If you are new to this blog, it probably would be to your benefit to start at the bottom post and work your way up. This blog is sponsored by weshoot.com, where you may see many examples of architectural photos, and bilbord.com, where you can see extensive retouching and enhancement of building images. Its purpose is to give anyone who wishes to photograph building interiors and exteriors the knowledge of how to do so correctly, and what to do in post-production work to make their images better and more professional-looking. I will periodically be adding to this blog. Please note that I do not allow blogspamming in comments, and any attempt to do so will wind up with the comment being removed.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
It's been almost 6 months since I have posted anything. Well, I have something new to write about. Lighting. In my opinion, that which separates pros from wannabes is lighting. You may ask why I think that. Well, most room shots have ambient lighting. But those lights produce many shadow areas caused by furniture, counters, placement, etc. In the days of shooting with film, deep shadows would "block up," creating dark areas of no discernible detail. It was OK, unless your client wanted to see all the details. In these days of digital, shadow areas not only block up, but get spotty and worse, noisy. There are many ways of dealing with noise, but in doing so with software, there is usually a softening of all or part of an image. Being able to light shadow areas brings out detail, cuts noise, brings out color, and if you want it dark, you can use post-production techniques to darken areas of the image, with no resultant noise.
Using additional lighting allows a balance for high-contrast lighting from in-scene light sources within your photos. Let's say you have an image that shows a great-looking exterior back yard that is seen through a window in a living room, during the day. Our eye sees the outside part and the inside part, and can readily see both. That is because our eye adjusts for both amounts of light. If we take an image of the interior, with the idea of showing detail within, and don't use additional lighting, the outside detail will "blow-out," and will appear as an overexposed part of the image, usually obliterating the window itself, the sill, the drapes, and anything directly between the window and the camera.
One method I employed for years is using "hot lights." These are continuous lighting, usually tungsten based, to cut the contrast between outside and inside. This may involve timing the inside and the outside exposures to make sure that we get an accurate exposure for each and merging the images together for an image as our eye sees it. Please see our archive: http://learnarchitecturalphotography.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html to get an idea of this type of image.
I decided that strobes would help cut down on post-production work better than using hotlights, and have purchased a set of high-powered monoblock studio strobes from White Lightning. The advantages of shooting with strobes are many. One, strobes shoot with daylight. That means less color variation between outside and inside (warm tones inside, cyan tones outside). I take a reading from outside through the window. Let's say it says f16 @ ¼-second. I set the lens at f16, the shutter at ¼-second, and the strobes at f16. Since the strobe is the main light in the room, and is fired in less than a small fraction of a second, the resulting image shows detail inside and out. Another factor is that hotlights sometimes required long time exposures. This would cause severe halation around room lights, causing loss of detail in and around the lights. Because faster shutter speeds are possible, I can get better lighting detail in the image.
I should warn you that studio strobes aren't cheap. You need a lot of light power to photograph large areas at deep depth of field. I checked out many lighting types and makes. Paul C. Buff, Inc. had the most powerful lights (White Lightning X-3200s) available, were more reasonably priced than just about anybody else, made regular wall-plugging AC units that could plug into batteries, called Vagabond IIs, which they also sell, and had a great staff to work with. These units were also compatible with some of my old Balcar accessories, so I saved a little money that would have gone toward the accessories. You can find them on the 'net at: http://www.white-lightning.com/ . I have even used these strobes and battery-packs outside, shooting at night. It gives me a lot more versatility.
Check out what real lighting can do for you. Happy shooting, and Happy New Year.
Using additional lighting allows a balance for high-contrast lighting from in-scene light sources within your photos. Let's say you have an image that shows a great-looking exterior back yard that is seen through a window in a living room, during the day. Our eye sees the outside part and the inside part, and can readily see both. That is because our eye adjusts for both amounts of light. If we take an image of the interior, with the idea of showing detail within, and don't use additional lighting, the outside detail will "blow-out," and will appear as an overexposed part of the image, usually obliterating the window itself, the sill, the drapes, and anything directly between the window and the camera.
One method I employed for years is using "hot lights." These are continuous lighting, usually tungsten based, to cut the contrast between outside and inside. This may involve timing the inside and the outside exposures to make sure that we get an accurate exposure for each and merging the images together for an image as our eye sees it. Please see our archive: http://learnarchitecturalphotography.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html to get an idea of this type of image.
I decided that strobes would help cut down on post-production work better than using hotlights, and have purchased a set of high-powered monoblock studio strobes from White Lightning. The advantages of shooting with strobes are many. One, strobes shoot with daylight. That means less color variation between outside and inside (warm tones inside, cyan tones outside). I take a reading from outside through the window. Let's say it says f16 @ ¼-second. I set the lens at f16, the shutter at ¼-second, and the strobes at f16. Since the strobe is the main light in the room, and is fired in less than a small fraction of a second, the resulting image shows detail inside and out. Another factor is that hotlights sometimes required long time exposures. This would cause severe halation around room lights, causing loss of detail in and around the lights. Because faster shutter speeds are possible, I can get better lighting detail in the image.
I should warn you that studio strobes aren't cheap. You need a lot of light power to photograph large areas at deep depth of field. I checked out many lighting types and makes. Paul C. Buff, Inc. had the most powerful lights (White Lightning X-3200s) available, were more reasonably priced than just about anybody else, made regular wall-plugging AC units that could plug into batteries, called Vagabond IIs, which they also sell, and had a great staff to work with. These units were also compatible with some of my old Balcar accessories, so I saved a little money that would have gone toward the accessories. You can find them on the 'net at: http://www.white-lightning.com/ . I have even used these strobes and battery-packs outside, shooting at night. It gives me a lot more versatility.
Check out what real lighting can do for you. Happy shooting, and Happy New Year.
Labels: White Lightning
Comments:
<< Home
Adjusting a lens is very important factor in order to get your picture perfect. I have always opted for a camera which provides a good and adjusting lens.
Post a Comment
<< Home
