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by Muhammad Usman Basic knowledge about light I like very much the  definition for photography at www.thecountryschool.blogspot.com He says: "Photography is the recording of light rays". I think this is the shortest and yet the most correct definition I know. So, if you have a camera and film, first of all, you'll need light to take photos. And you have two options for the light: 1. Using the light of the sun. 2. Using artificial light. Daylight Using the daylight is probably the best choice for you while most amateur films are balanced for the spectrum of the sunlight and with this light they produce best results. With daylight you will get the best colors your film is capable to produce. BUT! There are several films designed for using with incandescent lamp lightning. Using such a film with sunlight will be a disaster for your photos. They will have incorrect color reproduction with a bluish shade. So when you buy a film, you must be careful what are you paying for. Speaking about daylight, we must mention that there are different kinds of daylight. Oops! Too complicated? Don't worry! Using an amateur negative film will eliminate the difference between diverse daylights. But if you use slide film, the lighting can be critical for your colors. The light differs with its color or color temperature. Most daylight films are designed to produce best results with a light, which is about 5500 degrees Kelvin - this is the temperature of mixed sunlight and overcast light. The light in overcast areas is more bluish and the direct sunlight is more reddish than this. As I mentioned above, if you use negative film you must do nothing, just shoot your photos. Why? Because the lab will compensate the colors cast and produce correct colors on your prints. But if you choose to use slide film, you must use compensation filters, to produce right colors. ADVICE: If you're not a high level professional, use negative film to avoid color reproduction problems. Even if you plan to use the photos in a high-resolution print graphic project, the negative film will give you enough resolution and right colors. If you plan to scan the negative directly, it's better to do it on a drum scanner, but the negatives are very suitable for scanning on cheap desktop scanners with low Dmax (dynamic range). If you have a scanner with Dmax fewer than 3.6, it's better to scan negatives. The slides require a scanner with Dmax higher than 4.0 to produce correctly the highlight and the shadow areas. Avoid shooting pictures in direct sunlight! This kind of light produce ugly shadows, especially if you take portrait photos, and exceptive contrast, that is not very good. To take photos in direct sunlight (on the beach or in a snowy mountain) there are special low-contrast films such as Kodak Portra or Fuji NPS/NPH (these are high quality professional films). Artificial light You can use multiple sources of artificial light, but it is most likely you use incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp or a photographic flash. Incandescent lamplight is reddish. A 100W bulb has color temperature of about 2900K. To obtain right colors in such light with a daylight film, you must use special blue filter. I use sometime daylight film in incandescent light to obtain special effect photos. It is always a good idea to shoot portrait photos in incandescent lamp light - they become pretty. Fluorescent light isn't very good for color photography, but it's perfect for B&W photography. This light has different colors with different type of bulbs. The color may vary from green to orange, so you can never be sure what color will appear your girl friend's eyes on the final print. On the other side, the long bulbs of the fluorescent lamps create a soft lighting, which is perfect for many purposes. To produce right colors with fluorescent light you must use a special filter that convert the fluorescent light in daylight to produce acceptable color reproduction. I do not recommend you to use fluorescent lamps, unless you use B&W film. Photographic flash is a big facilitation. The light from a flash has the same color temperature as the sunlight, so you can be sure to always obtain the right colors. There are powerful models to shoot photos from a distance exceeding 45 meters with ISO100 film. With this power you can easily "switch off" all the surrounding light and get the right colors. ADVICE: If you have a good flash with auto program, use it always when you shoot outdoors and especially when you shoot under a direct sunlight. This will help you to decrease the unpleasant shadows and increase the color saturation on your photos.