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Exposure in Digital Photography - Lighting of the Scene

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene.

In this post I'm going to talk about the Lighting of the Scene.

Great cinematography is all about preparation, and few aspects of the craft require as much preparation as lighting.

You can arrange the lights in such a way as to leave darkness between the area illuminated by the backlight and the area illuminated by the fill light, depending on how moody you want the shot to be. This tends to work very well, although even the moodiest films tend to avoid leaving dark shadows on the faces of female talent. The film still shown above is from “Schindler’s List” and is a good example of this technique.





You should light your film or video shot by shot. This means that when you relocate the camera to shoot a different angle, the lights must be moved as well to ensure the subject is always lit correctly. This is partly why films take so long to shoot. So its important to record the scene in order of the lighting set-up.

Below is a video explaining the lighting in a project based on the movie The Matrix.


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