When comparing indoor vs. outdoor, the factors to take into consideration are:
- Color of light
- Direction of light
- Intensity of light
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Color
Outdoor is “warm”, indoor is “cool”.
With outdoor light, the vast majority of the time you are using the sun as your light source. On a typical Spring day, the sun is obviously not white but rather golden colored. Only in rare situations is the sun white (usually Winter), but even then it is not absolutely white.
With indoor light, the color is “cool”. Blues and greens are the typical colors of indoor light. Compared to outdoor warm light, indoor is a stark contrast.
Direction
When outdoors, your light source direction is usually always from above (the sun). Since it is a literal impossibility to change the direction of the sun, you must either wait until a certain period of the day until the sun is in the right place, or use other means of “bouncing” the light (large white cards, walls, etc.)
When indoors you usually have complete control of where the light is coming from. Anything that can produce light is a light source and can usually be positioned. You also have the advantage of flash to compensate if your light source(s) aren’t intense enough.
Intensity
When outdoors, the sun is obviously a very intense light source. This can work for or against you depending on what shot you want to take. More will be said in a moment on how to work with outdoor light.
When indoors, the largest problem faced is that your light source(s) are not intense enough. However, in most circumstances you can compensate with flash. But always remember that unless you have a fully equipped photography studio it’s very unlikely you will have anything that can represent (figuratively) a light source even close to the power of the sun.
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