to light.

shadow The darkest part of animage with detail, represented ona digital image by pixels withlow numeric values or on ahalftone by the smallest orabsence of dots.

sharpening Increasing theapparent sharpness of an imageby boosting the contrast betweenadjacent pixels that form anedge.

shutter In a conventional filmcamera, the shutter is a mecha-nism consisting of blades, a cur-tain, plate, or some othermovable cover that controls thetime during which light reachesthe film. Digital cameras can useactual shutters, or simulate theaction of a shutter electronically.Quite a few use a combination,employing a mechanical shutterfor slow speeds and an electronicversion for higher speeds.


195

shutter-preferred An expo-sure mode in which you set theshutter speed and the cameradetermines the appropriatef/stop.

sidelighting Light striking thesubject from the side relative tothe position of the camera; pro-duces shadows and highlights tocreate modeling on the subject.

single lens reflex (SLR) camera A type of camera thatallows you to see through thecamera’s lens as you look in thecamera’s viewfinder. Other cam-era functions, such as light meter-ing and flash control, alsooperate through the camera’slens.

slave unit An accessory flashunit that supplements the mainflash, usually triggered electroni-cally when the slave senses thelight output by the main unit, orthrough radio waves.

slow sync An electronic flashsynchronizing method that uses aslow shutter speed so that ambi-ent light is recorded by the cam-era in addition to the electronicflash illumination, so that the

background receives more expo-sure for a more realistic effect.

soft focus An effect producedby use of a special lens or filterthat creates soft outlines.

soft lighting Lighting that islow or moderate in contrast, suchas on an overcast day.

specular highlight Brightspots in an image caused byreflection of light sources.

spot meter An exposure sys-tem that concentrates on a smallarea in the image. See also aver-aging meter.

telephoto A lens or lens settingthat magnifies an image.

time exposure A picturetaken by leaving the shutter openfor a long period, usually morethan one second. The camera isgenerally locked down with a tri-pod to prevent blur during thelong exposure.

tint A color with white added toit. In graphic arts, often refers tothe percentage of one coloradded to another.

tolerance The range of coloror tonal values that will be

selected with a tool like thePhotoshop’s Magic Wand, orfilled with paint when using atool like the Paint Bucket.

transparency A positive pho-tographic image on film, viewedor projected by light shiningthrough film.

tripod A three-legged support-ing stand used to hold the cam-era steady. Especially usefulwhen using slow shutter speedsand/or telephoto lenses.

TTL Through-the-lens. A systemof providing viewing through theactual lens taking the picture (aswith a camera with an electronicviewfinder, LCD display, or singlelens reflex viewing), or calcula-tion of exposure, flash exposure,or focus based on the viewthrough the lens.

tungsten light Usually warmlight from ordinary room lampsand ceiling fixtures, as opposedto fluorescent illumination, whichin many cases is deficient in redlight.

underexposure A condition inwhich too little light reaches thefilm or sensor, producing a thin

negative, dark slide, muddy-looking print, or dark digitalimage.

unsharp masking Theprocess for increasing the con-trast between adjacent pixels inan image, increasing sharpness,especially around edges.

vignetting Darkening of cor-ners in an image, often producedby using a lens hood that is toosmall for the field of view, or gen-erated artificially using image-editing techniques.

white balance The adjustmentof a digital camera to the colortemperature of the light source.Interior illumination is relativelyred; outdoors light is relativelyblue. Digital cameras often setcorrect white balance automati-cally, or let you do it throughmenus. Image editors can oftendo some color correction ofimages that were exposed usingthe wrong white-balance setting.

wide-angle lens A lens thathas a shorter focal length and awider field of view than a normallens for a particular film or digitalimage format.

