Lighting

[Amy]

The first photo is my example of soft lighting. I took some maternity photos of my friend at her home as a gift. This couch was perfect as it was at a 90 degree angle to the window, letting in filtered afternoon light. The next is a self portrait in hard light. It was taken at about 3pm. I’m standing under an arbor to make the light less harsh over my face, but the shadows are still quite crisp from my jacket and earrings. Looking forward to your feedback! Amy

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Amy,

These are excellent.

It appears as though your camera is stuck at ISO 400. I want you to play with your ISO a little more.

The ISO basically refers to how sensitive your camera’s sensor is. When it’s darker you want your camera’s sensor to be more sensitive and you’ll often want to use a higher ISO… The problem is the higher the ISO the grainier and noisier your images become.

When in full white hot sun like your harsh light you should shoot with as low an ISO as you equipment will support. Usually 100.

In the following photographs you will see the difference:

Here is a flower shot at ISO 100:
[attachment=2:3ehgc817]Flower_at_100_ISO_for_comparison.JPG[/attachment:3ehgc817]

Here is a flower shot at ISO 1600:
[attachment=1:3ehgc817]Flower_at_1600_ISO_for_comparison.JPG[/attachment:3ehgc817]

crop of the two at 100%:
[attachment=0:3ehgc817]ISO_comparison_150px.jpg[/attachment:3ehgc817]

Now don’t get me wrong. Both of your images are nice.

I especially like the choice to use soft light for a soft situation. A maternity photograph is a great time to use soft light.

This is really the key to this lesson. Try to use the lighting environment to match the material you are shooting. If that isn’t possible with natural light that bring your own light 😉

Also, must be nice to be your own model! 😎

You’ve done very well Amy.

Keep shooting and improving and always consider the light that you are shooting in when you’re out there!

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Also I forgot to mention the above images come from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_noise

That article explains image noise in a little more depth.

Thanks!

[Author]

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