Page 104 - Lighting the Unlightable Volume 1 #1

ternoon went on.

Angle of the Sun: Rather high, so no direct light
through the sliding glass door. However, from past

experience, I knew that a significant amount of light
would be reflected from the lake into the room de-
spite the deck overhead.

Volume of Light: It would be highly inconsistent.

The light reflected from the lake would come into
the room almost parallel to the floor. Some of the
light from the lake would reflect from the bottom

of the deck into the room as well. There was also
a window on the side of the room that made the

difference in the volume of light even more pro-
nounced. By contrast, at the far end of the room,
the volume of light would be very low. It was easy

to see that the difference in the volume of light in
the room was easily 4.

The bed added another potential problem. Aside from the

fact that it consumed a significant amount of space, it made
lighting the room all the more difficult. For example, even if

I successfully rendered the volume of light consistent above
the bed, between the bed and the wall on the left and the
bed and the hall outside the door, the volume of light would

be inconsistent. So, I had to find a way to light the room so
that the volume of light remained consistent throughout the

room.
Why was this a problem? Why not simply adjust my camera

accordingly?

Well, first and foremost, changing camera settings isn't go-
ing to effect the consistency of the volume of light.

Secondly, Adjusting my camera to compensate would have

resulted in a loss of image quality. Optimal image quality in
virtually every digital camera is achieved when the ISO is be-

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