Lighting ratio is a very crucial aspect of photography, and the more you are aware of the various intricacies associated with the more you stand to gain. A proper knowledge on these ratios will make it easier on your part to the lighting, and consequently helping you to the create the mood or the environment that you are craving for, apart from accentuating the surrounding area and adding a pleasing sense of depth and shape to the frame.

The benefits that can be derived from a proper knowledge of these ratios are simply unlimited, and the good thing about them is that you can get a grasp of the matter by putting in a little amount of hard work. On many a times they tend to get cold feet, especially when they start analysing a studio lighting set-up which is frequently made up of 3 or 4 lights. This is however a misnomer and you can actually snap get frames with all but two lights- the main light and the fill light! You can virtually create any mood, shade and situation if you have proper control over these two. Of course this means that you will need at least two lights, and a simple flash from a typical camera, like the Olympus E-510, will not suffice. Any additional lights, that is to say more than two, are more often a luxury, rather than a technical necessity. The output capability of each light should be determined separately, which can be easily done with a meter reading. Only ensure that you block one of the lights while metering the unblocked one!

By the way, do you know what the ratio is? Actually, it is the difference between the main light and the fill light. Therefore, a 2:1 ratio would imply that the main light is twice as bright as the fill light, and so on and so forth. One important caution for you is, try avoiding the use of ratios beyond 8:1, as these will effectively eliminate any remnant shadow detail, thereby making the frame look drab and insipid.