Lighting Tips

After posting my last blog on camera tips in the summer, and receiving all of the wonderful feedback on the post, I decided to give you a couple of tips on lighting. Lighting is key to composing your images. The way the light comes across your subjects face can give the impression of mood, emotion, and textured style (i.e. soft, smooth skin). If the light is coming directly from your camera, such as a flash, it can sometimes make the face appear flat or two dimensional. To counter act this affect, having some side lighting from a lamp or a window can add depth and dimension to your subjects face. This can be difficult to balance between the flash, which will fill in the shadows of the face, and the side lighting which can be multi-directional. So take a couple of shots from different points in the room, use you LCD preview screen to check your images, and check your cameras histogram levels to see that you have a good balance of lights and darks. If you are unsure how to use you cameras histogram, which measures Red, Green, and Blue light, you can check your camera manual for more detailed information. All point and shoot cameras should have an Info button to check your images and their histogram levels.

A note about kids and flashes. A flash is incredibly bright to a child's sensitive eyes. Whenever possible, try to avoid using the flash directly in front of a child's face. For a child it is like being flashed in the eyes by a Mag light and it can be very disorienting. If you have a situation where the room is very dark and you have to use the flash, there are a couple of things that you can do to mediate the light. Use your hand to partially cover the flash to diffuse some of the light. You may have to try this a couple of times because your hand may reflect a red glow on your images. By moving your hand up or down you can minimize this red glow. Try not to cast shadows on their faces in the process. Another thing that you could do to diffuse the light is to attach a small piece of white cloth or clear frosted tape (like scotch tape) in front of your flash. This will help to soften the light on their face. There are also more sophisticated diffusers on the market that you can purchase, but this seems to work in a pinch.

When it comes to the power of your flash, please keep in mind that your flash will only be effective if you keep the optimal distance from your subject. Such as shooting from the back of the room during a children's play. This will vary from camera to camera, and you should check your manual to see what distance your flash works best at. If you have a flash that you can adjust then by all means adjust it to meet your specific needs, but keep in mind that a large flash uses a lot of batteries and you may have to change them more frequently. So keep a fresh pair of batteries handy.

When it comes to digital images from your cell phone, Blackberry, iPhone, and so forth. There is no flash typically on these phones, so you need to use more of the available light. There are settings on the phones to increase the amount of light, but this can make your image look very grainy. Also, keep your lenses clean, so that you don't get images that look like they went through the dryer. Since we typically put our phones in our pockets, or like my wife, in her purse where it collects lint and dust. You can take a Q-tip or soft, non-abrasive cloth, and clean your lens. Lens paper typically works the best for cleaning the lens. Avoid using alcohol based products on your lenses.

I hope that some of these tips are useful to you and you get some great shots this summer.