filters & flash com 241 photography i. color filters tungsten (indoor) light –tungsten light...

Filters & Flash

COM 241

Photography I

Color Filters

• Tungsten (indoor) light– Tungsten light gives image yellowish cast

• Blue filter (80A)

• Lose 2 f-stops

• Fluorescent light– Gives image blue/green cast

• Use FL or 30M filter (magenta filter)

• Lose 1 f-stop

• To set WB

– Press WB button on camera back

– Set white balance to AWB or desired setting by turning dial while looking at LCD panel

All purpose filters

• Neutral density– Absorbs light from all parts of light spectrum

– Comes in various densities

– Lose about 1 to 13 stops

• Skylight– Used to protect lens

– No lose in f-stop

– Also eliminates ultraviolet light

• Polarizing– Reduces reflections– Also darkens blue sky– Lose about 1 stop

Critique of direct flash

• Throws unnatural black shadows behind subject– Lighting usually looks too harsh

• Sometimes there’s uneven lighting– Subjects in front look lighter, in back darker

• Sometimes get bad reflections– People wearing glasses

Problems with using direct flash:

Bright spots, reflections

Uneven lighting(light foreground, dark background)

Dark, sharp shadows

Bounce flash

• Advantages:– Diffused lighting– Even illumination

• Usually aim strobe at ceiling and bounce flash off the ceiling– Lighting that bounces covers a larger area when

it reaches subject – Scene is more evenly lit, and diffused

Strobe

Subject

Ceiling

To photograph this drug search, the photographer used the light from a small portable strobe bounced off the ceiling. Bounce strobe spreads an even, almost shadowless light throughout the room. Joanne Rathe Strohmeyer / Boston Globe

• Can also bounce light off a wall– More directional effect

Strobe

Subject

A 45-degree bounce flash can look like natural light. Here one flash was bounced off the corner between the ceiling and wall.

With strobe bounced off a wall outside the picture area, the light appears to come from the candles. Mimicking available light with strobe increases the overall illumination without losing the natural feel. Ken Kobre / Boston Phoenix

When a bounce flash works best• Small to medium size room

– Auditoriums don’t work

• Need a light-toned surface– Dark walls absorb the light

Change the ISO• Use for low light situations

– Allows higher shutter speed or smaller aperture

• 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600– Each increment doubles camera’s sensitivity to

light– 100 > 400

• Shutter speed 15 > 60 or f-stop from f-4 to f-8

• On Cannon digital cameras to change ISO:– Push up arrow on

back of camera– ISO is displayed

on back LCD panel

– Use dial to increase or decrease ISO

• Advantages: shoot in low light situations w/o direct flash

• Disadvantages: print is grainier, less resolution as ISO increases