A la luz de fondo controla la luz o la oscuridad de fondo detrs del sujeto.

Un fondo ms claro o ms oscuro puede ayudar a separar visualmente el objeto del fondo. Tambin puede aclarar las sombras proyectadas sobre el fondo por otras luces. De hecho, si se hace lo suficientemente brillante, se puede silueta del sujeto. La luz de fondo est a un lado y las luces de fondo detrs del sujeto sin la iluminacin del sujeto mismo.

La luz de fondo se puede variar para diferentes efectos. Cuando la luz se derrame slo ilumina el fondo (a la izquierda) es un gris uniforme. Cuando no est iluminado en todo (segundo desde la izquierda) es negro. Cuando el fondo est iluminado por un lugar que est graduado (segundo desde la derecha). Cuando se ilumina con una luz brillante que se ha quemado hasta el blanco puro (extrema derecha).

Exploring Special Features Digital cameras offer a number of special features that offer exciting creative possibilities. These include the ability to take panoramas, capture images in black & white, and shoot a series of pictures instead of just one. Some digital cameras also let you capture short video clips, and some even capture it in TV quality. None of these features are difficult to use so you should give them a try. You'll find that they expand your range of creative tools and offer new opportunities for expressing ideas.

Shooting Panoramas

The three images above have been stitched together into a single panorama (right).

Click to see how dramatic 360-degree panoramas can be. Although panoramic photographs have been taken in sections and pasted together for years, it was the development of digital photography and computer software that made seamless panoramas possible. To create a seamless panorama, you begin by capturing a series of overlapping images that you then combine seamlessly with a stitching program, one of which is often included with your camera or built into your photo-editing program.

There are a few important guidelines to follow for good panoramic images. Zooming the lens to a wide angle requires fewer pictures to cover the same view but makes things appear smaller and more distant. When photographing a horizontal or vertical sequence, stand in the same position and rotate the camera .When photographing a document, center the camera over each section and keep it the same distance from the document for each shot. Holding the camera vertically for horizontal panoramas gives you more height in the images but requires more images to cover the same horizontal area. The camera should be as level as possible when you take the pictures. In a 360-degree pan, the first and last images must "connect" and overlap. The images must overlap by 30-50% horizontally and not be out of vertical alignment by much more than 10%. Avoid placing subjects that move in overlapping areas and don't combine nearby objects in the same scene as distant ones or they will be distorted. Place a distinctive subject in each overlapping area to make it easy for the software to know how to combine the images. The software you use to stitch images together can even out the lighting in a scene but it helps if you give it good images to work with. If your camera has an AE Lock feature, lock exposure for the entire series. Try to avoid extremes in lighting. These occur on bright sunny days when there are bright highlights and dark shadows. The problem is compounded because you may have to shoot into the sun. If you can pick your time, pick a day when it's cloudy brightovercast but with slight shadows on the ground. If the sun is out, shoot at midday to keep the lighting even. If you have to shoot at other times, position the camera so direct sunlight is at your back, or if it has to be in front of you, try to block it with a tree or building. When shooting indoor panoramas, avoid shots of windows with direct sun shining through.

Short Course Book Using Your Digital Camera A Guide To Great Photographs Photographing in Black and White
For years, photographers in the fine arts, perhaps the best known being Ansel Adams, have taken black and white pictures almost exclusively. If you want to work in the same medium, some cameras let you shoot in black and white as well as color. This mode is also useful if the photograph is going to be printed in black and white. If your camera doesn't have this mode, you can always make the conversion in your photo-editing program and then you'll have both a color and a B&W version.

of the masters of black & white photography was Ansel Adams, shown here discussing his books with Tim Hill of New York Graphic Society.

On some digital cameras you can add an infrared filter and shoot black and white infrared images.

WHAT'S UP?

Chapter 1. Camera Controls & Creativity

Serious digital cameras give you creative control over your images. They do so by allowing you to control the light and motion in photographs as well as what's sharp and what isn't. Although most consumer digital cameras are fully automatic, some allow you to make minor adjustments that affect your images. Many cameras, including high-end point and shoots and digital SLRs, offer a wide range of controls. However, regardless of what controls your camera has, the same basic principles are at work "under the hood". Your automatic exposure and focusing systems are having a profound effect on your images. However, even with your camera on automatic mode, you can indirectly control, or at least take advantage of the effects these systems have on your images.

