4. Types of Light Sources
Natural vs. Artificial Light
There are two sources of light: natural (which includes sunlight, moonlight, and reflected light from either the sun or moon), and artificial (which includes sources like tungsten lights, fluorescent lights, electronic flash, and studio flash). Natural light is not limited to the outdoors, nor is artificial light exclusively indoors. Many times, I use flash to fill in shadows while shooting
Natural light is not limited to the outdoors,
outdoors. I have also effectively used filtered window light for an indoor shot with natural light. As you’ll see in the following sections, sunlight is a great option for pho-
nor is artificial light
tography. It’s natural, often very flattering to your subjects, and widely abun-
exclusively indoors.
dant (and you can’t beat the price!). However, it does present certain challenges when it comes to control—and, unless you can shoot near a window, it’s not always an option for images shot indoors. In many cases, you’ll also find that you need more precise control than you can easily exercise over natural light. That is why photographers also need to be adept at creating effective lighting setups using artificial light sources. As a photographer, both of these forms of light are at your disposal. It’s up to you to learn how to use them effectively in all their many incarnations. Sunlight
Generally, the average photographer is most concerned with daylight. But saying “daylight” is just the beginning of the story—there are countless variations of just this one light source. Bright Sunlight. There are several problems inherent in working with bright sunlight. These problems intensify when shooting against a brightly lit background such as a light-colored wall, a beach, or snow. In these cases, the overall light tones in the image can trick the in-camera meter and lead to incorrect exposures. When shooting against a predominately dark background, you may find that your film or image sensor can’t handle the very high contrast of the scene—you’ll either have blown-out highlights (white with no detail) or blocked up shadows (black with no detail). Fortunately, with a digital camera, it is easy to shoot a few images and then preview them. Working in the manual mode (for total control), pay attention to the exposure settings as you are shooting, review your results, then adjust the aperture, TYPES OF LIGHT SOURCES 55