Glossary


196

IndexAAC power for studio flash, 84, 87accent lights, 102action photography. See sports

photographyAdams, Ansel, 1

Zone System, 40add-on flash, 73

bounce flash and, 74–75on bracket, 76multiple flash units, 77off-camera flash, 77

Adobe. See Adobe Camera Raw;Photoshop/Photoshop Elements

Adobe Camera Rawnoise, minimization of, 19white balance settings, 47

AEB (auto exposure bracketing),36–37

aerial action, photographing,142–143

Agfa Brovira #6, 2–3aimability

of soft boxes, 109of umbrellas, 105

Alien Beesflash, 86foldable soft boxes, 108Paul C. Buff soft boxes, 106strip boxes/lights, 108–109

aluminum foil reflectors, 55ambient light

flash sync mode and, 80ghost images, 81LCD and, 38

anglesfor close-up photography, 148–149dynamic range and, 63for outdoor sports photography, 142for water photos, 185–186

anti-shake measures. See imagestabilization

aperture, 10–11. See also f/stopsP mode setting, 30

Aperture Priority mode, 24–25abbreviation for, 24bracketing in, 37equivalent exposures in, 16exposure value (EV) compensation

and, 34ISO Auto mode and, 26

architectural photography, 165angles for, 166–167Center-Weighted metering, 23interiors, shooting, 170–173lighting for, 166–167monuments and museums, 168–169

As Shot WB setting, 45, 47auto exposure bracketing (AEB),

36–37auto ISO option, 12Auto mode, 30

P mode and, 30automobile sunscreens as

reflectors, 55–56auxiliary flash units, 52–53available light, 43

for close-up photography, 152–153filtering light source, 51for indoor sports photography, 130for monuments and museums, 168

shadows, filling in, 52–53and sky, 62–65for sports photography, 130,

144–145Averaging mode, 23

Bbackground light, 102

for broad lighting, 123for butterfly lighting, 125for 45-degree lighting, 119for Rembrandt lighting, 127for short lighting, 121for side/profile lighting, 117for split lighting, 115

backgroundsf/stops and, 13for sports photography, 138

backlighting, 102side/profile lighting with, 117sunlight and, 63

balanced fill setting, 89balancing light, 94–97bald heads

bounce flash, 74main light and, 99

barndoors with hair light, 102base sensitivity, 10Basic Zone modes (Canon), 30batteries

add-on flash, packs for, 73built-in flash and, 71in cold temperatures, 186for studio flash, 87

Beach/Snow mode, 31beaches photos, 184–187beauty dishes, 87bias WB setting, 46Bibble Pro, 19black cardboard/cloth reflectors,

57blacks and high-key lighting, 6blur. See also motion blur

shutter speed and, 16bounce. See also ceiling bounce

flash, 74–75bracket, flash on a, 76bracketing, 21, 36–37

auto exposure bracketing (AEB),36–37

for HDR (high density range) mergers,36

increments, 36–37and night lighting, 180turning off, 37

brightnessdynamic range, 62evaluative/matrix metering and, 22histogram, 38–39LCD adjustments for, 38spot metering, 22

broad lighting, 113, 122–123bokeh, 13built-in flash, 71–72

for close-up photography, 148, 154guide numbers (GN) and, 79

butterfly lighting, 124–125Rembrandt lighting, 126

Index

197

Ccamera meter, 40camera shake, 16–17

Aperture Priority and, 25shutter speeds and, 27

camerascold temperatures, shooting in, 186portraits, positioning for, 113for sports photography, 138

CanonBasic Zone modes, 30image stabilization feature, 17metering modes, 23partial metering, 22RAW+JPEG setting, 45Scene modes, 31

capacitors, 68catch lights

fill flash and, 89fill light and, 101main light and, 99

CB Junior bracket, 76ceiling bounce, 73–74

for indoor sports photography, 130Center-Weighted metering, 23

coverage area for, 23flash and, 69

chiaroscuro effect, 8circular graduated neutral density

(ND) filters, 64circular polarizers (CPLs), 58, 60Close-Up mode, 30close-up photography, 147

angles for, 148–149available light, working with,

152–153challenges for lighting, 148–149continuous lighting for, 156–159covering up flash, 155flash, working with, 154–155flaws, disguising, 160

high-contrast lighting for, 160–163low-contrast lighting for, 160–163magnification for, 150–151maneuvering for shot, 148perspective for, 150–151tent lighting, 162–163texture in, 161

cloudy days. See overcast daysCloudy WB setting, 46clustering bracketed shots, 37Cokin filter frames, 64cold temperatures, shooting in, 186color, 48–51

and bounce flash, 74contrast and, 50human color perception, 44mood and, 49–50for neutral density (ND) filters, 64saturation and, 50of umbrellas, 105

color balance. See white balancecolor filters, 51

neutral density (ND) filters, 64color temperature, 44

studio flash and, 101complexions, main light and, 99cones with hair light, 103continuous lighting, 67

for close-up photography, 156–159Continuous Shooting mode

bracketing with, 36–37for sports photography, 138

contrast. See also high-contrastlighting; low-contrast lighting

colors and, 50fill light and, 101with umbrellas, 105unwanted contrast, 2

cookies, 54covering up flash, 155Custom Brackets, 76customizing white balance settings,

