A Guide to Making Better Photos With Natural Light
Photography depends on the available light, and natural light is the more common form of light photographers use. Learn to get the most out of natural light by understanding it.
It does not matter how sophisticated or simple photographer's cameras are, they all depend on the same light. Understanding how to use light, in this case natural light, can make a photographer with a simple compact camera achieve better results than one with a professional DSLR.
Photographer's often use the term "natural light" to describe any light that's a part of the environment like the sun, street lights or even a fire. In this tutorial, we're going to narrow the definition to light that comes from the sun.
Even with this definition, it's also important to understand that natural light comes in different forms, producing a variety of results.Many times light is the reason a photographer will create a picture. Sometimes it's the light, and what it creates, that is the theme of the photograph.
The Big Light in the Sky
The sun is the source of all natural light. Although it is just a big, continuous light up in the sky, the way the sun behaves is not always the same. Its light changes during the day, due to weather conditions and also its position in the sky.
In general terms, there are three types of light: direct, diffused and reflected. Usually, all things we photograph are influenced by these three types of light, in different quantities according to the hour of the day, cloud coverage and the surroundings of the subject we photograph.
Understanding Different Types of Light
To take better photographs, it is important to understand exactly what light does to the subject. So, direct sunlight creates warmer tones, but also introduces more contrast, while diffused light (when a cloud layer creates like a studio softbox effect) lowers contrast and creates a cooler look to the photograph.
The third type of light is reflected light, when the sun's rays bounce from a surface near the subject. This type of light transmits the qualities of the object it reflects from, so if you place your subject close to, for example, a red wall, there will be a dominant red tone introduced in the final image.
Light Changes with Time
Although your natural light source is always the same, it also changes depending on the time of day. That's the reason why photographers are told to go out early in the morning and late afternoon. Sunrise and sunset times are the best times to take photos, especially of landscapes, but it is also a good time for almost all other types of photography.
At sunrise and sunset expect moderate contrast, less than at noon or the rest of the day, when the sun is high in the sky. During early morning or late afternoon the sun rays travel more horizontally and have to pass through more layers of the atmosphere, resulting in a warmer light and also rapid changes in tonality, something landscape photographers like to explore in their images. At this hour the shadows are longer, contributing to create more patterns and define volume on subjects, be it a mountain range or the shoreline.
Light Changes with the Weather
The light changes according to the weather. Besides time of day, this is the second most important natural light modifier you will find in photography. A layer of clouds moving in the sky softens the light when it passes under the sun. The thicker the layer of clouds, the less visible shadows become.
The soft light created when the sky is covered with clouds is ideal for flower photography, for example, and for portraits. The light may seem dull, but in fact opens interesting possibilities, for example in the realm of wildlife. I prefer to shoot wild animals with overcast light, because then I do not have to worry about losing detail in deep shadows. It also seems to work better, with many animals, to enhance the mood of their habitats.
Extreme changes in weather, common in winter, can also offer you great experiences in terms of light, and this at any hour of the day. Pictures like the one opening this article, taken on the Portuguese coastline, are a good example of the fantastic light and definition after a storm with rain.
The dark cloudy sky opened to let the late afternoon sun shine over the village perched on the cliffs. Being there, patiently waiting to see things change is part of the lesson of understanding light.
Shooting at Noon
The light during the middle of the day is hard. Photographers tend to use those hours to do other things. Though this is generally a good rule to follow, try to break it sometimes and you might be surprised. The midday light is not necessarily bad, but it is different. Not the most flattering for portraits, as it creates shadows under the eyes (raccoon eyes, we say), nose and chin, but there are lots of other subjects you can shoot.
Landscapes, especially those bright saturated beachscapes without clouds in the sky, with transparent sea waters you see in travel brochures are often shot during midday. It is also at this time of day that polarizers can be put to good use, both to manage contrast and to saturate colours, although it is absolutely necessary to make sure that colours do not look garish while the skies become excessively dark and blue.
The Old Front Lighting Rule
The first rule many people learn when starting photography is to keep the sun on their back. It is the easiest way, in general terms, to have a good exposure, but it is not the most interesting light if you want to give a three dimensional effect to your photographs. There are times when this type of light will work, but you will soon start to look for other ways to create your photographs. It's time for adventure!
Side Lighting and Backlighting
When you place your subject so the light comes from an angle to one of its sides, things start to get interesting, but also trickier to control. Your images will reveal more texture and volume, but also harsh shadows and contrast. At this moment, you can introduce a reflector on the shadowed side, to bounce light back into the subject and so reduce the difference between the areas of light and shadow.
