Digital Photography Lighting

Digital photography lighting is where the rubber meets the road.  In other words, this is where the real work begins. While digital cameras come with all sorts of bells and whistles that can make photography a whole lot easier, it cannot overcome poor settings and bad lighting. Even the best flash technology will not compensate for bad digital photography lighting.

Here are a couple of tips that that will ensure the best results.

Tip 1. Plan ahead.  Don’t just count on luck or on the sun coming back out. Think about the photos you want to take and give yourself time to either hit the sun at its best or to set up the equipment you need to compensate for the overcast sky. If you are doing an indoor shoot, get there in time to find the best light. Picture this: you go to take photos and find that the room you are suppose to shoot in has big windows on all four sides.  Where can you take a photo that the flash won’t hit the glass and cause a glare? If you check in advance you will find a different spot or something to block the glare.

Tip 2. Use your camera’s preset modes. This means reading your manual but it’s worth while. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that your camera is preset to deal with the most troublesome lighting. The most common preset modes are Night, Portrait, Landscape, Sunrise/Sunset, and Motion.

These presets cover just about any condition you will run up against. Of course there are always other events that could occur.  Night with a full moon is different from a night with a new moon. The main thing is that the presets configure the camera for the general optimal conditions you will face in each of these lighting concerns.

To elaborate, the Night setting allows for you to take photos when there is not a lot of light. The Portrait setting adds clarity and focus on the primary subject and blurs the background a little. Landscape sharpens the whole range of the photo so that long shots of mountains and lakes will be clear and crisp. Sunrise and Sunset settings make adjustments for the difficult light situations. The Motion setting adjusts the exposure time so that objects and people in motion are captured more quickly and therefore less apt to be blurry. This kind of setting is perfect for catching sports action.