3.
Now you have shutter speed and subject brightness.
Look at the
horizontal row at the top of Table 1-7.
There are five classes of
bright sun on light sand or snow, bright sun, hazy sun,
cloudy bright, and open shade.
a. Bright sun.
This one is self-explanatory.
The sky is clear, and
the sun is far too bright to look at directly. Shadows are sharply defined,
with a hard edge.
This type of light is excellent for landscapes,
architectural subjects, and anything else for which you want hard, clear
definition. Because of the hardness, it is not usually a good type of light
for portraits unless a hard effect is what you are looking for. Sometimes
the contrast between the sunlight and shadow is so great that shadows look
black and featureless, because the brightness range is so great the film
cannot record it all.
b. Bright sun on light sand or snow. Because they act as reflectors,
light sand or snow increases the amount of light on a subject about a half-
stop more than under normal conditions. Otherwise, all the conditions but
one described for bright sun apply. The one exception is contrast, which is
usually fairly low because the reflections from the sand or snow casts light
into the shadow areas, filling them in.
c. Hazy sun. On a hazy day, the sun is partially obscured by haze or
thin high clouds, but the sun's disc is still clearly visible and bright.
Shadows are still easy to see, but they are slightly diffused or soft and
not as clearly defined as in bright sun.
Because of the haze, distant
scenes may be obscured. This can often be used to good effect. Hazy sun is
often good for portraits of people whom you wish to portray as rugged. The
shadows are clear enough to bring out skin texture and facial lines, but are
often soft enough so that the shaded areas of the picture still show some
detail.
d. Cloudy bright.
On a cloudy bright day, the sun's disc is still
visible, but barely so, because clouds almost hide it. To the eye, the day
may seem very bright, but this lighting needs about two stops more exposure
than bright sun. This lighting still produces visible shadows, but they are
weak and have very soft edges. Cloudy bright conditions are excellent for
general portraiture and scenes of short or middle distances. Distant scenes
which include a lot of sky can be a problem because the sky, which is still
very bright, will often be overexposed and will come out in a print as a
featureless white. If you make prints with white, unexposed borders, it is
often impossible to tell where the sky ends and the borders begin - they are
both pure white.
e. Open shade. On cloudy dull days, the sun can't be located in the
sky because it is entirely obscured by clouds. There are no shadows at all,
except very faint ones under automobiles or picnic tables. The lighting is
extremely soft and is good for portraits of children, women, or any other
subjects you wish to show as softly as you can. Sometimes the light is too
soft, and subjects appear flat because there are no shadows to give the
viewer a feeling of depth. That's why this kind of light is often referred
to as "flat".
Open shade looks much like cloudy dull conditions, except
that it can be found on a clear sunny day.
Open shade is shade which is
open to a lot of
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