Backlighting is also something to explore, and in this type of situation you can also try to use a reflector to direct some of the light to the frontside of the subject, but nothing stops you from exposing for the subject and simply let the background go overexposed. This technique works well with portraiture, or with flowers, an area where I use it quite a lot.
Sunrise and Sunset
For me, these are the preferred periods to photograph. When a cloud layer covers the sky, the rising or setting sun rays will bounce on it and create a unique atmosphere, with a soft warm light that explains the term "golden hour" photographers use to refer to these short periods of the day.
Blue Hour Magic
The end of the sunset should not signal the end of your time shooting. Those that stay behind will have another chance for unique photographs. The "blue hour" lasts for only some minutes, but it can be enough for you to get a moody picture that really contrasts with the images taken under the late afternoon sun. For photographers not afraid to get up early there is also a blue hour on the other side of the day, before the sun rises.
Good Light is All Around You
Exploring all the situations mentioned here will not only provide you with some photographs that may surprise you and your friends, but also give you a broader understand of light. I hope this prepares you to explore even further, when natural light begins to be so scarce that you need a tripod, exposures of seconds or minutes, and lots of patience. Most importantly, remember that light isn't something to be scared of. Embrace it as it comes.
resource : https://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/
Simple Steps for Shooting Amazing Silhouettes
Simple Steps for Shooting Amazing Silhouettes
Silhouettes can be an excellent way to add drama to a scene. The stark contrast and lack of detail in the subject infuse a psychological effect into the image that can be beautiful, mysterious, or even frightening.
Today we'll look at a few suggestions to keep in mind the next time you set out to shoot some silhouettes. We'll also examine the settings used in some real-life amazing silhouette shots to see what we can learn from them.
Choose Your Subject Carefully
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Before you consider the technical details and camera settings, you need to put some thought into your subject. It's a tricky situation that will involve a bit of experimentation to get just right. You'll want your subject to be relatively simple and very pronounced in shape on a two-dimensional level. The nature of a silhouette shot means that you'll stripping any detail and nearly all perception of depth from the subject.
Be wary of subjects that are overly blocky and/or obstructive such as boring buildings or simple sculptures. Also be careful about including multiple people in the shot. If there is too much overlap, the resulting silhouette will be confusing and indistinct. Make sure each subject is clearly identifiable as an independent object.
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One shot you see often is a "kissing silhouette" where two people are embracing and kissing but their faces overlap so much the resulting image is a little strange to look at.
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As you can see in the photograph above, even though it's a great image, if you concentrate on the facial overlap of the silhouette, it's a little unsettling. If you try to mimic this shot, try to shoot the subjects when their faces are further apart, either right before or after the point of touching. Remember that these same principles apply to any two objects that will be overlapping in your composition, not just people.
Lighting
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Obviously, silhouettes are all about backlighting. The basic idea is that the background will be so bright that it overpowers the foreground and the side of the subject facing you. This is where you have to learn to think and see like a camera.
If you've ever unintentionally shot a silhouette you know that what the camera sees is often not what you see at all. Sometimes you can see your subject just fine despite the bright backlight, but the resulting shot is a silhouette because of the differences in the way your camera and your eyes gather light.
We'll discuss this more when we get into settings, for now let's look at the two primary types of lighting scenarios for silhouette shots.
Lighting Part 1: In the Studio
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Silhouette shots in the studio are the easiest to control as long as you've got the right equipment. Usually, you want to engineer your background to be fairly solid and simple to maximize the contrast of the silhouette. So grab a light colored, solid backdrop and hit it with your studio lights. Place these behind your subject but out of the frame.
If you want to control the tone and impression of the image beyond the shape of the subject, try infusing bright colors and experimenting with vignettes.
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Another variable to experiment with is how much of the subject you want to be silhouetted. Partial silhouettes that allow selective areas of detail can make for some amazing shots.
Lighting Part 2: In the Wild
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Silhouette shots in uncontrolled environments can be a lot more unpredictable, which can be good or bad depending on how well you can adjust to to rapidly changing lighting conditions. Sunlight can be tricky to use effectively to use for most of the day. This is why 90% or more of the outdoor silhouette shots you'll see are taken around sunrise or sunset. Naturally, since the sun is lowest in the sky at these points and is obscured by the most atmospheric interference, it makes an ideal and often colorful backlight.
However, as indicated above, this can be a lot more stressful than shooting in a studio environment because as the sun's position on the horizon changes, your lighting conditions will quickly be affected. If you're shooting in full manual you really have to keep an eye on the results and continually make adjustments. Make sure you are very familiar with your cameras settings - ideally you'll be able to make incremental changes without losing time by taking your eye out of the viewfinder. Unfortunately, your window of opportunity with the perfect lighting conditions is often quite small.
