Sunday, February 2, 2014
Day 21, Learning 21: Iris vs Pupil
This one is obvious if you stop to think of it, but many of us don't. In portrait photography we really want big, bright eyes-- or, to be specific, irises. Since many portraits are done with flash lighting, this can be a problem. A dimly lit room makes for a big pupil, not a big iris. The answer is to increase the ambient light in the room. If it's not the right color temperature you can lower it in the exposure by raising the shutter speed (and thus reducing the ambient light). When when you don't want the ambient contributing to the overall picture it's easy to forget that it's still important for the subject's eyes.