{"id":4249,"date":"2014-11-10T08:16:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T08:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=4249"},"modified":"2015-01-15T15:23:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T15:23:40","slug":"using-light-to-your-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=4249","title":{"rendered":"Using light to your advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I recorded a series of short videos as part of the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.velux.co.uk\/loversoflight\">&#8220;Lovers of light&#8221; photography competition<\/a><\/strong>. In this clip I have a few words to say about the different types of light.<\/p>\n<p>[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z4uhpvMzN6g&amp;list=PLtSaDsQ1Szx1KSX5cJ7b1BdAnK8fiZsca[\/youtube]<\/p>\n<p>There are three types of light in photography. Good light, bad light and no light. Being able to tell the first from the second isn\u2019t as simple as you might think.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Good light:<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/span>What is classed as good light will vary depending on what you\u2019re photographing. Great landscapes often come from strong directional light which casts long shadows. Portraits are best taken in soft, overcast light where shadows are few and far between.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Bad light:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nJust like good light, what one photographer considers bad light might be perfect for another. Knowing what you shoot and when to shoot it is a skill that can be learned just like any other.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>No Light:<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/span>Without light we don\u2019t have any photos but with today\u2019s digital cameras able to shot in extreme low light, it\u2019s very rare to be left with no light at all. It\u2019s all too easy to confuse the quantity of light with the quality of light, night time shots can be just as magical as day time photos.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4250 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-640x211.jpg\" alt=\"goodvsbad-light\" width=\"640\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-640x211.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-200x66.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-300x99.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-625x206.jpg 625w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-180x59.jpg 180w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-960x317.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light-350x115.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/goodvsbad-light.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Direction of light:<\/strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/span>Where the sun is in relation to your camera can have a dramatic impact on the scene. The lower it is in the sky, the longer the shadows it casts.<br \/>\nKeeping the sun over your shoulder will make colours richer and shadows more pronounced.<\/p>\n<p>Closing the lens aperture down to a big number (e.g. f\/22) will give the sun a natural star burst effect.<\/p>\n<p>Looking directly into the sun is dangerous for your eyes but with very careful use of your camera it can yield amazing results.<strong>NOTE<\/strong>: DSLR users should avoid looking at the sun through their viewfinders as it can damage your sight. Using \u201clive view\u201d is the way to go<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4251 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Into-the-light-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-640x426.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-163x109.jpg 163w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-105x70.jpg 105w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-625x416.jpg 625w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-180x120.jpg 180w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-960x640.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Into-the-light-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I recorded a series of short videos as part of the &#8220;Lovers of light&#8221; photography competition. In this clip I have a few words to say about the different types of light. [youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z4uhpvMzN6g&amp;list=PLtSaDsQ1Szx1KSX5cJ7b1BdAnK8fiZsca[\/youtube] There are three types of light in photography. Good light, bad light and no light. Being able to tell the first &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=4249\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Using light to your advantage<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,23,145,36,24],"class_list":["post-4249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-camera","tag-featured","tag-lighting","tag-photography","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4255,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249\/revisions\/4255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}