interior design/home photography

[lisa1969]

I may have stumbled across a great opportunity in the new year to shoot interior design and showhomes for a friend. I have lots of questions. I am assuming natural light is best? what lenses? any pointers? I have to admitt my experience is mainly toddlers, I'm trying to research this as much as possible before committing either way. Any suggestions are welome.

[dgcorner]

Hi Lisa!

Depending on how wide you want to go, and how deep your pockets are, I've read good things about the following lenses, which I'm considering myself:

Sigma or Tamron (or Tokina) 12-24mm or the Canon 10-22mm (though this will only work with the 20D, and Rebel XT/350D, and 300D... I think! The other guys can correct me if I'm wrong... My brain sometimes tends to get some brands and figures muddled up!) 8-)

It might be best to go to a store and try how the lenses feel in your hands. It will also give you a first hand feel of how wiiiide these are even on a 1.6 crop... well, at least compared to a 24-70 that is.

Cheers!

[SWPhotoImaging]

Natural lighting, wide angle, and tripod with remote release. Sometimes I use additional lighting, but not a lot, just to lighten up dark corners, etc.

I use a 14mm prime and a 15-30zoom for most interior shots. The reality is that a nice f2.8 or faster lens is a waste, since you need more depth of field than you can get at low f-stops anyway. That is why a tripod is mandatory.

I have to admit, changing from the 10D to the 5D has made my interior shots much better. Lower noise at high ISO and real wide-angle FOV make interior shots much easier and better quality.

[PhotosGuy]

Any suggestions are welome. I suggest that you say what you have to use?

[lisa1969]

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that. I plan on upgrading to a 20 D in the New Year and wish to purchase a lens more or less specifically for this purpose. They will be shots that will be used for the web not print.

[chtgrubbs]

You are going to need one of the really wide zooms, at least 12mm wide. All the better ones, Canon, Tokina, Tamron, or Sigma, will be sharp enough for web size images. If you want to get picky, check reviews which measure distortion, since that is more deleterious to architectural images than slight variations in sharpness. The Sigma 12-24 f/4-5.6 EX DG for instance is known for having very little distortion. A mentioned above, you will be shooting at smaller apertures, so you need a good tripod and having a fast lens isn't important. I usually shoot f/8 or f/11 for enough depth of field. Lighting is more problematical. You have to learn it by looking, measuring levels with a meter (I recommend an incident light meter), and shooting and analyzing the final picture. I download into my laptop and view the image to make sure I have what I need. There are no recipes or formulas because every situation is different. You will usually be trying to supplement existing light rather than building a complete lighting scheme. I would recommend a couple of small monoblock strobes with stands, umbrellas for supplementing daylight, and a couple of small quartz-halogen lights for supplementing tungsten light.

[mgbeach]

has anyone used the tilt-shift lenses in this capacity? I've been thinking about moving that way.

[PhotosGuy]

has anyone used the tilt-shift lenses in this capacity? Yes. They're very expensive, usually slow, but they do work well. For your web-only images, you really don't need one.
A good extreme wide angle would work too. Just be sure that the cam back/lens front is parallel to the wall to avoid this /\ & crop out the pic area you don't need.

[Wilt]

The problem of converging lines is avoided with TS lens. Placement of camera on tripod without a TS lens can result in either poor camera positioning, or can result in need to tilt the camera and generate those converging verticals. If you want to use TS lens, a better camera is the 5D because the 24mm TS lens would not have as wide a field of view when mounted on the 20D. Sometimes a 35mm equivalent FOV is just not wide enough!

[PhotosGuy]

If you want to use TS lens, a better camera is the 5D because the 24mm TS lens would not have as wide a field of view when mounted on the 20D. Sometimes a 35mm equivalent FOV is just not wide enough! Well, yes if you want to spend all her money. They will be shots that will be used for the web not print. With a tiny amount of talent & practice, a kit lens will work for this.

[SWPhotoImaging]

If you find a deal on the T/S lenses, buy me one too, ok?

[DaveG]

I may have stumbled across a great opportunity in the new year to shoot interior design and showhomes for a friend. I have lots of questions. I am assuming natural light is best? what lenses? any pointers? I have to admitt my experience is mainly toddlers, I'm trying to research this as much as possible before committing either way. Any suggestions are welome.
Since no one has mentioned it, I will. It's a feature in Photoshop CS2 called Merge to High Dynamic Range. This solves the problem over extremely overexposed windows in an interior photograph shot with ambient light.

In the very best intererior shots, and by that I mean Architectural Digest, the window light is blown out, since it can be many stops brighter outside.

Merge to HDR works by you shooting a series of bracketed series of shots, and seven to nine shots should do the trick, from way under-exposed to way over. You use ONLY the camera's shutterspeed NOT aperture when you do this since the aperture will change the depth of field in each bracketed shot. Of course these shots should be done with a tripod and cable release, so there's no camera movement.

