The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography

The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography (2006) Michael Freeman, Cambridge: ILEX. ISBN: 978-1-904705-88-8.

I picked this book up in my charity bookshop last year and I have only now gotten around to reading it. This book is very general and will teach you very limited lighting skills, I always get and read as many books on technical subjects as possible, to either learn something new of just revise.

Notes.

Use auto colour balance when taking multiple shots for 360-degree panoramas, as the colour balance may alter in the scene as you rotate around.

If working with mixed lighting and colour balance is to be addressed in post production, best set camera to auto when working in RAW.

Mixed lighting can work to the benefit of some pictures where for example a colour cast created by one light source contrasts against another the create atmosphere.

Mixed lighting – Take test shots using different colour balance setting to decide which colour balance should dominate or be changed.

One solution for dealing with high dynamic range when photographing interior scenes such as hotel rooms, etc. – Take multiple photos with the camera locked off on a tripod so it can not move and photograph the room first with only daylight, then with the other lights turned on one by one, one shot for each light. Then in Photoshop using layers stack each photo on top of each other erasing and blending as necessary.

In landscape on partially clouded days the edge of a cloud just covering the sun can create good diffusion but will change exposure values very quickly.