The best lighting for photography

The best lighting for photography on nearly all occasions is natural light. However, there will be times when daylight needs to be supplemented or you need to provide all the light yourself. The most convenient and readily available source of supplementary lighting is electronic flash.

On-camera flash
Virtually all digital cameras carry their own small flash units. These are convenient and offer automatic flash-exposure control and some feature red-eye reduction, too. However, not only is their power limited, their position very close to the lens causes unsightly shadows when the flash is the sole source of light and the subject is close to a wall. The best use for on-camera flash is to lighten shadows in high-contrast or backlit situations.

Off-camera flash
To use off-camera flash, your digital camera must have an external flash-synchronization socket. These sockets differ, so obtaining the type of flash recommended by the camera manufacturer is the safest course to take. With an off-camera flash, go for a model with a tilt-and-swivel head, in which the flash head can point up (sometimes down¬ward, too*) and turn from side to side. These movements enable you to bounce the light before it reaches the subject and so soften its effect.

Ring-flash
While most flash units are used at a distance from the lens, ring-flash is designed to light the subject from as close to the optical axis as possible. The flash tubes are arranged in a circle surrounding the front of the lens, producing nearly shadow-free light. Ring-flash is useful for lighting close-ups of any small objects (as long as they are not shiny, flat, and taken directly face-on, since the light will bounce straight back into the lens) as well as portraiture and fashion subjects.

Continuous light
Any light source can be used for digital photography because digital cameras can correct automatically for the non-neutral colours produced by incandescent sources using the white-balance or white-point correction feature. This gives digital photography a great advantage over conventional colour photography: domestic lamps, which usually produce a very orange light, can be used with impunity and with few worries about colour balance.

Built-in flash
This type of small, built-in flash is convenient featuring fully automatic operation. However, output is weak, the flash-recharge time is slow, and results are likely to show the effects of red-eye.

On-camera flash
This type of unit delivers a useful amount of lighting, has fairly rapid recharging time, and flexible output settings. However, it can unbalance the camera, is not compatible with all camera types, and is costly.

Handle-bar flash
This is a very powerful, rapid-recharging, high-capacity flash unit, and very flexible to use. But it is also bulky as well as expensive to buy.

Ring-flash
This flash unit is perfect for close-ups, giving shadowless or modelled lighting with automatic control. Due to its specialized nature, however, it can be costly to buy.


Steve J. Wilson is living in the United States and is a freelance writer since 2006, in digital photography related topics. If you are interested in some useful Digital Photography Classes, than you are in the right place.

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