For the first exercise for this part of the course, I was required to take two photographs of a still life arrangement; One using a diffused light and one with a naked light. Then to note down in this log what differences were found between the two photographs.
I set my Nikon D300 on a tripod, it was fitted with a 18-70mm lens, the camera was set to an ISO of 200 and the shutter speed to 1/250 sec, the flash sync speed. The aperture would have to be varied with each shot depending on the lighting conditions.
Photograph 1 - Naked light
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| Aperture f8 |
The first photograph was taken with the naked studio light to the left of the camera, at the same height as the subject. The camera was looking down on the subject from a 45 degree angle to the front.
As you can see the naked light causes the edge of the shadow to be sharp and clearly defined. No light enters the shadow area, as is apparent on the dark side of the cactus.
This is an example of a high contrast light source.
Photograph 2 - Diffused light
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| Aperture f10 |
For the second photograph, a light box was fitted to the studio light which, as you can see, gave a diffused light to the photograph. The light is now striking the subject from many angles. The shadow is no longer clearly defined. A shadow such as this one is called a soft shadow, and the light producing kit is called a soft light. This is an example of a low contrast light source.
For single light sources the size of that light source is the primary factor influencing its contrast.
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