Chapter 13 — Quiz

Twenty-six questions to check that you can read and shape the free light around you. Mix of multiple choice, true/false with justification, short answer, and "what's wrong with this shot?" perception questions. Answer from memory first; the key with explanations and a review map is at the end.

Part 1 — Multiple choice

1. Your first job when you walk into a location to shoot is to: - A) Decide where to set up your lights - B) Read the existing light's direction, quality, and color, and choose where to stand the subject - C) Set the camera to auto white balance so it adapts - D) Find the nearest power outlet

2. A window works so well as a natural key mainly because it is: - A) Small and far, therefore hard - B) Always exactly 5600K - C) Large and near the subject, therefore soft, and from one wall, therefore directional - D) Brighter than any lamp you could buy

3. To use window light well, you should seat your subject: - A) Facing the window with the camera behind them - B) With the window directly behind them - C) Beside the window, turned roughly 45° toward the glass - D) As far from the window as possible for even light

4. Golden hour light is warm because: - A) The sun is physically hotter at sunset - B) Low sun travels through more atmosphere, which scatters away the blue and leaves warm tones - C) Cameras add warmth automatically at that time - D) The sky reflects orange onto the subject

5. The golden-hour role that solves the squinting problem is using the sun as a: - A) Front key - B) Top light - C) Backlight / rim - D) Fill

6. Overcast daylight is soft because: - A) Clouds are grey - B) The whole sky becomes the source, making it enormous relative to the subject - C) There is less total light - D) The color temperature is lower

7. Open shade often renders skin faintly blue because: - A) The camera is broken - B) The subject is lit by cool blue skylight (~7000–8000K) rather than the warm sun, and white balance was left on a daylight setting - C) Shade is always underexposed - D) Blue light travels farther

8. Negative fill means: - A) Adding a blue gel to the fill light - B) Underexposing the whole shot - C) Placing a dark surface near the shadow side to subtract ambient light and deepen the shadow - D) Turning the fill light off in three-point lighting

9. On a flat, overcast day your subject's face looks shapeless. The correct move is usually to: - A) Add more light with a bounce - B) Subtract light with a flag / negative fill to restore contrast - C) Increase the ISO - D) Switch to a longer lens

10. Mixed light is a scene lit by: - A) Two lights of the same color - B) A light and a reflector - C) Two or more sources of different color temperature at once - D) Only natural light

11. In a room with a cool window and warm tungsten lamps, leaving the camera on auto white balance is dangerous mainly because: - A) It drains the battery - B) It picks a different compromise per shot, so your coverage won't match - C) It always makes faces green - D) It overexposes the window

12. The most naturalistic way to handle a motivated mixed-light room (window + visible warm lamps) is usually to: - A) Kill the window - B) Balance for the window key and let the warm practicals glow warm on purpose - C) Set white balance to a random middle value - D) Add a colored gel to the lens

13. You can read whether a source is hard or soft most reliably by looking at: - A) The brightness of the source - B) The color of the light - C) The edge of the shadow it casts (crisp = hard, feathered = soft) - D) The time of day

14. For a silver versus a white bounce, the silver surface gives a fill that is: - A) Softer and warmer - B) Brighter, more specular, and slightly cooler - C) Identical to white - D) Always the better choice

Part 2 — True / False (justify your answer in one sentence)

15. True or false: You should always add light to fix bad outdoor light; subtracting light is not a real technique.

16. True or false: A north-facing window (northern hemisphere) gives soft, consistent, indirect light all day because it never receives direct sun.

17. True or false: Golden hour lasts a stable two hours, so there is no rush once you arrive.

18. True or false: Setting white balance manually to your key source and locking it is better than auto white balance for a natural-light shoot.

19. True or false: Moving a subject from the middle of open shade to the edge of the shade, facing the open sky, adds direction to otherwise flat light.

20. True or false: The distance between a subject and a window has no effect on the look of the light.

Part 3 — Short answer

21. In one or two sentences, explain the chapter's central principle: what do you actually control when shooting available light, and what do you not control?

22. Name the three things you "read" about available light, in order, and say why direction comes first.

23. List the four ways to handle mixed light. For each, give the trade-off in a few words.

24. You have thirty minutes of golden hour and three shots to capture. Describe your plan and justify the shoot order.

Part 4 — What's wrong with this shot?

25. A described interview: The subject sits at a table with a large bright window filling the frame behind them. Their face is a dark silhouette; the camera's auto-exposure has driven it darker still trying to hold the window. The audio also echoes. Name the lighting problem and its fastest fix, and (bonus) the audio problem's likely cause.

26. A described outdoor portrait: Shot at high noon in direct sun. The subject's eyes are lost in dark sockets, there's a hard black shadow under the nose and chin, and they're squinting. The color looks fine. Name every lighting problem and prescribe a fix for each, using only this chapter's free tools.

Answer Key

Topics to review by question

If you missed anything in §13.1, re-read it before the others — reading light is the foundation the rest of the chapter builds on. If mixed light (10–12, 23) tripped you up, it leans on color temperature and white balance from Chapter 12 (§12.3); a quick review there will make it click.