Lighting for Digital Photography

Series Summary

Photography is the art of capturing images with a camera. The earliest extant photograph, taken by Nicephore Niepce in 1826, took eight hours of exposure, prompting the photographer to search for a new process. Photography is all about light. In fact, photographs are recorded light. Lighting can ruin a photograph or make it great. Photographers have been known to wait days for the perfect natural lighting in order to get the perfect photograph. Lighting can also be created using flash systems, reflectors and other photography accessories. Specialty branches of photography, such as macro, portrait, architectural and forensic photography, also have special lighting requirements. In this free video on photography lighting, a professional photographer demonstrates lighting techniques for a variety of settings, such as studio and architectural photos. Learn how to use accessories such as lighting gels, reflectors and backdrops to improve photos. Also find out how to take photos with florescent lights and in low-light conditions.

Video Transcript

"Hello, Mark Bowers from Bowers Photography, bowersphotography.com. I'm in Utah. We're here to talk about difference, or digital photography and the difference between digital photography and film. The biggest difference is more precise and many times we use a precise meter to get the light a little bit closer than with film. Film had a little more forgiving latitude. You're going to look for a really decent light meter or maybe a flash meter. Film is beautiful and it's great, but we've shifted our whole studio now to digital. The lighting is basically the same with the same key light, fill light and hair light as with film. You just want to be a little bit more precise and there's one more thing that you should be concerned about with digital, is digital is a lot more sensitive to color balance and color changes in your light. So you need to be aware of the color temperatures. Film you can balance it just a little bit easier, but digital is a little bit more sensitive."