I believe that there's an instructional video on Merge to HDR that comes on one of the PSCS2's CD's. It isn't all that complicated but it would be better to get the instructions from the horse's mouth.

[mgbeach]

Since no one has mentioned it, I will. It's a feature in Photoshop CS2 called Merge to High Dynamic Range. This solves the problem over extremely overexposed windows in an interior photograph shot with ambient light.

In the very best intererior shots, and by that I mean Architectural Digest, the window light is blown out, since it can be many stops brighter outside.

Merge to HDR works by you shooting a series of bracketed series of shots, and seven to nine shots should do the trick, from way under-exposed to way over. You use ONLY the camera's shutterspeed NOT aperture when you do this since the aperture will change the depth of field in each bracketed shot. Of course these shots should be done with a tripod and cable release, so there's no camera movement.

I believe that there's an instructional video on Merge to HDR that comes on one of the PSCS2's CD's. It isn't all that complicated but it would be better to get the instructions from the horse's mouth.


I hope you've got a beefy computer to handle a HDR on 9 shots. Smoke starts coming out of mine at about 5

[Curtis N]

The problem of converging lines is avoided with TS lens.Is the effect of a tilt-shift lens different than fixing convergence with software?

It's pretty easy to do with Pain Shop Pro. Just draw a trapezoid along vertical and horizontal lines and click. If the shot was taken at an extreme angle then it will throw proportions out of wack, but I don't know if the effect from T/S lenses is any different.

[mgbeach]

one of the biggest helps a t/s lens gives is the ability to have a large depth of field even at wider apertures. Can't do that in PS :) Also, by correcting in software, you normally have to crop afterwards.

[Jon]

Is the effect of a tilt-shift lens different than fixing convergence with software?

It's pretty easy to do with Pain Shop Pro. Just draw a trapezoid along vertical and horizontal lines and click. If the shot was taken at an extreme angle then it will throw proportions out of wack, but I don't know if the effect from T/S lenses is any different.
Well, since you correct the convergence before it hits the sensor, you don't have to worry about the re-sampling necessary to restore the "de-converged" image area to rectangular form. No resampling every scan line differently.

[Wilt]

Yes, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro can electronically correct for converging verticals, but it will never be with the same image quality as if you had used a T/S lens to make the shot. You have to interpolate pixels in order to make the 'stretched' portion of the image fit into a rectangular matrix of pixels, as Jon pointed out.

[PommyB]

It is good to see some discussion of this subject. There is surprisingly little on the web.

I found it quite difficult to produce a good interior result. The narrow angle of digitals and the lighting challenges confounded me for some time. I need good photography for my recently acquired real estate business and have always been an enthusiastic amateur. Now I can combine business and pleasure.

I'm on a steep learning curve. EFS 10-22 lens for my Canon EOS300 was the biggest breakthrough. Followed by the speedlite 580 with its light diffuser, tripod and cable release filled out the package. Though I wish I spent more on the tripod.

I won't bore anyone with more at this stage but please keep posting tips. Great lens but how do you get that distortion under control?

[PhotosGuy]

Great lens but how do you get that distortion under control? Did you miss this above? "A good extreme wide angle would work too. Just be sure that the cam back/lens front is parallel to the wall to avoid this /\ & crop out the pic area you don't need." Keep the back straight & adjust the tilt-shift lens movement up & down.

[DocFrankenstein]

I hope you've got a beefy computer to handle a HDR on 9 shots. Smoke starts coming out of mine at about 5
I've merged 23 shots with my humble pentium 2.4 with 500 mb ram.

No smoke

[Blue Deuce]

If you decide to go with a conventinal lens this will provide some perspective. I have the Tokina 12-24 which I endorse with out reservation.

[PhotosGuy]

PommyB, notice how the walls are almost straight in the shot above? That's what I was trying to say in my comment above, "Just be sure that the cam back/lens front is parallel to the wall to avoid this /\". A level helps, but it's hard to see in these viewfinders and a tiny change makes a big difference, so you just have to play around with it 'till it's right. Then, maybe a little PS work... ;)

[chtgrubbs]

Merge to HDR in Photoshop works well for getting the overall contrast range within usable density but it doesn't address unbalanced lighting situations where one feature of the room is darker than you want it to appear, or where you want to highlight a feature in a pool of soft light, or accent a fireplace, etc, etc. For that you need lighting and the ability to use it properly.

[PommyB]

PommyB, notice how the walls are almost straight in the shot above? That's what I was trying to say in my comment above, "Just be sure that the cam back/lens front is parallel to the wall to avoid this /\". A level helps, but it's hard to see in these viewfinders and a tiny change makes a big difference, so you just have to play around with it 'till it's right. Then, maybe a little PS work... ;)

Thanks