47

Ddaylight

as available light, 43color balance, 48fill flash and, 88–89

Daylight/Direct Sunlight WB setting,45–46

degrees Kelvin, 44, 46depth-of-field

with close-up photography, 158–159f/stops and, 13ISO settings and, 10

details of monuments/musems,168

diaphragm, 12diffraction and f/stops, 13diffused light, 2, 11diffusers in soft boxes, 108Digi-Vari Program (Nikon), 30directional lighting, 3distance

shutter speeds and, 28soft lighting and, 92–93

duration of light, 11dynamic range, 62. See also HDR

(High Dynamic Range)angle and, 63

Eears, main light and, 99Eastman Kodak Company. See also

Kodak Ektachrome film18 percent gray card, 40

Edgerton, Harold, 7018 percent gray card, 40electronic flash. See flashElectronic Flash WB setting, 46emission of light, 11equivalent exposures, 16

Evaluative/Matrix metering, 22coverage area for, 23flash and, 69programmed exposure modes with,

30existing light. See available lightexposure, 21. See also flash; ISO

settings; Manual exposure;shutter speeds

equivalent exposures, 16for fireworks shots, 183flash, determining for, 78–79gray cards, 40–41incident meters, 41for night lighting, 178palm of hand technique, 41and polarizing filters, 58Shutter Priority mode, 26–29spot meters, 41for sunset/sunrise photos, 177and through the lens (TTL) flash, 78for water photos, 184

exposure lock (AE-L) button, 23exposure modes, 21

Aperture Priority mode, 24–25bracketing, 36–37exposure value (EV) compensation,

34–35histograms, 38–39manual exposure, 32–33programmed exposure modes, 30–31

exposure triangle, 10–11exposure value (EV) compensation,

12, 21, 34–35adjusting, 35canceling, 34for close-up photography, 155

external flashfor close-up photography, 155manual exposure and, 33meters, 79

external flash units, 73


198

eyeglasses. See glasseseyes

color perception and, 44main light and, 99

Ff/stops, 12–13. See also Aperture

Priority mode; exposure value(EV) compensation

equivalent exposures, 16as fractions, 12–13guide numbers (GN), 79for night lighting, 178for sports photography, 134–135stops compared, 12

facesbroad lighting for, 122–123butterfly lighting, 124–125close-ups, set-up for, 112–11345-degree lighting, 118–119Rembrandt lighting and, 126–127short lighting for, 120–121side/profile lighting, 116–117split lighting of, 114–115

faux Spot mode, 22–23feet, main light and, 99fill flash, 88–89

balanced fill setting, 89for close-up photography, 154lighting ratios and, 89Manual exposure setting and, 89

fill light, 100–101for broad lighting, 123with butterfly lighting, 125flash meters and, 79for 45-degree lighting, 119and portrait lighting, 94for Rembrandt lighting, 127for short lighting, 121for side/profile lighting, 117for split lighting, 115

filling in shadows, 52–53film. See also Fujifilm Velvia; Kodak

Ektachrome filmlith (lithographic) film, 2

filters. See also color filters;graduated neutral density (ND)filters; polarizing filters

light, removal of, 11for light source, 51for night photos, 180for snow photos, 187

fireworks photos, 182–183first-curtain sync, 81–835:1 lighting ratio, 97flash, 67–69. See also built-in flash;

fill flash; flash sync mode; slaveflash; studio flash; through thelens (TTL) flash

activating, 69add-on flash, 73as available light, 43bounce flash, 74–75on bracket, 76calculation of exposure, 69for close-up photography, 154–155covering up, 155duration of light, 11exposure, determining, 78–79guide numbers (GN), 79high speed sync mode, 17intelligent flash feature, 96mirror up, 69multiple flash units, 77for night photos, 180off-camera flash, 77painting with light, 77portability of, 53, 70–73preflash, 69previewing lighting effect, 69shadows, filling in, 52–53shutter speeds and, 15–17for sports photography, 134–135,

