Digital cameras see the same light as film cameras, but have different ways of reading, interpreting and dealing with it.

Digital photography lighting can present many challenges, not the least being that some CCD sensors still lack the broad exposure latitude of color films.

This means means that some digital photos taken in strong light conditions may have empty shadows and blown out highlights.

However, digital cameras offer you the opportunity to test your understanding of lighting conditions, and to learn from previous mistakes!

Most digital cameras have preset digital photography lighting modes (or "scenes") which have been carefully set up to deal with a wide variety of lighting situations.

To give an example: a camera such as the popular Olympus SP500 Ultra Zoom has 21 preset scenes you can easily choose from to help you out in more challenging lighting situations.

The "night & portrait" scene is for shooting both your main subject and an illuminated background in the night. This setting uses a slower than normal shutter speed.

Then there is the "museum" setting which is optimized for shooting without a flash (or sound!) in a museum or art gallery - or when your kid is sleeping...

With digital photography lighting most digital cameras have various options for white balancing - the process of determining what will be the baseline white in your image, relative to which other colors are rendered.

Digital cameras boast options such as daylight, cloudy, shade and tungsten. Most cameras also have an automatic setting for white balancing.

Most digital cameras also display a histogram to help judge exposure (under or overexposure) in different lighting situations.

What about lighting equipment? You don't necessarily need expensive lighting equipment. For example, if you're taking informal portraits of your family and friends you can easily start with something such as the Screwfix double 500W site light set including a telescopic tripod.

To help you master both the technical and creative aspects related to digital photography lighting you should know about, Michael Freeman has written "Digital Photography Expert: Light & Lighting: The Definitive Guide For Serious Digital Photographers".

He includes three-hundred-and-fifty photographs to demonstrate the most important techniques. He explains the full spectrum of light and how the camera measures, as well as advising how to get color accuracy in your digital images.

If you want to fully explore how to use post-processing in Photoshop to achieve many lighting results, you may want to study "Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques, Revised and Updated" by Barry Huggins.

Huggins explains techniques such as how to bring sunshine into cloudy day pictures, and to creat underwater effects. You can also find out about light sources, different types of light, such as candlelight and neon.

For more information visit http://www.Best-Digital-Photography.com. Rika Susan researches, writes, and publishes full-time on the Web. Copyright of this article: 2005 Rika Susan. This article may be reprinted if the resource box - including the link - is left intact.

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