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If you're shooting with the sun as your backlight, there are lots of variables to consider in the composition: clouds, buildings, elevation of the subject in relation to the camera, position of the sun relative to the subject, etc. Experiment with every one of these variables to see what produces the effect and mood you're going for. The photographer of the beautiful image above used an intentional lens flare as the central point of the image while positioning the subject to the rightmost third of the shot.
Camera Settings
To get a feeling for how to set your camera to shoot good silhouettes, we'll utilize the "more properties" feature on Flickr to see how some actual photos were taken. Looking at what has actually worked for other photographers is an excellent way to learn how to take similar pictures yourself so make it a point to use this feature frequently!
Silhouette Shooter
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The image above shows that sometimes a complex background can work out really well under the right circumstances. It's not immediately apparent exactly what the light source in this image is. It might be a window or simply a colorful piece of glass outside of a well lit room.
As you can see, the exposure was set to 1/200 sec, the aperture to f/2.2 and the ISO to 1600. These three factors are very important pieces of the puzzle and have an immense impact on the final image. The shutter speed (1/200) is set fairly fast for a dark room. If you were trying to capture more detail, this would probably have to be closer to 1/100 or slower (making it more difficult to get a crisp image with a handheld) but since blocking out detail is exactly what you're going for, it works out well that you can shoot at a faster shutter speed. This benefit can allow you to capture motion silhouettes without worrying too much about blur.
The aperture at f/2.2 is actually letting in a lot of light despite the resulting dark image. Remember that when we're talking aperture, the higher the number, the darker the image due to the reduced amount of light being let in. Many lenses won't even reach as low as 2.2 - this, combined with the fact that the photographer was shooting with a Canon 5D, tells us that his equipment budget is fairly considerable. So don't be discouraged if your results aren't quite as good!
Lenses that let you shoot this low are perfect for low-light scenarios, whether shooting silhouettes or not. Just beware that as the aperture goes down, the depth of field will become shallower. The shallower your depth of field becomes, the more difficult it will be to get a crisp silhouette as only a very small portion of the image will be in focus.
Finally, the ISO was set to 1600. Remember that as the ISO increases, your image will get brighter but will suffer the unfortunate side effect of increased color noise. Again, this photographer shot with a 5D so color noise will be much less of a problem at 1600 than it would be for a cheaper camera such as a Canon Rebel. The relatively low amount of ambient light in the scene probably forced the photographer to shoot up at 1600. Outdoor silhouettes often benefit from the large amount of available light and can therefore be shot at closer to 100-200 if there is enough sun.
Luis and the Balloons
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Though visually very different, this image is conceptually very similar to the last. We again see a lone figure in front of a colorful light source shot at a fairly high zoom level (coincidentally, it's the same photographer). This time the exposure is even faster, 1/250, allowing for even less light to enter in. The aperture is also set to allow less light in at 3.2 (still quite low by most standards). The low depth of field works really well for the shot here as it blurs out some of the balloons that are further away, enhancing the aesthetic of the shot.
Lastly, the photographer stayed true to his last shot and stuck with an ISO of 1600. Click on the largest version of the file to see the resulting color noise on some of the balloons. Again, this is not desirable but is often unavoidable when shooting in the dark.
More Examples
Now that we've gone through how to break down and interpret the settings, here are a few more examples for you to consider on your own.
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Your Turn
Now that you've read our ideas about how to capture great silhouettes, tell us yours! Be sure to share any links you have to great silhouette shots you've taken.
High Speed Photography
High Speed Photography
Celebration Of High-Speed Photography
This post is supposed to provide you with some inspiration of what can be done with high-speed photography. It also showcases some truly stunning slow-motion videos.
This post is supposed to provide you with some inspiration of what can be done with high-speed photography. It also showcases some truly stunning slow-motion videos.
DIY – High Speed Photography at Home
This guide describes how to capture super fast movements using ordinary camera gear and a little home made electronics. It describes the setup used, the common problems and what can be done to solve them.
This guide describes how to capture super fast movements using ordinary camera gear and a little home made electronics. It describes the setup used, the common problems and what can be done to solve them.
Home-Made High Speed Photography (PDF)
Pictures of high-speed events such as popping balloons, breaking glass, and splashing liquids reveal interesting structures not visible to the naked eye. With this guide you can take your own high-speed photos to captures these ephemeral events. A very detailed tutorial.
