Digital.Camera.Magazine.Complete.Photography.Guide.Mastering.Light (pdf document) download at fliiby.com

"Complete photography guide Light TAKE DRAMATIC PHOTOS USING OUR EXPERT TIPS ■ How to control and enhance natural light ■ Creative ways to shoot with ﬂash ■ Simple techniques for spectacular results Master VITAL SKILLS GUIDE Light Many photographers just starting out tend to think of the role of light only in terms of exposure. But ﬁnding the best light and learning how to control it can have a huge effect on the emotional impact of your images. This book will arm you with the knowledge and techniques you need to really begin mastering light. Light 3 Master Light TAKE DRAMATIC PHOTOS USING OUR EXPERT TIPS Master Contents ■ Light’s character ■ Chasing the light ■ Improving the quality ■ Master of light: Charlie Waite ■ Fill-in with ﬂash ■ Master of light: Chris Johns ■ Dealing with low light ■ Light on the landscape ■ Master of light: George D. Lepp ■ Top 10 tips p10 p14 p16 p22 p24 p28 p30 p36 p46 p49 Light 7 Start painting with light ur three previous photography guides have covered composition, exposure and colour – now it’s time to look at the element which is the key inﬂuence for all three aspects. As a photographer, you need to learn to love light, appreciate its endless subtleties and try to make the most of its mood swings. Soon you’ll feel your heart race a little faster as the black clouds of a passing storm tear apart and rich, golden light burns through to transform even the most mundane scene (just don’t forget to carry your camera at all times – you’ll kick yourself if you miss capturing such an event). Don’t pull your hair out if the light isn’t ‘right’ though. You just need to learn a few tricks that can help you rescue the situation – this book will show you them. We’ll give you ideas for taming harsh light, show you how to make the most of falling light levels and how to use ﬂash in understated ways. We don’t cover studio lighting in this book – that will come later. Instead, we focus on natural light – how to capture it, how to enhance and how to use it in great new ways. O Marcus Hawkins Editor, Digital Camera Magazine 8 Light Light 9 Light’s character ou really begin to grow as a photographer when you start being able to read the different characteristics of light and are able to adjust your shooting accordingly. Where photography’s concerned, there are four elements of light that you need to be able to recognise: its quality, colour, intensity and direction. You can control each of them to a certain degree, whether it’s through a shift in camera position, the use of light modiﬁers or during image processing. Y 10 Light Quality of light You can judge the quality of light by the shadows it creates. Hard lighting – from the sun on a cloudless summer’s day or an undiffused ﬂashgun – creates inky, sharp-edged shadows and hot highlights. Your camera will struggle to maintain detail in both, and compromises might have to be taken. Soft light – early morning, late evening, a cloudy day, a misty day – reduces the contrast between light and dark and produces soft-edged shadows in which detail’s still visible. It’s ideal for portraits, close-ups and revealing the glorious colours of autumn. You can improve the quality of light to some degree on a small scale using diffusors, reﬂectors, ﬁll-ﬂash and the like (you’ll ﬁnd tips and techniques for doing just that throughout this guide), but there’s very little you can do other than wait for the very best light when you’re shooting landscapes. Colour of light We covered the colour of light comprehensively in the previous guide, but it’s such an important ingredient for creating images with emotional impact that we couldn’t leave it out here. In general, ‘warmer’ pictures produce a more pleasurable viewing experience. ‘Colder’ pictures can leave use feeling exactly that. Fortunately, it’s one of the easiest elements of light to ‘correct’. You can change your camera’s white balance setting to enhance or reduce the warmth of a scene. You can place colour correction ﬁlters in front of your lens – blue to cool down a scene, amber to warm it up. Or you can simply wait until you’re back home editing your images on your computer before you start changing the colour balance of your picture. The sun rising or setting creates long shadows – plan for them when you compose an image. Here, an ordinary location’s been transformed by the play of light and shadow, creating a simple, powerful photograph. Light 11 Intensity of light Perhaps not as important in enhancing the mood of a shot as the other characteristics of light, intensity, or brightness has a crucial role to play in terms of exposure. The more light there is available, the smaller your aperture can be and yet still retain action-stopping shutter speeds. Your ISO can also be set lower – so