In manual mode take a sequence of shots of a subject of your choosing at different times on a single day. It doesn’t matter if the day is overcast or clear but you need a good spread of times from early morning to dusk. You might decide to fix your viewpoint or you might prefer to ‘work into’ your subject, but the important thing is to observe the light, not just photograph it. Add the sequence to your learning log together with a timestamp from the time/date info in the metadata. In your own words, briefly describe the quality of light in each image.
All of these images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D mark IV full frame camera with a 24-70mm lens, it was set in manual mode, aperture F/5.0 and shutter speed 1/80 apart from final image which was set to aperture F/2.8 an shutter speed 1/6.
The day I chose for this exercise was overcast, but as the day went on the clouds broke so there were sunny intervals.
None of the images have had any post production, they are exactly how they were taken from the camera, as I wanted to see the true difference of the lighting at the different times of the day.
The first image was taken at 7.30am, then the following images I shot one every two or three hours thereafter.
The lighting in the first image was very soft and there were no shadows to be seen.
The second image also had soft lighting, but it wasn’t quite as soft as the first image, the colours of the Hollyhocks were almost the same as what you saw with your naked eye, also shadows were beginning to appear.
The third and fourth images were very bright, almost too bright, shadows were strong, although I didn’t capture them in my shots. The images seemed very harsh and completely different from the previous images, the colours of the Hollyhocks were a totally different shade. When you look at these two images side by side, there is a slight difference in light between them, but its very subtle.
The fifth image has a very subtle haze to it, the colours of the Hollyhocks were richer in this image.
The final image almost had a blue haze to it, it gave off a dreamy romantic feel with an ambient light.
When I studied this sequence of images, it clearly showed just how much the light changes at different times during the day, and also how the light affects the colour, strength and feel of your images.
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