Page 21 - Lighting the Un-lightable Volume 1 #3

The volume of light in this space was extremely inconsistent:

Almost half the walls were glass and they faced south - directly in to
the sun. East is to the left of this image. As the rug indicates this area
of the room was incredibly bright. This assured that there would be a
1 difference of four F-stops across the room.

1 Though we couldn't physically see it, this area was substantially darker
than the area closer to the wall of windows. In fact, as the Law of
Inverse Squares suggests, the volume of light in this area was between
two and three F-stops below the wall of windows. We knew we were
at the edge of what the camera could see. We also had to watch how
2 we lit the space - we didn't want to over light the floor and lose detail.
Keeping the transition between the area lit by the window and the
shaded area in tact was very important as well - we wanted to create
an image that looked exactly the way the human eye would see it.

This area was between two and three F-stops under the area nearest
the window.

3 The volume of light here was at its lowest. We have learned that how-

ever we saw this space, to the camera it would be near totally black.
We were limited in what we could do - the position of the windows
around the room eliminated many of the options we had that would
allow us to push light under the table.

A special note: Sometimes an every day object can go unnoticed and
actually pose a serious problem. The table was just such a problem.
Given the angle, direction and intensity of light, the table actually
2 4 pushed black and white further apart. The table reflected light up and
made the area under the table darker. Note the reflection of the sky-
line on the table top.

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