there’s the potential to create a higher quality image. The more intense and hard the light is, though, the more chance there is of highlights getting ‘blown’ in a digital image. Check your camera’s histogram – an image on an LCD monitor might seem brighter or darker than it actually is. Direction of light Light can illuminate your subject from three basic directions – front, side and back. Each brings its own unique feel to a picture. Backlighting, for instance, can be used to provide a ‘halo’ around a portrait sitter. It provides mood, drama and visual interest. It brings foliage to life and gives water an edge. The only thing to watch out for is direct light striking the front of the lens. This produces ﬂare, which reduces contrast. You might ﬁnd a lens hood – particularly on a wideangle lens – doesn’t always prevent ﬂare. In these instances, move a piece of card or your hand close to the front of the lens to shade it from the light (just be sure that it doesn’t appear in the frame). Sidelighting is great for bringing out the texture in a landscape. It reveals shape and form and gives pictures depth. Frontlighting is good for close-up portraits, particularly of birds and animals. It might not have the impact of backlighting or sidelighting, but don’t limit yourself just to these. Backlighting can enhance mood. This shot wouldn’t be as atmospheric if shot from the other side of the subject, with full frontlighting. Early morning light is usually less intense than that of the sun at midday. You’ll need to work with wider apertures in order to freeze movement. 12 Light Light 13 Chasing the light nce you start getting a feel for light, you’ll search out the times of day where the quality of light is generally at its best – at the start and end of the day during the ‘golden hours’. The sun’s rays have to pass through more of the atmosphere during sunrise and sunset. This ﬁlters out more of the wavelengths at the blue end of the colour spectrum, leaving us to see wavelengths at the warmer end. This is why the light has a ‘colder’ quality at midday, when the sun is directly overhead and passing through a much thinner part of the atmosphere. A sunset tends to produce a richer, warmer image than a sunrise because atmospheric pollution’s built up throughout the day, scattering the light still further. Sunsets and sunrises are probably the most cliched photographic subjects known to man – but don’t resist capturing a truly breathtaking one when the moment presents itself. O You sunset shots don’t have to be cliched skyscapes – try incorporating the orb in unusual ways… 14 Light Get there early Many photographers prefer shooting at dawn – that way they’re not ﬁghting against falling light levels as they would be at the end of the day. Lakes and rivers also tend to be more still at this time of the day – perfect for capturing reﬂections. Early morning light can have more of a sharper, clearer quality than at sunset – and shadows tend to creep on you rather fast at the end of the day. For those of us holding down a day job, it’s unlikely that we can escape work commitments to catch the sunset on a regular basis – but getting up early and getting out before the sun rises can be an option. You need to make sure you’re in position and ready to start shooting before the sun actually clips the horizon though, as the ‘magic’ light only lasts for a few minutes. Don’t include the sun’s bright orb in your frame when you’re metering – it’s likely to cause severe underexposure in your shot. Instead, take a spot meter reading from a bright area of sky, lock the reading in and recompose with the sun back in the frame. Bracket exposures at +/- 0.5EV around this initial exposure. Light 15 Improving the quality D o you want hard or soft light? Both types have their purpose in photography. If it’s striking, graphic shots with black, hard-edged shadows you want, seek out raw, hard light – when the sun’s high in a clear sky or you’re shooting with on-camera ﬂash. Chances are, though, that you’ll want soft, diffused light more often than not. On a bright, cloudy day, the sky acts like a giant softbox. You’ll have a much easier time metering for a scene as the contrast will have been reduced – no deep shadows or bright highlights to try and rectify later on your computer. You’ll be able to reveal much ﬁner detail, and colour appears more saturated. Soften hard light The reason hard lights are exactly that, is because they’re a point-source of light relative to the size of the subject of your photograph, resulting in unbalanced exposures. The sun’s big, but so far away that, on a cloudless day it too becomes a small, harsh light source. But it can be softened to produce a much more ﬂattering result. Commercial diffusion panels are available – thin pieces of semitransparent material which, when held between the sun and the