Since many of us stay at home these days, we might take more photos indoors (this eBook was written during the pandemic). In fact, you don’t need Covid to take indoor photos. Perhaps you have a newborn, need to celebrate a birthday, have a family gathering or restaurant visit (before or after covid of course).

However, getting the best image quality indoors could be tricky. Don’t let your past blurry, pixelated images discourage you. You could easily improve your photos if you know how to use the window light.

Try to place your subject within 3 ft (or 1 m) next to a window with indirect sunlight. Notice the distance is the key!

Ideally, have your subject face toward the window (first image from the top), or within 90 degrees (second image from the top) from the window (45-90 degrees being the sweet spot), while you stand next to the window wall, facing your subject.

Imagine your camera-subject line is perpendicular to the window-subject line. This allows you to use the maximal amount of natural light for your photo, and solve the problems of blurry images (by improper aperture or shutter speed settings), or pixel noises (by improper ISO settings). We’ll discuss camera settings and techniques in the next chapter.

Try not to photograph straight into the window with your subject in between (image below), unless you have pretty solid post processing skills or it’s your intention to create a silhouette. You’ll more likely get an overexposed background (window) or underexposed subject (person) because you are not dealing with even light.

Avoid tungsten or florescent light unless you know how to white balance and retouch your image in post processing. Just keep it simple. Window light is your best friend for indoor photos.

Of course, if you have a full frame camera with great low light performance, you could get by with more distance between your subject and the window and handle dim light conditions better. And if you have already mastered all the camera settings, and have post processing skills, play with different sources or even colors of light. Sky‘s the limit!

Go back to Natural Light Chapter

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