Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

10
Most modern flashes are shaped
like boxes. In a diagram, it can be
difficult to see how the reflection
happens. Still, internally, their
reflectors very closely resemble the
old-time parabolic reflector.
So if the shape of the
flash in the diagram doesn’t
look like yours, don’t
worry; the same thing is
happening.
What is ISO?
The International Standards
Association agrees on ways of
measuring all sorts of things,
including photographic exposure.
The higher the ISO to which we
set the camera (or of the
film we buy) the less light
required. Still, lower ISO
gives us higher quality.
<strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong>
Why use a white reflector? Why
not another silver one, like the
one we are using for the flash?
Silver would be brighter, and
we could use a lower ISO or a
smaller aperture.
All true, but a silver reflector will
reflect the light like a mirror.
It will look similar to whatever
the original light source is. That
means that a big silver reflector
behaves exactly like a small one,
and we don’t want that. We want
a fairly large light source because
it is softer. We’ll talk more about
what that means in the next
chapter, but for now all we need
to know is that softer light is
generally better for portraiture
and that the bigger the light is,
the softer it is.