---
title: "Stirling Lighting"
canonical: "https://rmanwiki-27.pixar.com/space/RU/656998424/Stirling%20Lighting"
format: markdown
---
### Lighting

Since this is an outdoor scene lit by the sun, we’ll use distant lights, as they are best suited for evenly illuminating large environments and providing parallel shadows, like the sun. 

However, working with the HDRI required a bit more trial and error.

To capture a high-quality High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI), ensure your camera is set to a multi-exposure mode. The more exposure levels you capture, especially at the extreme ends of brightness and darkness, the better the final result will be. In my case, I took 12 different exposures, pushing the shutter settings to their limits to achieve the widest possible dynamic range.

![image12.jpg](media://cb537ac1-d741-4592-ba10-92db4ab7f1e7)

Once you've captured all your images, you can easily merge them using software like Photoshop. Just be sure to export the final image in a 32-bit format, such as .exr, to preserve the full dynamic range and avoid any loss of detail.