{"id":2039,"date":"2011-12-09T16:59:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T21:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2012-12-21T10:31:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T15:31:46","slug":"potd-window-light-portrait-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=2039","title":{"rendered":"POTD: Window Light Portrait, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Window<\/a>

Window Light Portrait<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a reason photographers like soft window light. It is great for all kinds of subjects, like the young woman above and the photo of a 2 week old infant<\/a> in a prior post.<\/p>\n

This was a “grab shot” at the end of a formal shoot.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a sunny day and I have a south facing window in my studio. I pulled down a thin, translucent accordion blind which provided soft directional light (the kind of light photographers mimic by using a soft box on a studio light).<\/p>\n

I metered the bright (right) side of Hallie’s face and chose an exposure setting that would make her skin one stop lighter than a medium tone (+1 exposure compensation).\u00c2\u00a0 If I had used the meter reading suggested by the camera, her skin would look darker than it is in real life.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever a person’s skin is lighter or darker than a medium tone (which happens a lot of the time), exposure compensation (varying from what the camera meter says by adding or taking away light) will create a natural looking skin tone. If your subject is lighter than a medium tone, you have to add light to what the camera meter suggests by using a longer shutter speed or a wider lens aperture. If your subject is darker than a medium tone, you have to subtract light from what the camera meter suggests by using a faster shutter speed or a smaller lens aperture.<\/p>\n

Exposure compensation is covered in more detail half way down this page<\/a>, and in a lot more detail in my photography book linked below.<\/p>\n

A 70mm focal length provided a natural perspective for her face. For a portrait this tight, a wider focal lengths would distort the features of her face.<\/p>\n

The camera was hand held for this photo so the image stabilization (IS) in the lens allowed me to use a much slower shutter speed and still get a sharp photo.<\/p>\n

I didn’t need a lot of depth of field so I used f\/7.1 for the lens aperture<\/p>\n

More information on portraits, light, perspective, metering, and depth of field can be found in my highly rated book, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photo Data: Canon 5D. Canon EF 24-105mm f\/4L IS lens at 70mm.\u00c2\u00a0 f\/7.1, 1\/25 second, ISO 400.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a reason photographers like soft window light. It is great for all kinds of subjects, like the young woman above and the photo of a 2 week old infant in a prior post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10,26,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lighting","category-metering","category-photographs","category-techniques"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3566,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}