Ghetto lighting…

I often receive comments and questions about low lighting in my self portrait shots. The Ghetto Lighting group over on Flickr defines ghetto lighting as:

If you use desklamps, your window, candles, whatever else I have not mentioned, then you my friend, use ghetto lighting.

I never really thought of this as “ghetto lighting” when I first picked up my Canon Digital Rebel XTi/400D back in November of last year, I was just using what I had on hand. Because of the season and the early sunset I really had no choice but to use what I could, and my favorite weapon of choice was, and still is, my IKEA Expressivo desk lamp. And it’s cheap!

Initially, the basic process I followed was to set up my shot, take a couple shots on the default setting to see what the camera “thought” I should be shooting at. Based on that, I’d crank up the shutter speed and/or the aperture setting until I received the desired level of dark/light that I was after. In other words, if the default settings took the shot at 1/8s at f/1.8, I’d adjust the shutter speed to 1/20s and go from there, increase to 1/30s if needed or decrease to 1/13s as desired.

Sure I could use Photoshop curves and levels, but I find more satisfaction in trying to do as much as I can in camera.

Tags: flickr, ghetto lighting, lamp, low light, self-portrait, tip