Let me start with my wife is a photographer not me. Her focus is on infants and family photos but has done several other types of photography. This is what I have learned over the years.
1) Photography studio lights are way brighter than you think. The light tents are nowhere close to studio lights.
2) Photographers tend to know or learn proper exposure, aperture, ISO, lighting balance and white balance settings. All of these numbers interact with each other and a sweet spot exist.
3) Most photographers also rely on editing via photoshop to perfect the picture to their liking.
4) Glare is caused by the light reflecting into the lens in a random pattern. Glare can be reduced with more light and less exposure. Kind of counter intuitive.
5) Studio lights are awesome but a real pain to get positioned and balanced correctly. Light tents guarantee same results every time (minus the slight dim of bulbs overtime). Then you need to decided if you want to diffuse via umbrella or light box or not at all.
6) My wife never uses a tripod because the studio lights are bright enough that camera shake is non-existent due to the low exposure time. Not easy to do with constant on bulbs.
To sum it up if not a professional photographer, the time and effort to learn all of the techniques is not worth it just to get a slightly better picture that really only a professional could tell the difference.
Hi
I agree allot with what you say.
But the surface of peoples skin is different from the surface of a pen.
I would have to say portrait photography is a completely different kind of photography.
Different lenses different soft boxes or umbrella's. different lights.
Bright continues lights make people squint their eyes.
Photography on exotic woods with a smooth clear surface where you need to see through the finish is different them almost all kinds of photography.
I would like to edit #4
4) Glare is caused by the
Polarized and UV light
waves reflecting into the lens in a random pattern.
Glare can be reduced with more light and less exposure. Kind of counter intuitive.
How ?
Glare can only be reduced by the use of filters , angle of the light source to the object to the camera and by reducing the brightness of the light.
Or by using a light source that doesn't produce Polarized light.
How can Glare be controlled inside a photo tent besides turning the lights down ?
Farmer