144–145

flash meters, 79. See also incidentmeters; spot meters

flash sync modeand fill flash, 89front-curtain sync, 81ghost images, 81–83high-speed (FP) sync, 83rear-curtain sync, 81red-eye reduction and, 81slow sync, 81

flaws and close-ups, 160flexibility of umbrellas, 104fluorescent light, 44–45

for close-up photography, 156–159Fluorescent WB setting, 46foam board reflectors, 54focal plane (FP) sync, 83focal plane shutters, 14–17

flash sync mode and, 80–81focal planes, 14–17focus for sunset/sunrise photos,

177foldable soft boxes, 10845-degree lighting, 118–1194:1 lighting ratio, 94–97freezing action shots, 134–135front-curtain sync, 68, 81Fujifilm Velvia, 5

for close-ups, 161Full Auto mode, 30full-length individual portraits, 112

Ggels with background light, 102ghost images, 81–83glamour lighting, 124glare and monument/museum

interiors, 170glasses

fill light and, 101main light and, 99

gold side on reflectors, 103gooseneck lamp for close-up

photography, 156–157graduated neutral density (ND)

filtersreversing, 65skies, shots of, 64–65

grain. See noisegray cards, 40–41grids in soft boxes, 108group photos, lighting for, 112guide number (GN), 79

lighting ratio, measuring, 96gyms, photography in, 130–131

Hhair light, 102–103

for broad lighting, 123with butterfly lighting, 125for 45-degree lighting, 119for Rembrandt lighting, 127for short lighting, 121for side/profile lighting, 117for split lighting, 115

half-face effects, 114halo effect, 102hand, exposure from palm of, 41hand-held meters. See incident

meters; spot metershandle mount flash units, 73hands, main light and, 99hard lighting, 92hats, fill flash and, 89HDR (High Dynamic Range)

mergers, 36for skies, 64

head-and-shoulders portraits,112–113

high-contrast lighting, 2–3for close-ups, 160–163for outdoor sports photography, 141

Index

199

High Dynamic Range. See HDR(High Dynamic Range)

high intensity lamps for close-upphotography, 156–157

High ISO Noise Reduction, 19high-key lighting, 6–7

for close-ups, 161–162lighting ratios, 7

high-speed (FP) sync, 17, 83highlights, incident meters

measuring, 41histograms, 38–39horizon in sunset/sunrise photos,

177hot shoe, 70

add-on flash, 73human color perception, 44

Iillumination. See lightingimage stabilization, 17

shutter speeds and, 27incandescent lighting, 46

for close-up photography, 156–159Incandescent WB setting, 46incident meters, 32, 41

lighting ratios, measuring, 96indoor lighting, 130–131

for architectural photos, 170–173intelligent flash feature, 96intensity of light, 10

modeling lamps and, 101International Organization for

Standardization (ISO) setting, 12inverse square law

and bounce flash, 74and portrait lighting, 94and sports photography, 145

iris diaphragm, 12ISO Auto mode, 26

ISO settings, 10, 18–19Auto mode, 26for close-up photography, 155guide numbers (GN), 79high ISO settings, working with,

18–19interiors, shooting, 170for museum interiors, 169for night lighting, 178P mode and, 30sensor and, 11for sports photography, 132–139

