Natural vs. Artificial Light: A Photographer’s Guide to Excelling at Both

Hi all, Leo Liang of LensClear.net. Throughout my eight-plus years of experience as an uber-shooter and photograph mentoring shooters all over the world, there is one fundamental subject that I return to more than anything else: light. It is the alpha and omega of our art form. New cameras and expensive lenses are exciting, but a misunderstanding of light is the biggest obstacle I find holding photographers back. The most asked question I get, in a workshop setting or via DMs, is ultimately a clash of the titans: natural light and artificial light. Which is best? The truth, much like much of photography, is that “best” is not the correct word. The right word is “suitable.” Understanding when and why to use each is what separates a good photographer from an great photographer. This is not a technical choice; it’s the heart of your creative voice. Let’s dive in.

Why This Isn’t a Technical Choice, But a Creative One

Let’s establish a core philosophy before we even touch a camera setting or a light stand. Whether to utilize natural or artificial lighting is not right or wrong; it’s intention. Are you a documentarian capturing a moment as it happens, or are you a sculptor crafting a moment out of your own imagination? Natural light is discovery. It’s about learning to look, anticipate, and stand so you can capture the sublime, fleeting nature of the sun and its reflections. When I’m capturing street photography in Tokyo or a landscape in Iceland, I’m collaborating with the world. My job is to find the perfect angle, the perfect moment, where available light already tells me what I must convey. With a Fujifilm X100V and its fixed 23mm f/2 lens, I am forced to be there in the scene, reacting to the soft glow of a lantern or the sharp edge of a sunbeam. It’s a dance.

Artificial light, on the other hand, is the making of art. It’s about control, precision, and building a scene from the ground up. When I get paid by a client to do a B2C product photography session for a new line of watches, they don’t need that accident-happened-it-was-meant-to-be kind of thing; they need perfection and consistency. I employ my studio gear in such cases, perhaps a Godox AD600 Pro strobe with a large softbox to create a classy smooth gradient on a watch face. This light doesn’t exist in nature—I’ve invented it to serve a specific commercial purpose. It’s no less creative; it’s just a different discipline. It’s like the difference between a journalist and a novelist. One reports the facts beautifully, the other builds a beautiful world. Your professional life as a photographer is one of deciding if you want to play either role, or become bilingual and proficient in speaking either language perfectly so you can create any story you desire.

Harnessing the Sun: The Soul and Science of Natural Light

Our first and most powerful teacher is natural light. It is free, everywhere, and its character is ever-changing, so we must adapt. The most valued natural light is, of course, at the golden hour—that magical period roughly half an hour prior to sunrise and after sunset. The sun’s low angle creates a warm, soft, directional light that is flattering for portraits and adds a pleasant glow to landscapes. Shadows are long and silky, adding depth without distraction. Using a portrait with my Sony A7 IV and Sony 85mm f/1.4 GM lens wide open at the time can give incredible results, with silky smooth bokeh and an effect that causes the subject to look like it’s radiating warmth.

Natural light, though, is more than golden hour. The harsh, high-noon sun, which so many new photographers are taught to steer clear of, can be a powerful ally. Its unfiltered sunlight creates deep shadows and saturated color and high contrast, and this can be perfect for dramatic architectural shots or high-fashion portraits. On the other end of the spectrum, an overcast sky acts like a giant free softbox. It produces a very soft, diffused, and even light with little shadow. This is ideal for road product photography or portraits when you desire a clean, soft look with no harsh lines. And then there’s window light. Centuries ago, it was the favourite of portrait painters, and for good reason. Positioning a sitter in front of a north-facing window provides a soft, directional light that contours the face wonderfully. It’s a simple, one-light setup that can look terribly professional. The challenge with natural light is that it’s temperamental. It changes, it disappears, and you have to work on its timings. Mastering it is all about observation and timing.

Creating Light from Scratch: The Power and Precision of Artificial Sources

While natural light is about exploration, artificial light is about sheer control. It enables you to get any mood, at any time of day, in any situation. This is the strobe, speedlight, and continuous LED era, and where technical correctness is married to boundless imagination. The big payoff is repeatability. Commercials, for example, food or e-commerce product photography, demand every image in an assignment to be given the same lighting. You can’t have that with clouds passing outside. With a controlled studio lighting arrangement, you can dial in your power, position, and modifiers, and that light will be identical for shot number one and shot number five-hundred.

