How to light up your photography skills?

You need to know photography lights inside out if you take this art seriously. Gain complete control over the lighting tricks and excel in photography.


All the basics of photography depends on the science of light and more you are comfortable playing with photography light, better it will get for you with time. When you look at the greatest of the photographs, you will see light playing the trick there. Shadows, highlights and mid-tones- everything is a tool for you to experiment.

Sit back on your study table: to get a hang of photography lights, read a few good books written for cinematographers on the subject. Learn details like 500 watt-seconds are sufficient with flashes for digital or 35mm photography. Many serious studio photographers start with about 2000 watts-seconds, which is sufficient for clicking 4x5 photography large-sized subjects.

Sunlight and moonlight: No one can surpass the power of natural lights. They are the most trusted sources and anytime when you seek natural shots, you cannot really achieve without natural

photography lights. An insight about sunlight is that the color temperature varies all through the day. So depending on the shot you want, you can shoot at a particular time of the day.

Hot Lights: these are traditional tungsten photography lights or the Metal Halide Iodide (HMI) lights that burn continuously that light up the area continuously. These are the most basic studio lights and inexpensive ones. You can regulate the intensity of the light and make it softer and harder as per your requirement. You can see what experiments you can do by mixing artificial lights with the natural lights.

Warm Lights: these are softer versions of hot lights and works excellently for studio lighting purposes

Cold Lights: these photography lights are electronic flashes. They are external flashes and more powerful than the one in-built in your camera. Studio strobes come in two varieties- monolights and powerpack/head systems.

Light Control: once you are aware of the Photography lights, you should know that how to make the most of the lights. Make sure you source the popular lights otherwise; you may get in to trouble when it comes to fitting lights and finding relevant equipment. Learn the controls very well so that you can modulate the lighting effects and click desired photographs.

Author Resource:

Timcy Hood writes informative and unique articles about Light boxes and Photography lighting equipment. One thing that separates Timcy Hood from others is the passion she puts into it, knowing full well and respecting the time viewers spend on reading his work.