JJohnson, Jimmy, 49JPEG format and white balance, 45

Kkey light, 98–99Kodak Ektachrome film, 5

for close-ups, 161Krause, George, 2

LL-cone sensitivity range, 44lake photos, 184–187Landscape mode, 30–31landscape photos, 30–31

sunset/sunrise photos, 176–177LCD

ambient light and, 38brightness adjustments, 38

lens hoodand close-up photography, 148shadow from, 72

lenses. See also Aperture Prioritymode; close-up photography

light passing through, 11manual exposure and, 33

light meters, 40. See also incidentmeters; spot meters

manual exposure and, 32–33lighting. See also flash; portrait

lightingfor architectural photos, 166–167available light, 43balancing light, 94–97distance and, 92–93duration of light, 11emission of light, 11exposure triangle, 10–11fill flash and, 88–89for fireworks photos, 182–183for group photos, 112high-contrast lighting, 2–3high-key lighting, 6–7and indoor sports photography, 131low-contrast lighting, 4–5low-key lighting, 8–9night lighting, 178–181reflection of light, 11snow photos, 186–187source of, 10tent lighting, 162–163three-light scheme, 6transmission of light, 11for travel photos, 166–167water photos, 184–186

lighting ratios, 7and fill flash, 89measuring, 96and portrait lighting, 94–97

linear polarizers, 58, 60lith (lithographic) film, 2Long Exposure Noise Reduction, 19loop lighting, 113low-contrast lighting, 4–5

for close-ups, 160–163combining, 5

low-key lighting, 8–9lighting ratios, 7

MM-cone sensitivity range, 44Macro mode, 31macro photography. See close-up

photographymagnification for close-up

photography, 150–151main light, 98–99

for broad lighting, 123with butterfly lighting, 125for 45-degree lighting, 118–119for Rembrandt lighting, 127for short lighting, 121for side/profile lighting, 116–117for split lighting, 115

Manual exposure, 24, 32–33and fill flash, 89and flash, 69ISO settings, 18

manual white balance, 46Matrix metering. See

Evaluative/Matrix meteringmetering modes, 21–23

Averaging mode, 23Center-Weighted metering, 23coverage areas of, 23evaluative/matrix metering, 22flash and, 69partial metering, 22spot metering, 22–23

mixed lightingfor architectural photos, 174–175and monument/museum interiors, 170for sunset/sunrise photos, 177

modeling light, 73burst, 69for close-up photography, 156intensity and, 101options, 87

modifiers in soft boxes, 108monitor preflash, 78


200

monolights, 84–85monopods

for museum interiors, 169for night lighting, 178

monster lighting, 118monuments, 168–169mood and color, 49–50moonlight

as available light, 43for night photos, 180

motion across the frame, 27motion blur

Aperture Priority and, 25ISO settings and, 10and night photos, 180Shutter Priority mode and, 27shutter speed and, 16in sports photography, 136

motion towards camera, 28multiple exposures

of fireworks, 182in-camera multiple exposures, 139

multiple flash units, 77museums, 168–169mylar sheet reflectors, 55

Nnarrow lighting. See short lightingneutral density (ND) filters, 58. See

also graduated neutral density(ND) filters

for close-up photography, 155New Basic Photography Series

(Adams), 40night lighting, 30–31, 178–181. See

also moonlightfireworks, 182–183

Night mode, 30–31Night Portrait mode, 31

NikonDigi-Vari Program, 30image stabilization feature, 17metering modes, 23modeling burst, 69RAW+JPEG setting, 45Scene modes, 31

noisein fireworks photos, 183interiors, shooting, 170ISO settings and, 10, 18night lighting and, 178shutter speed and, 17

Noise Ninja, 19noise reduction (NR) feature, 17

high ISO settings and, 18–19non-directional lighting, 4

Oocean photos, 184–187octagonal soft boxes, 106off-color light and

monument/museum interiors,170–171, 173

Olympusimage stabilization feature, 17metering modes, 23

orientation with graduated forneutral density (ND) filters, 64

outdoor lighting. See also daylight;moonlight; sunlight

for sports photography, 140–143overcast days

and low-contrast lighting, 4sports photography and, 140–141

overexposure, histogram showing,39

PP mode, 30

and flash, 69painting with light, 77palm of hand technique, 41panning

shutter speeds and, 28–29in sports photography, 137–138

Paramount lighting, 124partial metering, 22

coverage area for, 23Paul C. Buff soft boxes, 106Pentax

image stabilization feature, 17metering modes, 23Scene modes, 31

perception and color, 44perspective for close-up

photography, 150–151Photoshop/Photoshop Elements

catch lights, retouching, 99noise, minimization of, 19soft lighting with, 92

photosites. See pixelspixels

histograms showing, 39light and, 11

polarizing filters, 58–61contrast and, 50rotating, 59skies, photographing, 63step-up/step-down rings, 58with wide-angle lenses, 58, 60–61

portabilityof flash, 53, 70–73of strip boxes/lights, 109of umbrellas, 104

portrait lighting, 91. See also facesbackground light, 102balancing light, 94–97broad lighting, 122–123

butterfly lighting, 124–125Center-Weighted metering, 23face close-ups, 112–113fill light, 100–10145-degree lighting, 118–119full-length individual portraits, 112for group photos, 112hair light, 102–103head-and shoulders portraits,

