Natural Lighting Artificial lighting Lighting Angles How many lights do you need? Lighting Ratios Photography is the art of illusion, tricking the viewer into thinking an image reproduced on a two-dimensional piece of paper or a comput ...

"Light ratios are confusing because there is more than one way to describe the difference in intensity between lights and because incident readings used to infer reflected highlight-to-shadow ratios. So first let's start by defining terms:" ...

By 'exposure' we mean the amount of light that falls onto the film, or CCD if you are using a digital camera. In modern cameras the exposure is usually set to automatic by d ...

" One of the most common approaches in portrait lighting is to use the softest possible light and to maintain good detail in both the highlight and the shadow areas of the photograph. This kind of lighting usually involves more than one light ...

Outdoor portraits can offer a sense a drama or romance that can be hard to achieve in a studio setting. The early morning or evening sky can serve as a stunning backdrop for a portrait. The trick is in lighting your subject properly. T ...

So, we already know that direct flash from your built-in flash gives unflattering results, to say the least. Using your speedlight in the same way won’t change much. I did mention that you can redirect the light by rotating the head of your f ...

The main problem with using an on-camera flash is the same as using the built-in flash, the light goes straight at the subject and flattens features and can cause red-eye. With an on-camera flash you almost always want to use a diffuser if sh ...

In the world of fashion and high-end portrait photography, lighting is the key to professional-looking images. Having the ability to control the light that falls on your subject allows you many different ways of expressing an idea photographi ...

How to create the high key image outdoors 1. Set up a white diffuser or diffusion panel behind your subject like a backdrop. (Make sure the sun is behind diffuser but not necessarily low in the sky) 2. Set up a second diffuser above you ...

Night photography has the ability to take a scene and cast it in an unusual light-- much like the golden hour surrounding sunrise and sunset can add an element of mood and uniqueness to a sunlit scene. Just as how sports and landscape photog ...

Sometimes people look at my images and think that the more unusual lighting effects are created in post, but it's all done in-camera. I did this with the Hummer shot to get the detail that was missing behind the axle stands that were r ...

The first thing you have to ask yourself before choosing the flash setting for your umbrella is, how big do you want your light source to be? But before we get to that, let's make sure we all know what we mean by "zoom setting." Re ...

Three point lighting is often the best way to create a flattering portrait, shoot a great headshot and make an interview on video look professional. Here is the essence of three point lighting: Key Light This is your primary light source. ...

The most popular studio lighting accessory? Hands down, the square softbox. Whether mini 12x12-inchers or 50x50-inch monsters, these boxy lighting tools are often the first thing to greet you when entering any portrait studio. But does the ...

Metering systems are calibrated to a certain light value in order to gurantee constant exposure settings: 18% gray is commonly accepted because a typical scene seems reflect the same amount of light as this gray value. As a framework for c ...