How to take good pictures of stained glass

The light and color which gives stained glass its brilliance also makes for brilliant pictures. However, to capture stained glass at its best you must have the right lighting conditions and might need to override your camera's default settings.

Difficulty:

 

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. • 1
     Take pictures of stained glass on a bright, but completely overcast day for the best results for general pictures. Direct sunlight makes for uneven lighting through the glass. Overcast skies evens out the lighting which shines through the window.
   • 2
     Use direct sunlight to show the light shining through the stained glass reflecting the color of the glass onto the floor or other object. These specialty photographs are a good way to take advantage of a sunny day.
   • 3
     Photograph stained glass from outside of the building at night. At night, if the lights are on inside the building, you get similar results taking pictures of stained glass from the outside.
   • 4
     Choose manual exposure settings. Your camera, by default, balances the bright light coming through the stained glass with the much darker interior of the building. Use an exposure compensation of -.5 or -1 to fully capture the color of the window. Look in your camera's manual if you don't know how to change the exposure compensation.
   • 5
     Pick out small details to focus on. Capturing the whole window may not show the proper detail to appreciate intricate stained glass. Pick sections of interest to zoom in on.
   • 6
     Use the flash on a sunny day to balance out the light. The flash compensates for direct sunlight shinning through one part of the stained glass, but not another. Otherwise, it's best not to use the flash. Be sure to turn off your flash when taking night pictures from the outside.

     This article was written by an eHow contributor.  We hope this article will help you get the best shots possible of your stained glass.  Sometimes it's difficult to get that perfect shot!