1. A method for defining lighting for rendering a digital object, the method comprising: reading image datasets each corresponding to a unique coordinate within a limited physical space, each image dataset comprising a plurality of correlated images captured at different exposures; defining a plurality of panoramic maps, each panoramic map comprising a map of color and intensity information derived from images in a corresponding one of the image sets; and modeling a dynamic lighting model from the plurality of panoramic maps, the dynamic lighting model defining lighting for digital rendering as a function of virtual coordinates of a modeled space, wherein the modeled space corresponds to the limited physical space, and the virtual coordinates are selected from the group consisting of space coordinates, time coordinates, and any combination of space and time coordinates.