Shooting Interiors

[Thirdcatgy]

Hi,

I recently accepted a Real Estate brochure project that requires shooting upscale interiors of homes - operating under the premise of accept and figure it out as you go along. I've been shooting landscapes for years and also have a good working knowledge of Photoshop.

However, interior shooting/lighting is something I've dealt with scarcely and most fallen back on PS editing to work it out.

I contacted Alien Bee's that recommended who recommended two high-powered flash units and two umbrellas to bounce the light back into the room.

I was interested to know if this sounds about right AND would I also be using a flash on the camera itself in this instance?

Apologies for the ignorance in advance,

Billy

[tim]

I guess the challenge is to evenly light the whole room and eliminate shadows. I've never tried it, but it does sound like a challenge. I'll watch the thread and learn something too :)

[Vetteography]

Subscribed so I can learn too, I may have a similar gig in the works. Let us know what you find out!

[sparker1]

I have only done small houses and not the quality you seem to need, plus my lighting experience is limited. My main point is that indirect lighting is required. Bounce it off umbrellas, off the ceiling, whatever. You don't want shadows and blown highlights, so bounce, diffuser and softbox may be the keys. Also, if you have adequate lighting under your control, get rid of uncontrollable light coming in from outside by closing drapes, blinds, whatever (unless it really does help). Mirrors are a nightmare, reflecting flash, equipment and photographer unless you are aware and protect against it. I love those bathrooms with two or three walls of mirrors. LOL

Interior lighting (eg lamps) can be used to set a scene, especially at night. My 10-22 mm has been wonderful for interiors, but be careful about the height of your tri-pod. You can distort everything by setting up too high or too low.

[Jon]

Is this for print brochures or web posting? How large will the pictures be when reproduced? If they're not terribly big, putting a lot of effort into the lighting rather than just trying for full coverage from an on-camera flash may be meaningless.

A theatre trick for damping down reflections (mirrors, etc.) is to use hair spray on highly-reflective surfaces. Check to make sure it's easily water-soluble first!

[sp00g3]

Is this for print brochures or web posting? How large will the pictures be when reproduced? If they're not terribly big, putting a lot of effort into the lighting rather than just trying for full coverage from an on-camera flash may be meaningless.

A theatre trick for damping down reflections (mirrors, etc.) is to use hair spray on highly-reflective surfaces. Check to make sure it's easily water-soluble first!

What about using a Polarizer and slow shutter speeds? Good way to get rid of reflections, saturate the natural lighting, and remove some of the yellow usually caused by incandescents?

[Jon]

Polarizers won't do anything for mirrors, and will not provide any colour correction for mixed lighting.

[gasrocks]

Can we assume you are using a wide angle and there are no people in the rooms? Multiple flash can become complicated. Chose the right time of day (I'm thinking about any outside light & balance,) why not use a tripod and long exposure & existing light?

[Titus213]

I'll bet it will make a big difference if they are unfurnished or furnshed homes.

[vwpilot]

I do a lot of assisting for a photographer that shoots a lot of hotels for their brochures, advertising and websites, and let me tell you, shooting rooms is FAR more intricate to get right then I ever imagined before working with him.

On an average hotel room, we will generally use a minimum of 3 strobes and sometimes as many as five run off of two packs.

Usually only one or two of the lights will have an umbrella, if that. We do not use reflected light very often, though we do at times. We will use a range of grid spots in order to control the lighting and to put it into the corners and spots that we need without it bleeding over into areas we do not.

We will also often use small lights (little home depot style things) with small bulbs in them to light up small areas. We also carry a range of light bulbs which we can use in the lights in the room. Little 40W bulbs to ease up hot spots and other sizes as well to make sure all the lights are showing the same color (sometimes there will be an incandesent bulb in one light and one of those new flourescent style bulbs in another).

Also have a couple small stands for your lights as well so that you can light the far parts of a room while hiding them down low behind furniture.

Carrying some white sheets is a good thing too as we will often tape them up insice a window behind sheers in order to cut down the amount of outside light entering the room. This does two things, it will decrease the hot spots of the windows to help balance out the exposure and it will also help to keep the lighting in a more balanced light with the light coming mainly from the strobes as opposed to light from both outside and inside which needs to be balanced. Its hell on the white balance when half your room is lit by strobes or lights and the other half is lit by sunlight.

If you are going to do this I would take a minimum of three lights, more if you can, along with two packs or at least some extensions in case your lights are on two different sides of a room. Also take along a couple sheets for the windows, a range of grids and umbrellas, some diffusers for the strobes to cut down some of the intensity when needed, a range of light stand sizes, some light bulbs ranging from 40-100 watts, some extension cords, and someone to help you carry all the stuff. :)

Watch for reflections in the TV, mirrors, and framed pictures, also watch for hot spots on furniture, tables, and lamps. You may need to actually move some furniture out of rooms so that it doesnt look so cluttered and so that you can provide some seperation between different pieces of furniture.

You may also want to shoot your camera tethered to a laptop so that you can inspect the photos immediately and adjust the lighting as needed. That makes things much easier and you can be sure of what you have before you leave the scene.

Good luck with that. I was amazed when I started working with him just how much is involved in shooting a little hotel room.

[BDM]

Hi,

I recently accepted a Real Estate brochure project that requires shooting upscale interiors of homes - operating under the premise of accept and figure it out as you go along. I've been shooting landscapes for years and also have a good working knowledge of Photoshop.

However, interior shooting/lighting is something I've dealt with scarcely and most fallen back on PS editing to work it out.

I contacted Alien Bee's that recommended who recommended two high-powered flash units and two umbrellas to bounce the light back into the room.

I was interested to know if this sounds about right AND would I also be using a flash on the camera itself in this instance?

Apologies for the ignorance in advance,

Billy

Frankly, I would recommend getting a book on architecture photography (there are many good one) which covers interior lighting. That said, two high power strobes are a good start but you may find the need for more units under some circumstances. And you will probably want to rely mainly on the lighting already there with supplemental lighting as necessary. That will preserve the look of the interior which is often a design feature worth preserving in the shot.

Of course, that may bring up the problem of lighting sources of varying color temperature. How to balance that is often what earns the pros their money. Again, a good book or two will help.

I also suggest you consider getting a good radio triggering unit for the flashes. If you try to connect one to the camera with a wire you may find the wire runs through the shot and is visible . . a no no. If you try to trigger the units by slave operation, placement of the lights may mean one slave photo cell cannot see the other and triggering becomes unreliable.

On camera flash will not likely be useful. Remember, flash intensity falls off as the square of the distance which means if you are trying to light some distance into a room, the foreground is likely to be either normal or over exposed and the backgroubd is likely to be under exposed - - a vary unnatural and unattractive result.

Finally, be sure to carefully study test shots to be sure a flash unit is not visible in the shot and nothing is reflecting the flash (llike a mirror, etc). You will be absolutely amazed how these things can creep into a shot. When shooting film that was what polaroids were for and with digital it's also very easy to take and examine test shots to eliminate errors.

Good luck.

Bruce