Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

Light indoors is often relatively dim. If you want to use the existing light and not

add flash or other light to a scene, you might have to use a slow shutter speed

and/or a wide aperture. Use a tripod at slow shutter speeds or brace your camera

against a table or other object so that camera motion during the exposure does not

blur the picture. Focus carefully, because there is very little depth of field if your lens

is set to a wide aperture. A fast film speed (ISO 400 or higher) will help.

Qualities of Artificial Light

The same properties are present in artificial light as in available natural light. The

direction of light and the amount of its diffusion can create a hard-edged light or a

soft and diffused light. Because you set up and arrange artificial lights, you need to

understand how to adjust and control them to produce the effect you want.

The bigger the light source relative to the subject, the softer the quality of the light.

The sun, although large, produces hard-edged, dark shadows because it is so far

away that it appears as a very small circle in the sky. Similarly, the farther back you

move a light, the smaller it will be relative to the subject and the harder the shad-

ows will appear. The closer you move the same light, the broader the light source

will be, the more its rays will strike the subject from different angles, and the softer

and more diffused its lighting will appear.

The more diffused the source, the softer the light. A spotlight focuses its light very

sharply on a subject producing bright highlights and very dark, hard-edged shad-

ows. A floodlight is a slightly wider source, but still one with relatively hard-edged

CHAPTER 21 LIGHTING 313

FIGURE 21.7
Diffused light
indoors occurs
when light
comes from
several different
directions, such
as from win-
dows on more
than one side of
a room.