Advanced Photography Class 4

We had a pretty interesting class last night. We started learning about the studio lights. Before I get into the lights here are the notes on light.

There are two types of light:

• Reflective - this is the light coming off from the subject. When you meter off reflective light your camera or your light meter want to make this 18% gray so you have to be very careful what you meter off.
• Incident - this is the light from the source to the subject. You must have a light meter to measure this light. Metering incident light is the most accurate way to get your exposure correct.

When you take a picture you are just recording reflected light. So the question you have to ask yourself with every picture is: What is the light doing? Color tonality is another important aspect of light. If you are taking a picture of a garden with a lot of different color flowers in it, your meter will tell you many different exposure values for the reflected light. The flowers might not turn out as yellow, red, orange, etc. as you know they are if you do not understand the tonal range of color (think a black and white print). One suggestion that was made to help understand tonal values of items is to get a 'tobacco' colored gel. Before you shoot, hold the gel to your eye, you will get a monochrome image that will help you understand the tonal value of the scene.

The studio lights are going to be fun to play with. We just got a basic overview last night. As I get more into it, I will post more.