subject, spread and soften the light, removing glaring highlights and opening up the detail in shadows. Try using a sheet of tracing paper for macro subjects. When you’re working with small subjects using a macro lens, a ﬂashgun held close to them effectively becomes a large softbox relative to their size (particularly when it’s ﬁtted with its own diffusor).. Close-up shots such as this collection of autumn leaves always beneﬁt from soft, diffused light – although when water drops are present, experiment with sidelighting… 16 Light Use a reﬂector Diffusors are particularly suited to closerup and macro work, as there’ll be room to place them between the light source and the subject without them appearing in the frame. If you’re dealing with a larger subject, particularly outdoors, you’ll probably want to reach for a ﬂashgun or a reﬂector. Reﬂectors provide the more natural-looking results of the two (they only make use of the ambient light, after all) and they’re much easier to use – you can see results ‘live’ (no need to take a test shot, check the camera’s LCD monitor and adjust output, as you’ll more than likely have to do with ﬂash). You can use small reﬂectors to bounce light precisely where you want it, or use a large one to ﬁll in detail on a much grander scale. Light 17 Reﬂector options There are many commercially available reﬂectors, ranging in size, colour and price – a simple 12” one is likely to set you back around £10, while something in the region of 6’x4’ is unlikely to leave you with much change from £100. Despite their cost, these types of reﬂectors have several advantages. They’re hard-wearing and portable, with the circular collapsible variety folding up into something approaching a quarter of their full size. They’re also available in double-sided variations, the classic combination being white on one side, gold on the other. White retains the colour of the natural light, while the likes of silver, gold and varying combinations of both all add their own particular colour. Silver can bring a fresh sparkle to a picture, particularly a portrait, while gold can warm up skin tones well. Just don’t overdo the gold – try using it when shooting on a beach, as that’s where viewers would expect to see golden light reﬂected by the sand… 18 Light There’s no need to spend a fortune If you can’t afford a good quality reﬂector, or you simply want to supplement your current set-up, why not make your own? The simplest sort is a sheet of plain white card. This will provide a soft, even illumination for the surface you’re bouncing light onto. For a sharper, cleaner quality to the light, reach for aluminium foil. Simply crinkle it up into a ball, uncrinkle it, and stick it to a piece of card. If you don’t make the surface wrinkled, you’ll end up with a big, hard slice of reﬂected light that feels ‘artiﬁcial’ to the viewer. This might be exactly the effect you’re after though. A small mirror provides an even more crisp, directional source of bounced light – it can be useful for isolating details in a graphic way in a large shot, or for really adding punch to a macro shot. Find a natural reﬂector If you ﬁnd yourself in a situation where you don’t have a reﬂector close to hand, look for an alternative source of reﬂected light. An open book or newspaper positioned close to the face of a sitter can make a simple alternative. If you’re on a beach, get your subject close to the sand, which bounces back a surprising amount of light (if you can ﬁnd a white beach towel, even better). The cold light reﬂected by snow in winter can provide excellent ﬁll light, while the rippling surface of a river, stream or pool, full of catchlights on a sunny day, provides a beautiful quality of illumination. Be aware of your camera reading for bright backgrounds though – it could be fooled into underexposing the scene. It’s better to get in close to your subject and take a reading from them directly. Remember to increase the exposure for pale skin and decrease it for dark skin. Light 19 How to brighten up a face A portrait shoot’s the classic situation for using a reﬂector, particularly when it’s outdoors on a clear, bright day where, if you can’t ﬁnd an area of shade in which your subject can stand, you’ll have to deal with high contrast lighting. The golden rule is don’t position your subject where they face directly into bright sunlight – they’ll end up squinting, which isn’t ﬂattering. Instead, pose them so that the light’s coming from over their shoulder or from an angle to the side and use a reﬂector to bounce light back into the darker areas. Your subject will thank you if you can get rid of any ugly shadowing on their face. Areas to pay particular attention to are around the eyes and nose and under the chin. Wrinkles and ‘imperfect’ skin will also be exaggerated by strong sidelighting – placing a reﬂector close