Black and White Photography

but consider weight as well. Carrying equipment and a bag can be tiring, especially
if you must walk or climb a lot to take your pictures.
Lens- and camera-cleaning materials. There are a number of products made for
cleaning your lens, camera, and other equipment. Often, compressed (canned)
air will do the trick; use it to blow off dust from the front of your camera lens
and various parts of the camera. Take care if you are using compressed air inside
the camera, however, as the air pressure can damage delicate mechanisms,
such as an SLR’s reflex mirror and focal-plane shutter. Note that if compressed
air is tilted or shaken it can emit a chemical propellant rather than air.
There are various other cleaning products and blowers, including one with a
rubber bulb attached to a brush. In general, any wide brush or antistatic cloth
will work well to remove loose dirt or dust from lenses and cameras, but be
careful to keep the brush or cloth clean. Storing them in a plastic bag between
uses is probably the simplest way to do this.
Lens-cleaning solution and soft disposable tissues also are commonly used to
remove dirt, grime, grease and fingerprints from the front and rear lens glass.
Use solution sparingly; apply it to the tissue, not the lens, and rub gently to
avoid scratching the lens surface. It’s a good idea to blow off potentially abrasive
particles before wiping. Lens-cleaning cloths made of microfibers, which
don’t require solution of any kind, are a common alternative. Since they do not
use a liquid, it’s even more important to make the lens surface free from abrasive
grit before wiping.
Be especially careful if you are carrying or storing camera equipment in
dusty, dirty, sandy, or wet conditions, such as at the beach. Keeping your equipment
sealed in a sturdy plastic bag will help keep out the elements.
Diopter lenses. A diopter is a vision-correcting lens, available for many camera
models, that attaches to your viewfinder eyepiece to let you compose and focus
the picture without wearing eyeglasses. You may have trouble composing accurately
with glasses; for most accuracy, you need to position your viewing eye
right up to the viewfinder, and wearing glasses will keep you from getting that
close.
Diopters are rated like reading glasses, such as +1, +2, +3, and –1, –2, –3; inbetween
prescriptions also are available. Some camera models have diopters
with a range of correction built in; you adjust a dial next to the viewfinder until
you can see your subject more clearly.

8 Lighting

Light is the most fundamental component of a photograph. It not only causes

the image to form, but its visual quality goes a long way toward establishing

the look and feel of the picture. Learning to see and work with the subject lighting

is a critical skill for making effective photographs.

Some of light’s most important characteristics include its strength, quality, and

direction.

Strength. Some light sources are inherently stronger than others. For example,

a midday sun is brighter than an evening sun; stadium lights are stronger than

candlelight. The strength of light has important visual consequences. Bright

sunshine provides plenty of light to reveal detail and information about your

subject; a dimly lit nightclub scene, on the other hand, may have mostly shadows

with a few bright patches, contributing to a mysterious, romantic, or even

edgy mood.

The amount of light in a scene also has important technical consequences

when you are taking pictures. For instance, bright light may allow you to set a

faster shutter speed, whereas low light may require that you use a high-speed

film.

Quality. The type of light falling on your subject also has a major impact on the

look and mood of your photograph. Light is often characterized as either hard

or soft. Hard light travels uninterrupted from the source to the subject, as

happens with bright sunshine or a spotlight, and produces sharp and relatively

high-contrast photographs. By creating bright highlights and deep shadows,

hard light also emphasizes the textural and three-dimensional qualities of a

subject. For example, in late afternoon, sunlight on a portrait subject’s face

may be bright on one side and dark on the other, with all the features defined

by light and shade.

Soft light is diffused, or interrupted, as it travels from the source to the subject.

It produces less contrast and a relatively shadowless effect, such as when