Ambient Light The light already present in a scene, before any additional

lighting is added.
Incident Light Light seen directly from a light source (lamp, sun, etc).
Reflected Light Light seen after having bounced off a surface.
ColourTemperature A standard of measuring the characteristics of light, measured
in kelvins.
Contrast Ratio The difference in brightness between the brightest white and
the darkest black within an image.
Key Light The main light on the subject, providing most of the
illumination and contrast.
Fill Light A light placed to the side of the subject to fill out shadows and
balance the key light.
Back Light A light placed at the rear of a subject to light from behind.
Hard Light Light directly from a source such as the sun, traveling
undisturbed onto the subject being lit.
Soft Light Light which appears to "wrap around" the subject to some
degree. Produces less shadows or softer shadows.
Spot A controlled, narrowly-focused beam of light.
Flood A broad beam of light, less directional and intense than a spot.
Tungsten Light from an ordinary light bulb containing a thin coiled
tungsten wire that becomes incandescent (emits light) when
an electric current is passed along it. Tungsten colour
temperature is around 2800K to 3400K. Also known as
incandescent light.
Halogen Type of lamp in which a tungsten filament is sealed in a clear
capsule filled with a halogen gas.
Fresnel A light which has a lens with raised circular ridges on its outer
surface. The fresnel lens is used to focus the light beam.
Incandescent Incandescent lamps produce heat by heating a wire filament
until it glows. The glow is caused by the filament's resistance
to the current and is called incandescence.
Brightness The term "brightness" is understood intuitively, but it is a
complexphenomenon.What we perceive as being brighter or
dimmer can be affected by a lot of things.

Rather than delving into the numerous scientific complexities of

this term, it will suffice for this section to allow the reader to
make use of the intuitive meaning of brightness.
Candlepower Just as for "lumens," candlepower is a measure of brightness
that is adjusted to the selective sensitivity of the human eye.
(See "Lumens.") A beam pattern is never completely equally
bright in all directions. The brightness of light at a specific point
is measured in candlepower. The total amount of light present
in a beam pattern is measured in lumens.

CBCP Center Beam Candlepower. Some data sheets for light bulbs list
the CBCP. This is the brightness, measured in candlepower, at
the center of the beam pattern. A spot light and a flood light
can emit the same total light (the same lumens), but the spot
light will have a much higher CBCP than the flood light.

CRI Color Rendering Index. An important factor about color from

light bulbs is how other colors look when illuminated by the light
bulb.

Light The sun emits a wide range of frequencies of radiation. Those

frequencies that can be detected by the human eye we call
light. Infrared radiation and ultraviolet radiation are not visible
to the eye. Most light sources produce both light and invisible
infrared and/or ultraviolet radiation.

Light bulb The term "light bulb" is used here to refer to the light source,
which is the glass envelope and all its innards.

Lamp The term "lamp" is used here to refer to the light bulb plus all of
the hardware surrounding the light bulb that positions, reflects,
and focuses the light.

LPW Lumens Per Watt. When any device uses electrical power, that
electrical power is converted to some other form.

An electric light converts some of the electric power into light.

The rest of the electric power is converted to heat (infrared light
and the warming of the light bulb's parts) and some ultraviolet
light.

Lumens The human eye is more sensitive to some colors than it is to

others. To account for this variation, scientists measure light in
"lumens," which takes the amount of radiation (in watts) that is
present and adjusts it to the human eye's selectiveness.

MSCP Mean Spherical Candlepower. Some light bulb data sheets list
the MSCP. This is a way to represent the total light in the beam
pattern by assuming that the beam pattern is equally bright in
all directions. If you multiply the MSCP by 12.57, you have the
lumens. (See "Lumens.")