In this chapter, we'll first explore how you use the camera in various automatic modes and see what effect each of the settings has on your images. In the chapters that follow, we'll explore in greater depth how you take control of these settings, and others, to get the effects that you want.

Chapter 2. Controlling Sharpness

One of the first things you notice about a photograph is whether or not it is sharp. Extremely sharp photographs reveal a richness of detail, even more than you would normally notice in the original scene. If the entire image isn't sharp, your eye is immediately drawn to the part that is. If your photos aren't as sharp as you want them to be, you can analyze them to see what went wrong.

Focus. If none of your image is sharp, or if your main subject is not sharp but other parts of the photograph are, your camera was improperly focused. Depth of Field. If your central subject is sharp but the background or foreground is less so, you didn't have enough depth of field. Camera Movement. If the image is blurred all over, with no part sharp, the camera moved during the exposure. Some points appear as lines, and edges are blurred. Subject Movement. When some of the picture is sharp but a moving subject appears blurred, your shutter speed was too slow. In this chapter you'll see how to ensure your photos are sharp when you want them to be and how to use blur creatively.

Chapter 3. Controlling Exposure

Automatic exposure control is one of the most useful features of your camera. It's great to have the camera automatically deal with the exposure while you concentrate on the image. This is especially helpful when photographing action scenes where there isn't time to evaluate the situation and then set the controls manually.

You shouldn't, however, always leave the exposure to the automatic system. At times the lighting can fool any automatic exposure system into producing an underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too light) image. Although you can make

adjustments to a poorly exposed image in a photo-editing program, you've lost image information in the shadows or highlights that can't be recovered. You will find it better in some situations to override the automatic exposure system at the time you take the picture. Situations in which you might want to override automatic exposure often involve interesting or unusual lighting situations. For example, you need to take control when you photograph into the sun, record a colorful sunset, show the brilliance of a snowcovered landscape, or convey the dark moodiness of a forest. In this chapter you'll learn how.

Chapter 5. Understanding Lenses

Many digital cameras come with zoom lenses so you can zoom in or out to meet different photographic opportunities. Zoom in on a subject and you can capture a close-up portrait or distant action at sporting events. Zoom out and you can capture a wideangle view of a large group, a roomy interior, or of an expansive landscape. The ability to change your angle of view as you frame your image is one of your most powerful creative controls. On digital SLR cameras, you can also use a zoom lens, but there are also many fixed focal length lenses available, some of them designed for specific purposes such as close-up photography.

Modern camera lenses are designed on computers, ground to critical tolerances, coated with chemicals to improve light transmission, and then mounted in precision barrels and mounts. The primary function of a lens is to gather light reflecting from a scene and focus that light as sharply as possible onto the image sensor in the camera. A high-quality lens does this very well, but to get the most out of what it has to offer you should know a few of its characteristics and how they affect your images. In this chapter we look at lenses and their use in digital photography. This will give you the background you need to use lenses more effectively and more creatively.

Chapter 6. Using Flash and Studio Lighting

Automatic electronic flash is so convenient and easy to use that you are usually unaware it even fires. With your camera on automatic, it's always ready when your autoexposure system decides it's needed. But this on-camera flash lighting has certain characteristics that can make a difference in the way your pictures look. For example, the pictures will have a "flat" lighting typical of flash-on-camera shooting. Alternative approaches, such as using an external flash to bounce light off walls or ceilings, or even just turning the flash off may produce more interesting results. In any event, you will be able to use flash to better advantage as you become more familiar with its characteristics.

But flash isn't your only source of controlled lighting. You can also use the camera in a home studio setting, perhaps taking formal portraits, or photographing smaller items for your records, insurance, sharing, or even selling on eBay. In this chapter we explore all of these forms of lighting, from the built-in flash, to an external flash, to studio lighting. In the process you'll learn what makes lighting more effective and when, where, and how to use and control it. Lighting for Interviews By Tom KirkmanPrint Close

The first thing to come to terms with is that you won't have enough time, the location won't be easy, and your subject will either turn into a wallflow interview is well scripted and your lighting complements your subject and his metier, you'll witness an almost magical transformation that can be qui Equipment

You'll need at least two lights, preferably three. A soft source is best for your subject, a second light for the background, and a third for either fill ligh While you can get away with bouncing your light from an umbrella for your main or key, umbrellas tend to scatter light all over the place, making sub accessory options. I have a love-hate relationship with grids: love to use them, hate to pay for them, but once you do, you'll know where the money the number is, the narrower the beam will be. A grid will give you a soft, directional source-almost a contradiction when you consider the characteris

