Chapter 3 Assignment - Seeing The Light

[goldcoastgolfer]

I've struggled a little with taking this one so I resorted to taking random photos of some of my kids.  The one I chose was a little unexpected - one of my middle son pausing in the middle of a book he was reading before he went to sleep to listen to his mother.  I'd turned his lamp on rather than using his bedroom light to see if I could get a more interesting light effect.

Initially my camera compensated for the warm glow cast, making the first shots brighter than what I was actually seeing.  I changed the white balance to maintain the warm glow that's evident in this photo. 

This shot is cropped from the original - I found that this frame is better than the original and captures the mood a lot better.

Taken with a Nikon D7000 and a Sigma 17-70mm 2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM with the following settings:

Focal Length: 70mm (105mm in 35mm film)
Exposure: 1/15s
F Number: F/4
White Balance: Incandescent (3000K)
ISO: 6400

[InspiringFotos]

I like the mood that this picture gives off. It looks like your child is in deep thought of the material that he is reading from the book. I like the warm glow effect. I sometimes have issues with the lighting that is given from the lamps or fixtures in the home. For example: those energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs. The ones that I have in the living-room looks like a warm glow, but when I use my camera it has a green tint without flash or blue with flash. I just bought a different brand of energy bulbs for my bedroom and it gives off a white/blue glow. So this is an area that I need to play with the white balance setting to get the right lighting effect for my pictures when I am using the camera indoors. Most of the time the white balance on the camera is either AWB or daylight.

[goldcoastgolfer]

I found that the camera's auto setting definitely defaulted the photo to a brighter image rather than the warm view that I was going for.  My Nikon's white balance settings seems to default to trying to get what a well lit scenario would ordinarily look like so I definitely had to change the white balance to get this look.