112–113inverse square law, 94lighting ratios and, 94–97magnification and, 151main light, 98–99perspective and, 151position

of camera, 113of lights, 113of subject, 113

profile lighting, 116–117reflectors in, 103Rembrandt lighting, 126–127short lighting, 120–121side lighting, 116–117soft boxes and, 106–108soft lighting and, 92–93split lighting, 114–115strip boxes/lights, 108–109three-quarter portraits, 112umbrellas in, 104–105

Portrait mode, 30–31poster board, white, 54potato masher flashes, 73power

AC power for studio flash, 84, 87built-in flash and, 71

preflash, monitor, 78profile lighting, 113, 116–117Program mode, 24programmed exposure modes,

30–31push processing, 43

Index

201

RRAW format and white balance, 45,

47RAW+JPEG setting, 45rear-curtain sync, 81rectangular graduated neutral

density (ND) filters, 64recycling time with external flash,

73red-eye

bracket, flash on a, 76built-in flash and, 71flash sync mode and, 81

reflections, 11in water photos, 185

reflectors, 52–53aluminum foil, 55assistants with, 53automobile sunscreens as, 55–56foam board, 54in mixed lighting photos, 175mylar sheets, 55portability of, 53in portrait lighting, 103shutter speeds and, 53umbrellas as, 56–57white poster board, 54working with, 54–57

Rembrandt lighting, 126–127remote release for sports

photography, 138reversing graduated neutral

density (ND) filters, 65RGB color, 44RGB histogram, 38–39rim lighting, 113ringlights for close-up photography,

155rods and cones, 44rotating polarizing filters, 59

SS-cone sensitivity range, 44Saturated mode, 50saturation

low-contrast lighting and, 5mood and, 50

Scene modes, 24, 30–31types of, 31

Scott, Andrew, 35scrims, 54second-curtain sync, 68sensitivity settings. See ISO settingssensors

available light and, 43light captured by, 11for night lighting, 178

Shadow (Krause), 2shadows

with bounce flash, 74bracket, flash on a, 76built-in flash and, 71fill flash for, 88–89fill light and, 100–101filling in, 52–53incident meters measuring, 41from lens hood, 72lighting ratio, 7low-contrast lighting and, 4–5manual exposure for, 32

Shady WB setting, 46sharpness. See also depth-of-field

camera shake, 16–17f/stops and, 13Shutter Priority mode and, 27shutter speed and, 16

shiny objectsclose-ups of, 159soft boxes for lighting, 106

short lighting, 97, 113, 120–121Rembrandt lighting and, 126

Shutter Priority mode, 24, 26–29abbreviation for, 26bracketing in, 37equivalent exposures in, 16exposure value (EV) compensation

and, 34and flash, 69ISO Auto mode and, 26

shutter speeds, 10, 14–17. See alsoexposure value (EV)compensation; Shutter Prioritymode

Aperture Priority and, 25and camera shake, 27distance and, 28duration of light, 11equivalent exposures, 16flash and, 15–17ghost images, 81–82high-speed (FP) sync, 83motion across the frame and, 27motion towards camera and, 28P mode setting, 30panning and, 28–29reflectors and, 53slanted movement and, 28for sports photography, 132–139

shutters. See also shutter speedscurtains of, 68focal plane shutters, 14light passing through, 11

side lighting, 113, 116–117silhouettes, manual exposure for,

32silver side on reflectors, 103size

soft boxes, size reducers in, 108of umbrellas, 105

sky. See also overcast daysaerial action, photographing, 142available light and, 62–65