Let’s dissect the equipment. Speedlights, like the Canon Speedlite 600EX-II RT or Nikon SB-5000, are small, portable flashes that mount to your camera hot-shoe or can be triggered remotely. They are the key to off-camera flash, which allows you to create direction and depth. Studio strobes or monolights, such as the Profoto B10X or the aforementioned Godox AD600 Pro, give you much more power, faster recycle times, and accompaniment for an enormous range of professional modifiers (beauty dishes, softboxes, grids). For creators or just someone who likes a “what you see is what you get” scenario, LED lights that are continuous like the Aputure LS 300x are great. You can observe in real time how the light and shadow land. One of the technical details here is the Color Rendering Index (CRI), which is a measure of the ability of a light to render colors. A CRI of 95+ is exceptional and is necessary to work professionally so that skin tones and product colors look realistic. The power of artificial light is the power to conquer reality.

When Worlds Collide: How to Get Natural and Artificial Light to Work Together

The true art of lighting is not to take a stance but to know how to get them to work together. Blending ambient (natural) and artificial light is a hallmark of serious photography, allowing you to circumvent issues and achieve impossible with one source. The most common scenario is a portrait outside. Assume that you are shooting at that beautiful golden hour. The sun is at your back, creating a beautiful rim light on your subject’s hair, yet their face is in shadow now. Your camera’s sensor could struggle to capture both the light background and dark subject.

This is where you introduce a flash. By having an off-camera flash with a small softbox positioned in front of and to the side of your subject, you can give their face a kiss of light. This is called “fill flash.” You’re not overwhelming the sun; you’re just filling in the shadows. The key is balance. You don’t want the flash to appear artificial, such as a blinding spotlight. You need to balance your flash power and your camera’s ambient background exposure settings. This will often involve the use of something called High-Speed Sync (HSS), which allows your camera to fire a flash at shutter speeds above its native sync speed (usually around 1/200s or 1/250s). This lets you shoot with a wide aperture like f/1.8 to soften the background, expose for the bright sky in a correct manner, and still light your subject nicely with the flash. It’s a lifesaver. Even as simple an instrument as a 5-in-1 reflector is a form of blending; you’re bouncing available natural light back into the shadows.

Choosing Your Weapon: A Practical Guide for Different Photography Genres

The right lighting style is totally dependent upon the subject and what you wish to create as an artist. There isn’t any one-size-fits-all. As an exercise, I prefer to map the genre against the most logical lighting choices, which is a great way to build instincts. Let’s look at a few common scenarios and my overall train of thought.

This table is only the start. The real fun begins when you break the rules—taking a landscape at night with light painting (artificial) or a studio portrait with only a strip of light trickling in through a mostly closed door (natural). Learn the rules so you can break them intentionally.

Beyond the Basics: Common Lighting Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

All during my teaching years, I’ve seen the same lighting mistakes catch-out-to-be photographers again and again. Avoid them and you’ll be on a quick path to pictures that appear more professional. The first is what I call “Flash-phobia.” Too many new photographers are so frightened of using artificial light that they avoid it no matter what, or they activate the pop-up flash that comes with their camera, which produces a flat, hard, unflattering light that screams “amateur.” My advice: take the flash off the camera. Even placing a simple speedlight on a bracket or at arm’s length, linked by a sync cord, will immediately produce more attractive, directional light.

The other frequent problem is neglecting or conflicting color temperature. Natural light shifts color (expressed in Kelvin) over the day. A flash is usually balanced to daylight (about 5600K). If you’re shooting in a room lit by warm tungsten bulbs (around 3200K) and flash nude, your model will be blue and cool and the room will be orange and warm. Solution? Put a CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel over your flash to warm it up to the same light. Or, be deliberate about the contrast. And finally, the fear of shadows. Light is only fascinating because it reacts with shadow. One of the things that the novice often does wrong is try to eliminate all of the shadows and end up with a two-dimensional flat piece of work. Shadows create depth, mood, and drama. Don’t light everything. Embrace the darkness and let it create your subject and guide the eye of the viewer. Real mastery is not just being in control of where the light is, but much more significantly, where it isn’t.

I hope that this journey has given you a better model for thinking about light. It’s a lifelong practice, and that is what is so rewarding. There is always another way to look, to shape, and to build.

What are your biggest lighting challenges? Do you love the excitement of chasing natural light or the power of creating a scene in the studio? Comment below—I read and respond to all of them.

Having created LensClear and more than 8 years of photography teaching experience, I want to help you cut through the noise and empower you with what’s important. For more tutorials, reviews, and inspiration, don’t forget to subscribe to the LensClear blog and podcast.

And if you want to add some accessories to your kit that really matter, from top-shelf UV filters to protect your lenses to precise adapter rings for your modifier lights, I highly suggest the offerings of our sponsor XT Filters. Simply click to email us a question, and my staff and I will be delighted to provide you with expert advice tailored to your requirements.

Keep on shooting, and keep on learning the light.

References

1. Getting Started with Off-Camera Flash
2. “What is Color Temperature? A Photographer’s Guide to White Balance” on PetaPixel.
3. “Choosing Your First Portrait Lens: 50mm vs 85mm” on LensClear.net.