Digital photography lighting may utilize the same light as film cameras, but these cameras have very different ways of reading, interpreting, and dealing with it.
Digital photography lighting presents many challenges, not the least being that some CCD sensors still lack the broad exposure latitude of color films.
This means that some digital photos taken in strong light conditions, may have empty shadows and blown out highlights.
However, this is exactly where these cameras have the upper hand! They offer you the opportunity to test your understanding of digital photography lighting conditions, and to learn from previous mistakes!
Most digital cameras have preset digital photography lighting modes, or "scenes", which have been carefully set up to deal with a wide variety of lighting situations.
To give an example: a camera such as the popular Olympus SP500 Ultra Zoom has 21 preset scenes. If a more challenging digital photography lighting situation arise, you can easily choose any one of these to get the perfect shot.
The 'night & portrait' scene is for shooting both your main subject, and an illuminated background in the night. This setting uses a slower than normal shutter speed.
Then there is the "museum" setting which is optimized for shooting without a flash (or sound!) in a museum, or art gallery - or when your kid is sleeping... This is where the versatility of digital photography lighting clearly shows itself.
With digital photography lighting, most cameras have various options for white balancing. This is the process of determining what will be the baseline white in your image, relative to which other colors are rendered.
Digital cameras boast options such as daylight, cloudy, shade, and tungsten. Most cameras also have an automatic setting for white balancing.
Many of these cameras also display a histogram to help judge exposure (under or overexposure) in different digital photography lighting situations.
What about lighting equipment? You don't necessarily need expensive lighting equipment. For example, if you're taking informal portraits of your family and friends, you can easily start with something such as the Screwfix double 500W site light set including a telescopic tripod.
To help you master both the technical and creative aspects related to digital photography lighting, Michael Freeman has written 'Digital Photography Expert: Light & Lighting: The Definitive Guide For Serious Digital Photographers'.
He includes 350 photographs to demonstrate the most important techniques. He explains the full spectrum of light, how the camera measures it, as well as how to get color accuracy in your digital images.
If you want to fully explore how to use post-processing in Photoshop to achieve a variety of digital photography lighting results, you may want to study 'Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques, Revised and Updated', by Barry Huggins.
Huggins explains techniques such as how to bring sunshine into cloudy day pictures, and to create underwater effects. You can also find out about light sources, and different types of light, such as candlelight and neon.
The message of these authors are clear: practice, practice, practice makes for perfect digital photography lighting!
