Hobby

One of the issues involving the switch from film to digital pictures is in understanding the differences in digital photography lighting. While basic lighting rules for photographs will still apply, there are some subtle differences you need to be conscious of to get the most out of your pictures.

During the heyday of film photography, cameras had what is called an aperture that controlled the amount of light entering the lens and burned onto the film. The brighter the light, the smaller the opening, is the general rule. Additionally, the aperture opening also controlled what was called the depth of field. That is the depth, from front to back, of the picture that will be in focus. With digital photography lighting this isn’t so much an issue.

Most digital cameras on the market today have basically a fixed aperture, except for the very high quality cameras, and control the amount of light hitting the film through the length of time the shutter is open. Decreasing the shutter’s speed can have the adverse effect of a perfectly lit picture being out of focus, as the longer the shutter is open the more opportunity there is for camera movement.

The requirement for digital photography lighting is to have enough light with which to see the subject clearly. The low-lux requirement of digital camera lighting, that is the amount of candlepower required to accept the image is generally lower than regular film cameras.

Pitfalls

One of the pitfalls of digital camera lighting I have found is in bright sunlight outdoors. When using the LCD viewer the image oftentimes can’t be seen clearly and appears to be washed out. While the shutter speed will automatically adjust to a much higher speed so the finished print is good, it’s sometimes hard to tell until you see the image in normal lighting conditions.

When taking portraits the ideal digital camera lighting would be two soft lights in front of the subject, each at about a 45 degree angle aimed at the subject from about six to 10 feet and another smaller light behind the subject aimed at whatever surface the subject is in front of which will eliminate any shadows the front lights may cast.

Manually adjustable shutter speeds and aperture openings are available on the higher end cameras, but even on the less expensive models digital camera lighting is such that good results can be expected.