Artificial Lighting

With night photography the lighting you are using is all artificial except for any residual daylight at dusk or dawn. As we have previously discussed in this course (For more on  Light and Colour see our range of courses), artificial lighting has a colour cast much different to midday light. To complicate matters different man-made lighting sources give off different colour casts. A typical night image may have numerous different types of light sources lighting the scene. These would be of different strengths and colours. This fact often adds to the impact of the night photograph.

Fig n.6 Changing White Balance

fig n.6.1 Daylight Balanced	fig n.6.2 Tungsten Balanced

The colour casts given off by artificial lighting can be changed through the use of the White Balance setting on a digital camera. This gives an even further amount of creativity in taking the photo. The image taken in fig n.6.1 was taken using a Daylight balanced setting. The image in Fig n.6.2 was taken using the Tungsten Lighting setting, Which is the better result is really a matter of taste. Often though the warm cast of artificial lighting is preferred. Similar results can be produced with a film camera using Colour Correction Filters. For more on Colour Correction see our range of courses.