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Interior design shooting: A friend does window treatments and asked me to shoot pics

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kayakrazy said:
for her portfolio. I have a E300 w/ FL36, any suggestions will be
appreciated. Thanks, Rich
Click to expand...
If you were in Canada I'd suggest you watch HGTV's StyleDept...it's a show about getting a magazine look and then shooting it for a magazine, although they use medium format cameras.

Personally I'd use multiple flood lights or strobes instead of the FL-36. Also use a tripod and put a level on the camera to make sure the shot you get is absolutely straight, I like the type that attaches to the hotshoe of the camera (do a Google Image search on HOT SHOE LEVEL to see what I'm talking about). Also do a manual white balance rather than using auto...see what gets the best results though. Shoot in RAW so there's more ability to correct problems after.

Don't use the 14-45mm...it's one of the softer lenses. If you're really serious about this get a better lens.

What other suggestions are you looking for?
 
At least an 11-22 is mandatory, a 7-14mm would be better. FL-50 flash with stofen would be a lot better than a FL-36 because of the additional power and extra features.

You need to learn to balance flash lighting with house interior lighting, and outside light through windows. This an Olympus can do very well, I think because the flash is short in duration. My Metz 54 MZ3 aboard LC-1 tends to dominate the photo,it will balance outside light fine, but punch out the incandescents.
--
Riley

not all that counts, can be counted
 
Rriley said:
At least an 11-22 is mandatory, a 7-14mm would be better.
Click to expand...
I shoot interiors for magazines on a weekly basis and this really is nonsense. In fact, in general you would use the longest lens possible. I have found that the 7-11mm extra of the 7-14 can make you include everything in some cases, but it never makes things actually look better, which is the goal. If needed, crop your subject a bit, that will improve the final image much. But, the trick to make the images special is in the lighting. (a longer lens will give you more room to put lights as well!)
Rriley said:
FL-50
flash with stofen would be a lot better than a FL-36 because of the
additional power and extra features.
Click to expand...
Studio lights would work best but it's hard to reccommend something without seeing the situation. Some simple&quick jobs I do with FL50 and the TTL-cord. That way I can easily aim the flash very exactly, for example into a white folding reflector, against a wall, or sometimes I create a spotlight, I shoot at 11mm and set flash to 25 or 35mm... (btw my camera is on a tripod when I do this, otherwise you quickly need 3 hands...an assistant could be very useful, for example to hold up a big lastolite reflector.) With closeups you can even create backlight this way...
Rriley said:
You need to learn to balance flash lighting with house interior
lighting, and outside light through windows.
Click to expand...
Yes but in general it's best to overexpose the outside world a bit. In my opinion perfectly balanced (indoors/outdoors) shots look weird and usually ugly as well, unless the view is truly spectacular. (which is incredibly rare in the Netherlands where I live.)

Lourens
 
LJSmak said:
I shoot interiors for magazines on a weekly basis and this really
is nonsense. In fact, in general you would use the longest lens
possible. I have found that the 7-11mm extra of the 7-14 can make
you include everything in some cases, but it never makes things
actually look better, which is the goal. If needed, crop your
subject a bit, that will improve the final image much. But, the
trick to make the images special is in the lighting. (a longer lens
will give you more room to put lights as well!)
Click to expand...
I shoot real estate, but I considered her shoot would best include the context, that means wide, longer of course is useful too, but an 11-22mm at 22mm will be fairly tight in all but the smallest windows
LJSmak said:
Yes but in general it's best to overexpose the outside world a bit.
In my opinion perfectly balanced (indoors/outdoors) shots look
weird and usually ugly as well, unless the view is truly
spectacular. (which is incredibly rare in the Netherlands where I
live.)

Lourens
Click to expand...
thats a given

--
Riley

not all that counts, can be counted
 
My experience isn't up to snuff, especially compared to the other posters in the thread, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

If I were in your shoes I'd put an empty card in my camera, charge a battery or two and practice, practice, practice. Shoot every window in your house a thousand times, until you get the effects you like and you feel like you're in control of what the image looks like. I'd also go to the library and browse through a bunch of design magazines to see what's in vogue for photographing interiors right now - last I looked it was either bright sunlight streaming through windows, or dark and calm. They only used flash for the "before" pictures, to make them look flat and dead.

I think lighting is going to be your biggest issue. My first thoughts when I read your question were, "Put it on a tripod, leave the flash at home and use the 40-150 if you can". In other words, use natural light (therefore long exposures), and use a sharper lens. If you bounce a flash off a wall beside or behind the camera you can sometimes get an effect that looks fairly natural, like the light is coming from a window off-scene. A big reflector can be made with a car windshield reflector, I got a pair at a local discount store for about $6 and they work well. You'll have to work hard to get even lighting that looks "non-artificial"; a diffuser and a couple of cheap stand lights would be very helpful.

