Interior Photography

Yesterday while browsing photography magazines I ended up looking in interior magazines, you know, those with furniture tips and houses of famous people. But what really interested me was, of course, the photography. And then I realized that I really had no clue about any technical aspects of interior photography.


Now I did some research about it, read some articles and seeing it all boil down to some points.

• Long exposures (1-10 sec) to capture as much detail as possible.
• Small aperture, for as sharp as possible photos.
• Pay a lot of attention to the lightning.
• A wide angle is preferable.

So tell me, is this it? or am I missing something importaint. I didn't see any thread about interior photography here yet so I thought it would be a nice idea to share some knowledge about it with eachother.


Is someone doing this for a living? Because I love interior design and I imagen making photos of wonderful looking interior's would be a great thing to do.

I shoot for an interior designer every so often. The angles and lighting are very important. I use the highest f/stop before diffraction. A couple flashes, softboxes and shoot through umbrellas, gels will take care of most lighting needs. It is important to get some light on the lower parts of things (chairs, flooring, tables, etc.). I always try to angle lights to match the ambient.A tripod is absolutely necessary. A remote is quite handy to. Occasionally I find myself in a tight bathroom holding a flash and shoot through in one hand and the remote will give me the extra reach I need. Plus I just like not having to push the shutter and risk shaking the camera. And not having to use the timer speeds things up a little.


I've seen some folks do HDR for interiors instead of lighting it. I'm not a fan of HDR, I'm a bit of a purist (to a fault sometimes). Plus that ads to my post production time and I'm a big "get it right in the camera guy." That said, Bracketing is a good idea too. Sometimes you'll find that some detail didn't come up in an image and you may have to Photoshop something in to make it a perfect shot.

PS


16-35 2.8 II (on 5DmkII) is my lens of choice. I used a 17-40 once on a 40D and kind of got by. I did need a Fisheye for a couple shots. The 10-22 would be great on a crop camera I expect since you really want to shoot higher f/stops anyway.

When I saw this thread this morning, I decided I didn't have time to give my thoughts on it since I had to leave the house in a few minutes. However, Keith B said it all. He even touched on HDR and using the widest focal lengths possible (although sometimes you need to do some distortion correction in post or else shoot slightly longer than the shortest focal length of the lens). So, for all intensive purposes, it's already been covered!


However, I might point you to the strobist group on flickr. Right now they're doing a boot camp with different assignments. The latest assignmentis to shoot an interior residential room. Here are the submissions so far.

Thank you for sharing this enormous amount of information Keith B, the whole subject about the lightning was indeed still a bit unclear for me and there is still a lot to learn. Also good that you pointed out that a remote is quite necessary, I forgot to add this point together with a tripod.


And Sean, even if Keith B already almost said it all, the information you added, especially about the strobist group, is equally valuable. I've spend more then an hour going through that group, and those submittions of that assignment look great.


Definitely going to look into some more lightning equipment. Thanks guys.

If this helps, I shoot with 3 580EXII and a 430EX. You can get less expensive flashes that work really well. The child in me insist upon Canon. Rarely with interiors have I needed more that 2 lights though. I fire them with an ST-E2. It has always worked for me, but I'm going to invest in radio triggers soon, just to be sure. Softboxes and shoot throughs are very important, they cut down on the hard shadows that don't look natural. It wasn't mentioned before, but obviously stands. A smaller stand, (18" or less background stand), will come in handy for snaking some light on the bottom of chairs or under tables.

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Originally Posted by Keith B

A smaller stand, (18" or less background stand), will come in handy for snaking some light on the bottom of chairs or under tables.
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I just bought this from maxsaver's ebay store for just those types of situations. It's a knockoff of the gorillapod. I figured I could put a threaded studd on the screw, then put an umbrella swivel on the stud. Then I could mount flashes close to the ground or else attach them to limbs or just about anything I can wrap those flexible legs around. I thought it'd be a handy little tool for my bag-o-tricks.

One thing I forgot to mention: Exposure blending. You could do quite a bit with a single off-camera strobe if you've got a good tripod. Set up the framing that you want, and take several shots letting your flash light different things each shot. Then layer them in photoshop and use the "Lighten" blending mode (if I'm not mistaken). It should use the lightest pixels in each shot, meaning you're blending all of the separate strobe shots into one.

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Originally Posted by Sean Setters

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Originally Posted by Keith B

A smaller stand, (18" or less background stand), will come in handy for snaking some light on the bottom of chairs or under tables.
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I just bought this from maxsaver's ebay store for just those types of situations. It's a knockoff of the gorillapod. I figured I could put a threaded studd on the screw, then put an umbrella swivel on the stud. Then I could mount flashes close to the ground or else attach them to limbs or just about anything I can wrap those flexible legs around. I thought it'd be a handy little tool for my bag-o-tricks.

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Nice! I've got one of the rubber ones I picked up from Target. Yours looks a lot better. They are really handy. It helped out huge in a stairwell once. It is great when you are using backdrops in tight spots and need to rim light something just clamp it to the stand post. The one I have has a threaded pin for camera mount in it then I just use the plastic foot that came with the flash.


I just picked up thisso I get as low as possible and still get an umbrella or SB on it.
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