I'd go for a 16x22" box (which fits almost anywhere) or a 24x32" with a 300-500 watt lamp. Starting position should be 45 off axis both horizontally

Used this way, you shouldn't need a fill, but if you wish you can use another soft source on axis with the camera and 1 to 2 stops weaker than your main light. I like 12 x 16" softboxes for this, and again, a grid is handy. If you elevate the light slightly, a 20 grid should drop the light beam behind the subject after providing fill, without hitting your background. The background light should be a controllable, directional source with some focusing capability, and it should accept barndoors, gels, etc. Choose an area of the location that represents the interests of the subject. Offices usually have bookcases, for instance; an orchestra conductor's office may have a music stand with a score open on it, or a wall of the conductor's favorite antique batons. A gel will add some mood to the scene and make the mundane a bit more exotic. 250-300 watts should be enough for this. You want to bring the objects into view, but you don't want them to overwhelm the shot. Some specialty lights like the Dedolight feature optical projection attachments so you can add Venetian blind-like or leafy break-up patterns to the background. Rosco makes hundreds of patterns to choose from. You can even project a custom slide. Gridding your main light is especially important here to maintain the integrity of your carefully lit background. An alternate set up (see diagram) uses the 12x16"; softbox as a side light instead of a fill. Place the light at the subject's head-and-shoulder level and slightly behind, just glancing off the head, cheek and shoulder area. Again, a grid is handy in controlling spill into the lens. If you're using a raw light, use barndoors for this. You might want to gel this light too:

orange sidelight and blue background light or vice versa; the warm-cool color friction usually makes for a compelling image.

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Although fluorescent sources are increasingly popular, they're a bit bulky, and so, tungsten is still more widely used. This means you have to assess the color balance of your room. Are there windows and if so, what's the exposure? North or east will spread a bluer light than south or west, which will be warmer. Is the room lit with overhead fluorescents? What kind? Is it lit with high-hat recessed fixtures or MR-16 halogens. Can they be turned off? White Balance: the great equalizer In order to white balance, you're seeking fairly homogenous light conditions around your subject. But what if they're not? Balancing out one problem can frequently aggravate another. You could overwhelm the ambient light with sheer wattage but that would require a lot of weight and equipment. Interviews are all about speed and portability. Making all of your sources the same color Let's assume for the moment that you are using tungsten light. Your lights are 3200K, and the room lights are either 2500-3200K, if they're tungsten. If they're fluorescent they're 3500K for warm white, 4500K for cool white or 6500K for daylight balanced. Kelvin represents just the red-blue spectrum of color temperature. Most fluorescents have a degree of green to contend with: up to 30 points. Throw your window light into the mix and you have three disparate light sources which you can't white-balance away. A large film production crew would gel the windows and overheads or sleeve the fluorescents to match your lights, but I'm guessing that's not in your budget, either time-wise or financially. Plan B is to just turn the overheads off or at least disable the lamps in the immediate area around your set. Then you've only got the windows to deal with. Mid- to late-afternoon sun will probably come in close to 3200K, but I'd have some sheets of Rosco 3316 (1/8th blue) or 3208 (1/4 blue) on hand to put on your lights, just in case. For strong blue north window light, pack some 3204 (1/2 blue) or 3202 (full blue) which will raise the color temperatures of your lights from 3200K to 4100K and 5500K respectively, to match the incoming window light. Then you can read for white balance. It's not written in stone. It just has to look good. Of course, you can eliminate this entire step by shooting at night, or in a windowless area. I haven't listed filtration to match the various temperatures of overhead fluorescents because I'd rather exhaust every other possibility first, but you'll probably be adding #3304 (Rosco "Plus green"; approx. 30 points of green) for 3200K lamps, #3304 + #3204 for 4100K lamps and #3304 + #3202 for 5500K lampsif you go this route.

It's a bit confusing, but the concept isn't: make all your light sources the same color before white balancing. Remember, these gels are added to your light sources to match them to the ambient source. The above is just a guideline to which to apply your personal style. There are also exciting new products, especially in the field of LED Sources and HMI's, for those with larger budgets. Consult our website for details, or feel free to contact us by telephone and speak with a lighting specialist. Tres luces: la luz principal, luz de relleno y luz de borde (tambin llamado Back Light), se ajustan para lograr el Hollywood clsico esquema de iluminacin llamada de tres puntos de iluminacin.