FIELD : medicine; lighting.SUBSTANCE : invention relates to lighting engineering and medicine. Surgical lamp (1) for illuminating operation area (2) comprises : several separate lamps (3) forming, in the on state, corresponding beam (4) of light beams extending along longitudinal axis (6) and forming light field (8) in illumination plane (7), wherein light fields (8) of said separate lamps (3) are adjacent to each other and/or are at least partially on top of each other in illumination plane (7) with forming resultant light field (5), brightness determination device (9) configured to determine the actual brightness value in the resulting light field (5). Control unit (10) acts on said separate lamps (3) to control light intensity in accordance with determined actual brightness value. At that, device (9) for determination of brightness contains camera with lens having fixed focal distance. Unit (9) and control unit (10) connected to said separate lamps (3) are made with possibility of purposeful setting of illumination intensity of the first separate lamp (3a) depending on specified actual brightness value for clarification or darkening of the first light field (8a) regardless of illumination intensity of the second separate lamp (3b). Present invention also relates to a method of controlling surgical lamp (1).EFFECT : technical result is providing the possibility of controlling the degree of illumination in local places within the operation.13 cl, 2 dwg