to the opposite side of the subject’s face will remove even the smallest shadows. A reﬂector placed low will also bounce light under the brims of caps and hats – you risk burning out the detail in well lit areas of a subject wearing headgear if you simply try to increase the exposure to open up the shadows instead. On a bright day, you’ll be surprised how much light can be directed back onto your subject using even the simplest reﬂector. Don’t be afraid to use more than one either (try one angled to each side, plus one below the subject) – but ensure you don’t cause your sitter to squint by bouncing sunlight straight into their eyes. As well as providing a more ﬂattering illumination, the increase in light levels also means you can take advantage of higher shutter speeds, and consequently smaller apertures. The result? Portraits with a deeper ﬁeld of focus, sharp from nose-tip to ear. Take advantage of natural reﬂectors. A white door (offcamera) was used for the left shot, and a pale ﬂoor and book in this one. 20 Light Light 21 Master of light Charlie Waite C harlie is the most admired landscape photographer in Britain today. His mastery of light and composition is clear from every one of his exquisite frames. The name of the photographic holiday workshop company he set up 11 years ago – Light & Land – ﬁts like a glove. He hasn’t always been a professional landscape photographer though. Originally an actor, he began taking pictures of other actors and theatrical productions in 1977. Just four years later he was commissioned to provide all the images for the National Trust book of Long Walks. Since then, there have been over twenty books featuring his stunning images, numerous exhibitions and tours all over the world. Everyone who wants to know how to lift their landscape images above the norm needs a copy of Charlie’s ‘The Making of Landscape Photographs’ in their book collection. 22 Light This photograph of the River Esera, Huesca, Spain was exposed at ISO 50, for 1/8th sec at f/16. Charlie attached two ﬁlters – a polariser and 81A warm-up – to the wideangle lens on his trusted Hasselblad. The contrast of light and shadow gives this shot a real threedimensional quality. Taken as the sun was setting, Charlie had to race against time – in a matter of minutes there would be no light in the left of the frame, the bushes there would lose their glow, and the whole composition would have lost its balance. To learn more about Charlie Waite, pay a visit to charliewaite.com. Light 23 Fill-in with ﬂash A lthough it doesn’t soften the quality of harsh midday light, a burst of ﬁll ﬂash can open up shadows to provide a more pleasing, balanced exposure. The key to making naturallooking shots is to ensure the ﬁll-in light is subtle. You don’t want the artiﬁcial light to overpower the natural light – it shouldn’t be obvious that you’ve used it. The idea is to expose for the highlights – if there’s time, switch to spotmetering for precise measurement, but be aware of the tone of the area you’re metering from (you’ll need to add a little more exposure if the subject’s lighter than mid-tone, for instance). You then let the ﬂash pop some life back into the dark areas. Today’s ﬂashes are generally very advanced with effective automatic ﬁll-in modes. However, for the most part they tend to produce an obviously ‘ﬂashed’ look, with shadows brought up to a similar exposure level as the lighter areas. Try reducing the output further for a more natural result… The ﬁrst of these shots was taken without any ﬁll-in ﬂash. The image is dull. The second shot shows what happens when you shoot in automatic ﬁll-ﬂash mode – the shadows have been brought up to a similar level as the lighter areas. It looks a bit ‘hot’ 24 Light Set up a test It’s worth doing your own run of test shots to begin understanding how your ﬂash will react in different lighting situations. First, get hold of a white subject, a dark subject and mid-tone subject (visit your local toy shop and pick up some soft toys – they’re ideal). Head outside on a clear day, position each one in turn within ﬂash range and ﬁre off a set of frames, changing the ﬂash exposure each time (make sure you allow time for your ﬂash to fully recharge between shots). Start with a regular ﬂash exposure, then decrease its output gradually over the next four or ﬁve frames, until you reach -2EV. Do this for each of the three subjects, making sure the ambient lighting conditions are consistent throughout. You can then simply look at the shots on your computer to determine what atio of ﬁll-in ﬂash you prefer for that given lighting condition. In this shot, we reduced the normal ﬂash output by 1.7EV. This has provided a subtle amount of ﬁll-in light. Shadows have been retained, but there’s detail in them Light 25 Shoot into the su..."

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