Recommendations: Hotel rooms pics

Hi,

What types of lenses, angles, and lighting do you recommend for taking pictures of small hotel rooms? The rooms are 100-500 square feet, the final pictures are destined for a 8.5 x 11 glossy marketing booklet. Are there any issues with night vs. daytime pictures? Should I treat the regular rooms differently from the bathrooms?

I'm gonna experiment first with my Canon G2 so I can layout the booklet,then when I've gotten positive feedback I'm going to borrow a friend's D60, but any experienced advice before hand would be really useful.

This is my first paying photography job, it's through my family, and I can take my time experimenting but I want it to look professional for my portfolio.

Thank you.

Lighting: Given your limited choice of weapons I'd suggest using the room lighting, augmented by a couple of inexpensive Torcheer (300W halogen stand lights) out of frame to bounce fill light off the ceiling. This will give the room a nice warm ambience. You can test this lighting set-up at your house before hand.

Camera angle: Bring along a small step ladder so you can get a high camera position up near the ceiling. The high camera angle will show more of the room and make it appear larger. Longer exposures at higher f/stops will give you better depth of field. If you can clamp a tripod to the ladder do so for sharper image. Lack a tripod a beanbag, or 5 lb bag of rice would be a good substitute.

Camera: Lens focal length will be a limiting factor. Hopefully the D60 will have a wide angle, or you can borrow one.

Chuck Gardner

mikeysbistro said:

Hi,

What types of lenses, angles, and lighting do you recommend for
taking pictures of small hotel rooms? The rooms are 100-500 square
feet, the final pictures are destined for a 8.5 x 11 glossy
marketing booklet. Are there any issues with night vs. daytime
pictures? Should I treat the regular rooms differently from the
bathrooms?

I'm gonna experiment first with my Canon G2 so I can layout the
booklet,then when I've gotten positive feedback I'm going to borrow
a friend's D60, but any experienced advice before hand would be
really useful.

This is my first paying photography job, it's through my family,
and I can take my time experimenting but I want it to look
professional for my portfolio.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

You really need a pretty WA lens - something on the order of 20mm to 25mm (35mm equivalent). I used a Nikon 950 with WA adaptor (23mm equiv) for years:
http://www.newportnet.com/driftwood/
http://www.tyeelodge.com/ (rooms, then click on each room)

and have just switched to the 1D with 17-35, mostly at 17mm:

http://www.newportnet.com/fairhaven/bennington.cfm - applegate and wakefield were shot with the 950, fairhaven was shot by the owner on film.

I don't do anything fancy with lighting. Just an SB-28 with the Nikon, EX-550 with the 1D, but you'll get better results with a slave or two to eliminate shadows. Watch out for flash reflections in windows, etc. It's best to shoot in fill mode because this will minimize such problems. If there's any view at all, I expose for outdoors.

• DL

mikeysbistro said:

What types of lenses, angles, and lighting do you recommend for
taking pictures of small hotel rooms? The rooms are 100-500 square
feet, the final pictures are destined for a 8.5 x 11 glossy
marketing booklet. Are there any issues with night vs. daytime
pictures? Should I treat the regular rooms differently from the
bathrooms?

I'm gonna experiment first with my Canon G2 so I can layout the
booklet,then when I've gotten positive feedback I'm going to borrow
a friend's D60, but any experienced advice before hand would be
really useful.

This is my first paying photography job, it's through my family,
and I can take my time experimenting but I want it to look
professional for my portfolio.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

I do things a little different to Chuck (sorry Chuck and like to keep the camera level, allowing the walls to remain vertical. I feel that this gives a more natural view of a room.

Re lighting: I tend to use a combination of room lighting, daylight from windows (using the curtains or blinds to control the amount) and 1 or 2 flashes to bounce off the ceiling or walls as fill.

Remember to use extra room lighting if needed... often I have borrowed an extra lamp from the room next door to fill a dark corner.

It is easy to do this these days, prior to digital I would wonder around taking multiple readings with my meter and then bracket the exposure to be sure..... Geez, how stone age!!

Re lens: A 17mm Tokina does the job for me, however for the ultra wide shot I will stitch a couple of images together.

Hi Mike,

I, like Russell like to keep the camera level, allowing the walls to remain vertical.
Wide angle is important, 17mm should be fine on the D60.

We usually bring about ten flash lights and use these to even out the natural light of the room, plus lighten up other areas which you may see - through doors, in mirrors, etc.

Think about adding people, they can add scale and make the pictures more interesting.
Examples:

http://www.ashleymorrison.com/interiors/pages/Interior002.htm http://www.ashleymorrison.com/interiors/pages/Interior026.htm

Ashley

I've done only a few of these, but learned a couple of things. If you can't keep the camera perfectly level without getting to a height or angle that is not what a normal person would experience, you can always use the skew or perspective adjustments in photoshop. If you shoot from a height or angle that isn't "normal" even if the lines don't converge, people will look at your pictures and wonder why they look funny.

If you can afford it, change the light bulbs to something stronger, and put on every light in the room. If you do that, don't let outside light in, mixed lighting is the biggest pain. I actually have some "daylight" light temp bulbs which are only mildly ruddy, used them in one hotel shoot, and use them if I'm shooting environmental indoor stuff, and they mix well with flash. I've also used bounced light a few times - once I hid my two strobes in the lamps, with another bounced off of a white sheet hung in the window. Looked incredibly cheery. More than that room deserved. Have also diffuse-bounced off of in-room mirrors. I've sometimes put a slave (I use Nikon strobes, with their TTL slave sensor) in the hallway, or in the bathroom, bounced off where the light fixture is, so it doesn't look dark and foreboding. Again, I often do this in other interior shots in other situations.

Check the faucets, mirrors, and dresser hardware for hot spots. They're painful to take out after the fact. Bring some cheap hairspray along to dull them if you can't avoid creating the hotspot. It washes off. Or you can buy expensive matte spray.

Also, look carefully

Ashley Morrison said:

Hi Mike,

I, like Russell like to keep the camera level, allowing the walls
to remain vertical.
Wide angle is important, 17mm should be fine on the D60.

We usually bring about ten flash lights and use these to even out
the natural light of the room, plus lighten up other areas which
you may see - through doors, in mirrors, etc.

Think about adding people, they can add scale and make the pictures
more interesting.
Examples:
http://www.ashleymorrison.com/interiors/pages/Interior002.htm
http://www.ashleymorrison.com/interiors/pages/Interior026.htm

Ashley

Click to expand...