The 14-45 is too unsharp (at least mine is). Unfortunately it's not soft enough to look like you meant it to be that way.... it just looks like a consumer lens. You could consider the 11-22 for tighter setups, it's supposed to be very sharp and minimally distorted.

Good luck, sounds like a great challenge!
ECM
 
Lourens, what camera do you use? Any place I can see sample of your interior shots for ideas?

Thanks... I have the e-300 and e-500 with the 14-45 lens, but am considering a wider angle
 
LJ Smak wrote... I shoot interiors for magazines on a weekly basis... ...Studio lights would work best but it's hard to reccommend something without seeing the situation...

Exactly, every situation and location differs. Studio or on-camera flash - however softened - often reveals reflection and shadow horrors only seen afterwards when it is too late, too costly and inconvenient to go back and reshoot. And instant playback can hardly be relied on in camera... linking to a laptop, on site, is much better.

I shot many interiors for national consumer magazines when living in the UK (I have nightmares about the cost of Polaroids in those days!) and more often than not used only natural window light (not necessarily within the frame) with large white bedsheets spread out across the floor areas (obviously out of view)...and the soft bounced light was very pleasing. Usually a couple of tungsten table or standard lamps were also switched on for the warm glowing effect... usually the lamps were replaced with low wattage ones so as not to overexpose during the lengthy exposures.

Ed Buziak
http://blogs.salon.com/0004217/
 
Rriley said:
At least an 11-22 is mandatory, a 7-14mm would be better. FL-50
flash with stofen would be a lot better than a FL-36 because of the
additional power and extra features.

You need to learn to balance flash lighting with house interior
lighting, and outside light through windows. This an Olympus can do
very well, I think because the flash is short in duration. My Metz
54 MZ3 aboard LC-1 tends to dominate the photo,it will balance
outside light fine, but punch out the incandescents.
Click to expand...
Or shoot at night when you don't have to worry about balancing the light.
 
I agree - practice and take notes. Some questions for you and your friend:

What are the expectations?

Will the focus be on the window treatments themselves, or on the room as a whole? Or both? Different challenges depending on what you intend to capture.

Are you expected to do post-processing, or will you just hand over the images?

Is it OK to blend multiple exposures for highlight and shadow?

How important is color accuracy? Is this going to print or online? Is your monitor calibrated and will you have samples to compare when making any color adjustments?

BTW - I have done favors for folks and always stated right up front when I am out of my area of expertise, but would be willing to give it a go - just for the experience. As long as the expectations are set correctly and understood by all, I see no reason to hold back from giving it a try.
--
Best Regards,
Mark Devine
 
no need to shoot at night

you can if you are caught short check out the WB with a P&S, or Live View if you have it
I sometimes shoot with an LC-1 and Metz 54

it gives a great result if a little flat, good for shooting in long rooms where you want it all in focus, and the Metz can get up and run.
the Olympus mixes daylight/flash/house light much better for a warm result
once you get used to it, well it gets easy after the first 10k frames

now we dont use RAW, only JPEG
but for important shoots RAW is the way to go
WB and flattish light are the issues to face

if you really had to model it, you could use a nissin and a slave flash with reflector

--
Riley

not all that counts, can be counted
 
although !
maybe Michael has a point about shooting at night
if the curtains are thin particularly

cheers
--
Riley

not all that counts, can be counted
 
Rriley said:
no need to shoot at night
Click to expand...
Yep, but it sounded like the OP was doing it as a favor to a friend, and not wanting to get into doing it full time. So I suggested shooting at night so the didn't have to worry about balancing the light.
 
tourmaker said:
Lourens, what camera do you use? Any place I can see sample of your
interior shots for ideas?
Click to expand...
I use E1 and E330 at the moment, and for interiors I would typically use the E330 and 11-22.

You can see a few bathroom-shots here: http://www.lourenssmak.com/website/Product.html

But for now they're on the product-photography page; I am planning to make my site larger and give interiors their own page, as I am doing more and more of this, lately.

I try to get my ideas from the spaces themselves, like the toilet-image has a light behind the matte glass "wall", because it is essential you see that it is glass. Similarly in the bathroom there is a glass divider between bath and shower, and this is a very important element in the interior-design, so it also is in my picture...

Both of these were taken in very cramped spaces with my back against the wall, looking from the side at the folded-out E330 screen.

;-)
Lourens
 
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