Understanding light
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The document discusses light and how it affects photography. It explains that light contains different colors in the spectrum and how objects appear colored by reflecting some colors and absorbing others. Natural light changes throughout the day, while artificial lights like incandescent and fluorescent bulbs impart different color tones. Photographers can adjust white balance settings on their cameras to compensate for different lighting conditions and accurately capture colors. Exposures refer to the amount of light recorded by the camera, and adjusting aperture and shutter speed can manipulate exposures to get the desired brightness while achieving other photographic effects.
Understanding light
- 1. Understanding Light Jessica Young
- 2. Light • Light is one of the most important things that photographers need to be aware of. • Understanding how your eye sees light and colors will allow you to take stronger pictures.
- 3. The Color Spectrum • Natural light and artificial light look white to our eyes. • Shining a light through a prism shows how white actually contains every shade in the color spectrum.
- 4. The Color Spectrum • When light hits an object, the object absorbs some of the color spectrum and reflects back the rest of the colors. • The color(s) that are not absorbed are reflected back are the colors that our eye sees those objects as. • For example, when we look at a red rose, that flower reflects the color red and absorbs the rest of the colors.
- 5. Natural Light • Natural light changes in tone and color throughout the day. • Midday has the blue portion of the color spectrum as dominant. • Creates a “cool” light • Creates clearest, sharpest images in bright light. • Sunrise and sunset have strong red tones • Creates “warm” light • Creates softer contrast
- 6. Artificial Light • The types of bulbs that create artificial light creates different effects • Incandescent light • Our gym • Creates a yellow tinge • Gives a feeling of warmth
- 7. Artificial Light • The types of bulbs that create artificial light creates different effects • Florescent light • Classrooms • Creates a green tone • Creates an eerie/sickly effect
- 8. Adjusting for your light • You can change the white balance on your camera, depending on your environment • Only works in certain modes (M) • Different settings for different lighting • Helps your camera understand what kind of colors the lights may be adding to your subjects • Helps make sure that your colors are captured as accurately as possible
- 9. Basic White Balance Settings • Auto – this is where the camera makes a best guess on a shot by shot basis. You’ll find it works in many situations but it’s worth venturing out of it for trickier lighting. • Tungsten – this mode is usually symbolized with a little bulb and is for shooting indoors, especially under tungsten (incandescent) lighting (such as bulb lighting). It generally cools down the colors in photos. • Fluorescent – this compensates for the ‘cool’ light of fluorescent light and will warm up your shots.
- 10. Basic White Balance Settings • Daylight/Sunny – not all cameras have this setting because it sets things as fairly ‘normal’ white balance settings. • Cloudy – this setting generally warms things up a touch more than ‘daylight’ mode. • Flash – the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in Flash WB mode you’ll find it warms up your shots a touch. • Shade – the light in shade is generally cooler (bluer) than shooting in direct sunlight so this mode will warm things up a little.
- 11. Exposures • Term that describes the amount of light that is shined (or exposed) to the film when a picture is taken • Correct exposures look natural—the way that our eyes perceive images • Incorrect exposures look off—too dark, too light.
- 12. Manipulating Exposure • Adjusting the camera’s aperture and shutter speed impact exposure • Good photographers know how to balance the shutter speed and aperture to get the right amount of light, while still producing the desired effect • Cameras have a built-in meter that show if the shot will be over/under exposed.