skylight filters for snow photos,187

slanted movement and shutterspeeds, 28

slave flash, 32, 77for close-up photography, 155studio flash, trigger for, 85

slow sync, 81for night photos, 180

snoots with hair light, 102–103snow photos, 186–187soft boxes, 92

aimability of, 109diffusers in, 108in portrait lighting, 106–108speed ring, 108support rods, 106–107

soft lighting, 2, 92–93for close-ups, 161for facial photos, 115

Sonyimage stabilization feature, 17metering modes, 23Scene modes, 31

source of light, 10speed ring on soft boxes, 108speedlites/speedlights, 70split lighting, 114–115Sports mode, 30–31sports photography, 30–31

aerial action, photographing,142–143

available light for, 144–145fast shutter speeds for, 132–135flash for, 144–145freezing actions, 134–135indoor lighting, 130–131inverse square law and, 145outdoor lighting, 140–143panning in, 137–138shutter speeds for, 132–139time of day for, 130–131tip-offs to action shots, 134


202

Spot metering, 22–23coverage area for, 23flash and, 69with gray cards, 40lighting ratios, measuring, 96

spot meters, 41lighting ratios, measuring, 96

square graduated neutral density(ND) filters, 64

step-up/step-down rings, 58stops and f/stops, 12streams, photos of, 185strip boxes/lights, 108–109

even lighting with, 109strobes (stroboscope), 70StroboFrame, 76studio flash, 68, 70, 73, 84–87

accessory options, 87adjustable power settings, 86build quality for, 85built-in flash, 71for close-up photography, 156color temperature and, 101ISO settings and, 18modeling light option, 87power options, 87shadows, filling in, 52slave trigger for, 85wireless option, 86

sunlightas available light, 43backlighting and, 63fill flash and, 88–89and polarizing filters, 58–59redirecting, 10sunset/sunrise photos, 176–177

sunscreens as reflectors, 55–56sunsets and sunrises, 176–177

sync mode, 69flash sync mode, 80–83front-curtain sync, 68high speed sync mode, 17rear-curtain sync, 81second-curtain sync, 68

Ttable lamps for close-up

photography, 156–157tape measure for lighting ratios, 96telephoto lenses

for night lighting, 178polarizing filters with, 60

tent lighting, 162–163texture

in close-ups, 161high-contrast lighting and, 3and portrait lighting, 94

three-light scheme, 63:1 lighting ratio, 96–97three-quarter lighting, 120three-quarter portraits, 112through the lens (TTL) flash

automatic TTL exposure, 78preflash with, 69

tides and water photos, 186Tiffen brackets, 76translucency of umbrellas, 105transmission of light, 11transportation. See portabilitytravel photography, 165. See also

architectural photographyangles for, 166–167lighting for, 166–167monuments and museums, 168–169night lighting, 178–181sunsets and sunrises, 176–177

tripodsfor fireworks exposures, 182for mixed lighting photos, 174for museum interiors, 169for night lighting, 178painting with light, 77for sports photography, 138for water photos, 185

TTL flash. See through the lens (TTL)flash

Tungsten WB setting, 45twilight shots, 1802:1 lighting ratio, 96–97

Uumbrellas

benefits of, 104–105distance and, 92–93with off-camera flash, 77in portrait lighting, 104–105as reflectors, 56–57for soft lighting, 92

underexposure, histogramshowing, 39

uneven lighting and interiors,170–171

Vvibration reduction measures. See

image stabilizationviewfinder and spot metering,

22–23vignetting, polarizing filters and,

58, 60Vivid mode, 50

for close-ups, 161

Wwashed out skies, 62–65water photos, 184–187waterfalls, photos of, 185wedding photography, reflectors in,

53white balance, 44–47

Auto settings, 45bias setting, 46bracketing, 36custom settings, 47degrees Kelvin, 44, 46and indoor sports photography, 131manual white balance, 46for sunset/sunrise photos, 176

white poster board reflectors, 54white umbrellas as reflectors, 57whites and high-key lighting, 6wide-angle lenses

built-in flash and, 71polarizers with, 58, 60–61

wireless studio flash, 86wrinkles, main light and, 99

Xxenon gas, 68

ZZone System (Adams), 40zoom setting for close-up

photography, 155

Documents

David Busch's Quick Snap Guide To Lighting