As a general rule?....

squizza

squizza

Eeyore
Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,855
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi guys

My final body of work for this semester will involve taking photographs in rooms in peoples houses. Anyway, what is the best / most suitable / easist / etc way of lighting rooms? Would you let natural light fill in?

Any hints tips or advice greatly recieved

Kind regards

Sarah

P.s I suppose what I am trying to say is that I want a natural light feel. But is there also any general rules to photographing rooms - These are not going to be stock shots or anything like that.
 
As a general rule...
I would use natural light, especially bright sunlight if available, and use flash to fill in the areas that the sunlight cannot reach (sounds a bit like a Heineken ad:) but without reducing the contrast too much.

The biggest single problem is not with lighting but with actually getting everything in, so you'll usually need a pretty wide lens, which means that the camera will need to be dead level
 
I'd use natural light if available but depending on just how dark it is in there I might use a a flashgun and bounce it off a wall to give some nice directional lighting that would emulate natural lighting if that makes sense?
 
This is a 'how long is a piece of string' type question but the first thing that springs to mind to me (and someone could correct me soon) is to use a camera mounted flash but bounced off the wall/ceiling, on ETTL (auto). the key thing here would be to gel the flash and get your white balance right.

This would be the easiest and cheapest option in my mind. Enough practice at this and you would never know it wasn't natural light. Watch out for coloured walls/ceilings causing colour casts though.

You could then take things further with off camera flash, radio triggers, brollies and softboxes etc for even more control.
 
What Ste said. Natural light is wonderful stuff if the subject is in the right position, but a bit of bounce for fill - or contrast depanding on how you bounce it - gives you control, the option to use lower iso and much sharper pictures.

I would also add I'd always look to bounce off a side wall rather than the ceiling if possible as this will give much more pleasing shadows.
 
The23rdman said:
What Ste said. Natural light is wonderful stuff if the subject is in the right position, but a bit of bounce for fill - or contrast depanding on how you bounce it - gives you control, the option to use lower iso and much sharper pictures.

I would also add I'd always look to bounce off a side wall rather than the ceiling if possible as this will give much more pleasing shadows.
Click to expand...

This fella makes it look easy :D

When I tried it recently though I couldn't find a 'clean' wall to bounce from, and peoples skin looked freaky no matter what I did (strange decor, don't ask!) so that's one thing to look out for.
 
Only you can decide how you want the pictures to look, but I would consider using flash if you are presenting the images as a set. Natural light is great but the problem is we live in the UK and it's really unpredictable.
Without knowing what equipment you have the easiest way to do it with 1 flash on camera is to point it at a wall to the left or right of the subject and let the light fill the room. With white walls you should get a natural looking feel to the picture.
Bouncing off the ceiling produces really flat looking picture so try and create a bit of texture.
You could also try and balance the flash with the daylight so you have a bit more control, like this one I shot a few years ago http://www.edwardmoss.co.uk/personal_portfolio/P3/
It was really heavily backlit so I bounced the flash off the wall to the left of the subject.
 
something I've done is to put a flash up high and bounce it off the ceiling to bring the general room light level up to match the outside (watch floors and shadows under stuff) then light whatever needs to be lit seperately to highlight it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top