Light

Do you know how important light is? How many kind of lights there are? Read more after the jump.

Pictures are actually made using light. Without light you won't have any pictures. This is because pictures come from a medium where light is being recorded on. Film and digital sensor are the famous medium being used. These mediums have different sensitivities which are called ISO.

There are actually a few types of light and based on how you categorised it. Most of the photographers split light into 2 types which are natural light and artificial light. So what are the difference between both of them? Natural light comes from sunlight or even the moonlight. Natural light is found naturally from our environment. On the other hand, artificial light are lights that are created by human. Some examples of artificial light would be light source from a candle, a bulb which is on and many other more.

Besides natural light and artificial light, light also can be categorised as soft and hard light. Soft light is light that comes from an apparent large surface area compare to the subject that is being photographed. For example when you are standing under the blue sky, you are able to see soft light as the sunlight has been overcast by the clouds in the sky. A soft box for a flash will also produce soft light as the light has been reflected off a large surface. Hard light comes from a direct source which has an apparent small surface area such as direct sun light, bare light bulb, flash or even spot light.

There is also transmitted light and reflected light. Transmitted light is visible in your images as it is directly transmitted from a direct source. Reflected light are light which is reflected from an object and it falls on the subject. You can also call it as indirect light.

I bet you will also heard of ambient light. Ambient light is light which you can capture from your surroundings. The more ambient light is being captured, the brighter your picture will be and it will look more like the actual scene.

Now you know there are so many kinds of light. Learn how to control the light to get a nice picture. I will give you a few tips on how to control your light source here.