Chikozawa | AhzaDesign Photography | The wedding Photographer | Malaysia: Photography for Beginner

Light is the photographer's medium. The word photography is derived from the ancient Greek words photos and graph meaning 'light writing'. In photography, shadows, reflections, patterns of light, even the light source itself may be come the main subject and solid objects may become incidental to the theme.

Creating atmosphere
Directional light from the side and/or from behind a subject can produce some of the most evocative and atmospheric photographs. Most snapshots by amateurs, however, are taken either outside when the sun is high or inside with a flash mounted on the camera. Both these situations give a very flat and even light that may be ideal for some color photography but for black and white photography it all too often produce gray, dull and unintersting photographs. Learning to control light and use creatively is an essential skill for a good photographer. When studying a photograph that ahas been well lit you need to make three important observations concerning the use of light:

1. What type or quality of light is being used?
2. Where is it coming from?
3. What effect does this light have upon the subject and background?

Exposure Compensation
When you take a light meter reading of a subject you are taking an average reading between the light and the dark tones you have framed. The meter reading is accurate when there is an even distribution of tones, or the dominant tone is neither dark nor light. It is very important that you 'compensate' or adjust the exposure when the framed area is influenced by a tone that is dark, light or very bright tone. The camera's meter will be influenced by this tone and indicate an exposure setting that will reduce the light reaching the film or image sensor. In this situations you have to override the meter and increase the exposure to avoid underexposing the subject. Most cameras take information for the light reading mainly from the center of the viewfinder.

Depth of field
You can increase or decrease the amount of light reaching the film of image sensor by moving one of two controls; by changing the shutter speed (the amount of time the shutter stay open) or by changing the f-stop (the size of the aperture through the lens).
If you change the aperture, the final appearance of the photograph can differ greatly. This will be the area of sharp focus in the scene, from the nearest point that is sharp to the farthest. The zone of acceptable sharp focus is described as the 'depth of field'.

the widest apertures (f2, f4) give the least depth of field.
the smallest apertures (f16, f22) give the greatest depth of field.
the smaller the sensor, the greater the depth of field at the same aperture.

Shallow depth of field is created using the wider aperture settings of the lens. Subject matter behind and in front of the point of focus appears progressively out of focus. Due to the smaller sensors used in the prosumer digicams it is often difficult to achieve shallow depth of field unless you are working at the closest focusing distance of the lens, i.e. capturing an image using a prosumer camera using a small sensor will lead to greater depth of field than a DSLR using a lens set to the same aperture.

Maximum depth of field is created using the smaller aperture settings of the lens. The subject matter immediately in front of the lens and subject matter in the distance may appear acceptably sharp in the same image.