Lighting small rooms

[Ed Richards]

I like to shoot historic buildings, which I do with natural light. But I have been looking at some historic homes where the rooms are not huge, but the light is dominated by one or more bright windows. I would like to up the room light a bit so that things are not blow out by the windows, which must be in the shots because the room is small. I am looking for a portable solution. I may ultimately decide to do these with digital because of the expanded portable lighting options, so suggestions there would be welcome as well.

[Corran]

A simple flash aimed at the ceiling should be plenty for a small room.

[Merg Ross]

Assuming that you are shooting b&w film on a tripod, you could make multiple pops with a strobe as fill-light. I mention b&w because of the mixed lighting problems with color. That would be a "portable" and simple solution for a small room. I am not familiar with digital, but I am sure that you will get good answers on that subject.

You have some really fine work on your website.

[vinny]

strobes. outside. through diffusion frames. and what bryan said too as long as the walls aren't white but the ceiling is.

[lenser]

To add to what Meg said. Multiple pops yes, but not during one continuous exposure as would be the typical way to accumulate light in a room without windows or a night time shot. If your windows are in frame during daylight, that would only keep them exposing throughout the entire open shutter cycle and totally blow them out.

You've got to calculate an exposure for available light exterior through the windows. Then calculate the exposure for interior based on how many pops it will take to meet the chosen f stop for the outside view. Then you come back and take the total time needed for the exterior and divide that by the number of pops you will need for the interior to arrive at a corrected shutter speed.

In other words, if your outside exposure is 1/60 sec. at f11, and you need 6 pops of the flash to get f11 inside, you will have to reset the shutter and fire it a total of six times at 1/500 to balance the outside and inside exposures. The six firings of the shutter at 1/500 is the equivalent of 1/60 sec for the exterior exposure and the six times firing the flash adds up to f/11 so the exposures match.

The big trick here is to be incredibly sure that you don't shift the camera even a millimeter during all those shutter cocking and firing cycles or you will get overlapping images.

[lenser]

To elaborate just a bit, if you have power available, the easiest way is with a more powerful flash that allows a single pop to light the room and balance the exterior exposure at the same time. You can drag the shutter to expose more of the interior by window light and to lighten the outside exposure as you wish.

[Kirk Gittings]

Power is always a problem in historic houses with strobes of any significant power-blowing fuses. Opt for large battery powered strobes if they are available. Bring two prong adapters. Multiple pops with strobe bounced off the ceiling if it is light in color is almost the only option on tiny rooms.

Alternatively shoot the interior at twilight when the exterior light dims to the level of the interior.

[jp]

Bring a dSLR along to test. I use an old white lightning strobe with a sheer umbrella on it to increase the light in the room softly. It doesn't use much power. They make battery packs for such things now.

A zero power option would be a shiny reflector. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7082/7...586a0324_z.jpg I used a 5-in-1 reflector to light the hallway so it wasn't all backlit. This is at the Olson House of Wyeth fame.

[Ed Richards]

Power is not an option. I like the big reflector idea. That could work really well when the problem is too much window light. Waiting for dusk or heavy overcast would leverage a small strobe.

Are there battery powered continuous light systems, perhaps with leds? That would let you use a long exposure at dusk, or at night, with a strobe pop outside for window light.

[neil poulsen]

I think that it's possible to put together an array of high wattage resisters to slow the charging of a pack. I don't use my flash much, so I occasionally "condition" them using some resisters connected in parallel that was recommended by a Dynalight technician.

Perhaps a similar solution could work in historic buildings? But before trying this, I'd check it out with someone who knows power pack electronics.