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Photographers: Learn to see the light.

OK, I know this sounds pretty simplistic and a little dumb, right? Well, it’s tougher than you might think. Especially for inexperienced photographers.

First of all, you might be wondering what I mean by “see the light”. What I mean is actually see the way light is striking your subject. You have to ask yourself, is the light soft or harsh? Is the effect dramatic or flat? In what direction is the light coming? Where are shadows falling? Are they flattering? These questions should be your starting point because the answers may very well determine the quality of your photo.

Since light is one of the keys to good photography, it’s important to see light objectively. However, it can be difficult to do, because your brain and eyes will deceive you. The way your brain and eyes perceive light is so much more sophisticated than your camera ability to capture images. According to most experts your eyes have a dynamic range of around 24 f/stops, whereas the sensor on your digital camera dynamic range is probably in the 10-12 f/stop range. Your brain takes that for granted and is constantly making adjustments in the physical characteristics of your eye so that you see objects in bright sunlight and in shadow.

For your camera to make these compensations, you need to adjust your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Your eye does this in fractions of a second.

So when you evaluate a scene you are about to photograph you need to learn to see the differences in the way light strikes your subject. You need to see as your camera does. So how do you learn to do this? Well, I have an exercise for you that might help.

First of all I’m assuming you know and understand the Sunny 16 Rule. (If not, look it up. Every photographer should learn this). Go out on a sunny day and take some photos. It doesn’t matter what you are shooting photos of. Here’s the kicker: Shoot on manual settings and don’t use your built in light meter. Before you take a photo, estimate what you think the exposure should be before taking each photo. Shoot photos in the sun and well as in differing amounts of shade. Before each photo, set your ISO, aperture and shutter speed to what you think they should be and compare your results to your guesses.

This should help you correlate your vision of light and shadow to what your camera actually sees. Give it try. Maybe you’ll learn something and at the least you’ve gotten out and shoot some photos. That always makes for a good day. 🙂

Here is an available light portrait from this past weekend.

Ken Rieves Photography

Shot with a Canon 5D MkIII, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens, ISO 1600, 1/125, f/2.8, 200mm.

Thanks for reading!

-Ken.