Week three of the photography course focused on shutter speed.


During week four we worked on white balance, both outdoors with natural light and indoors with artificial light. This was quite interesting.

Most of the “living” rooms in our house are lit by multiple small lamps with weak light bulbs – some few are 40W or equivalent, and many are in the 15-25W range. (Incandescent light bulbs are on the way out, but still we have a stash at home, because the alternatives were pretty unsatisfactory when the phase-out started. They’re better now but we still have incandescent bulbs in many of our lamps.)

If there is a ceiling lamp, we have a dimmer switch on it and usually keep the light quite dim, especially after the kids go to bed.

My mum always complains that it’s dark here. It is – but that’s because we like it that way! I don’t want my evenings to feel like daytime. I want a quiet, warm nest.

It turns out that the dimmer the light bulb, the warmer its light. So our indoor lighting is off-the-charts warm. Normal household light bulbs are around 2800-3000K according to most sources. Not ours! My photo editing software can go down to 2400 on the Kelvin scale, and that was still not low enough.

This week I take a break, and next week I start the next course, on composition.