Pictures of high-speed events such as popping balloons, breaking glass, and splashing liquids reveal interesting structures not visible to the naked eye. With this guide you can take your own high-speed photos to captures these ephemeral events. A very detailed tutorial.
About Photography
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography is the art, science, and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film, or electronically by means of an image sensor. Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. The result in an electronic image sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing.
The result in a photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically developed into a visible image, either negative or positivedepending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.
Photography has many uses for business, science, manufacturing (e.g. photolithography), art, recreational purposes, and mass communication.
Uses
Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement.
Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used by amateurs to preserve memories, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment. High speed photography allows for visualizing events that are too fast for the human eye.
Technical aspects
The camera is the image-forming device, and photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory.
Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material (such as film) to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on film) or RAW file (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) orcomplementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.
The camera (or 'camera obscura') is a dark room or chamber from which, as far as possible, all light is excluded except the light that forms the image. The subject being photographed, however, must be illuminated. Cameras can range from small to very large, a whole room that is kept dark while the object to be photographed is in another room where it is properly illuminated. This was common for reproduction photography of flat copy when large film negatives were used (see Process camera).
A general principle known from the birth of photography is that the smaller the camera, the brighter the image. This meant that as soon as photographic materials became sensitive enough (fastenough) to take candid or what were called genre pictures, small detective cameras were used, some of them disguised as a tie pin that was really a lens, as a piece of luggage or even a pocket watch (the Ticka camera).
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame". This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures together to create the illusion of motion.
Camera controls
In all but certain specialized cameras, the process of obtaining a usable exposure must involve the use, manually or automatically, of a few controls to ensure the photograph is clear, sharp and well illuminated. The controls usually include but are not limited to the following:
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Focus | The position of a viewed object or the adjustment of an optical device necessary to produce a clear image: in focus; out of focus. |
| Aperture | Adjustment of the lens opening, measured as f-number, which controls the amount of light passing through the lens. Aperture also has an effect on depth of field and diffraction – the higher the f-number, the smaller the opening, the less light, the greater the depth of field, and the more the diffraction blur. The focal length divided by the f-number gives the effective aperture diameter. |
| Shutter speed | Adjustment of the speed (often expressed either as fractions of seconds or as an angle, with mechanical shutters) of the shutter to control the amount of time during which the imaging medium is exposed to light for each exposure. Shutter speed may be used to control the amount of light striking the image plane; 'faster' shutter speeds (that is, those of shorter duration) decrease both the amount of light and the amount of image blurring from motion of the subject and/or camera. |
| White balance | On digital cameras, electronic compensation for the color temperature associated with a given set of lighting conditions, ensuring that white light is registered as such on the imaging chip and therefore that the colors in the frame will appear natural. On mechanical, film-based cameras, this function is served by the operator's choice of film stock or with color correction filters. In addition to using white balance to register natural coloration of the image, photographers may employ white balance to aesthetic end, for example white balancing to a blue object in order to obtain a warm color temperature. |
| Metering | Measurement of exposure so that highlights and shadows are exposed according to the photographer's wishes. Many modern cameras meter and set exposure automatically. Before automatic exposure, correct exposure was accomplished with the use of a separate light metering device or by the photographer's knowledge and experience of gauging correct settings. To translate the amount of light into a usable aperture and shutter speed, the meter needs to adjust for the sensitivity of the film or sensor to light. This is done by setting the "film speed" or ISO sensitivity into the meter. |
| ISO speed | Traditionally used to "tell the camera" the film speed of the selected film on film cameras, ISO speeds are employed on modern digital cameras as an indication of the system's gain from light to numerical output and to control the automatic exposure system. The higher the ISO number the greater the film sensitivity to light, whereas with a lower ISO number, the film is less sensitive to light. A correct combination of ISO speed, aperture, and shutter speed leads to an image that is neither too dark nor too light, hence it is 'correctly exposed', indicated by a centered meter. |
| Autofocuspoint | On some cameras, the selection of a point in the imaging frame upon which the auto-focus system will attempt to focus. Many Single-lens reflex cameras (SLR) feature multiple auto-focus points in the viewfinder. |
Many other elements of the imaging device itself may have a pronounced effect on the quality and/or aesthetic effect of a given photograph; among them are:
- Focal length and type of lens (normal, long focus, wide angle, telephoto, macro, fisheye, or zoom)
- Filters placed between the subject and the light recording material, either in front of or behind the lens
- Inherent sensitivity of the medium to light intensity and color/wavelengths.
- The nature of the light recording material, for example its resolution as measured in pixels or grains of silver halide.
Camera Development
- resource from Wikipedia
