To study the effects of different light intensities (10% light, 40% light, 70% light and full light) on light utilization characteristics for oiltea, we used 2year old seedlings of oiltea cultivar ‘Changlin No. 4’ as pot experimental materials, which were performed in an artificial climate incubator. The results showed that: (1) the net photosynthetic rate (A_n), electron transfer efficiency (ETR), light compensation point (I_c), CO₂ compensation point (Γ), saturated light intensity (I_sat), saturated CO₂ concentration (C_isat), light respiration rate (R_p), dark respiration rate (R_d), light use efficiencies at leaf and plant levels were improved as light intensity increasing. (2) Under weak light condition, the photochemical efficiency of photosystem Ⅱ (F_v/F_m, Φ_PSⅡ) was improved as the photochemical quenching coefficient (qP) increased, while the nonphotochemical quenching coefficient (NPQ) decreased, and the absorbed light energy was more allocated to the photochemical dissipation and excess excitation energy. (3) The ability of light absorption was enhanced by increasing chlorophyll content, lightharvesting pigment molecule numbers (N₀), and intrinsic absorption crosssection (σ_ik). However, the effective light absorption cross section (σ_ik′) was increased, the minimum average life time at the lowest excited state (τ_min) was extended, and the lightharvesting pigment molecules at the lowest excited state (N_k) was increased as light intensity reducing. It can be concluded that the electron transfer between lightcapturing pigment molecules and the generation of photosynthetic electron flow were limited, and thus oiltea leaves were failure to coordinate the improvement of light energy capture and electron transfer efficiency under low light environment, which declined the ability of photosynthetic carbon assimilation and the light use efficiency.