View Camera for Interiors and Lighting

[macolive]

If you watch the videos on youtube of Mike Kelley for Interior/Architectural Photography, you will notice that he lights the spaces little by little and he blends them together in photoshop.

I need to shoot my projects and so I was thinking of getting a Canon 6d and a 17mm & a 24mm TS lens for this.

I mentioned to a friend that it must have been difficult for film shooters during the day to have to light up the whole space and shoot it in one go. He then said, we could use film but shoot multiple exposures, lighting up the area little by little.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Any tips?

Thanks!

[Doremus Scudder]

"Painting with light," i.e., setting up your camera in the dark, and then walking through the scene with a floodlight or such and illuminating the scene little-by-little, giving more light where you want it and less where you don't, is a time-honored method. I've done it with good results occasionally. It requires that you know your light intensity and exposure in advance, but allows you to work on one sheet of film.

A similar method is simply lighting one area at a time, leaving the others dark, and closing the shutter between lighting changes, basically making a multiple exposure, except that it's really a cumulative exposure, since the each area of the scene only gets exposed once.

If you're thinking of getting a Canon 6D, you're in the wrong forum here... :rolleyes:

Best,

Doremus

[B.S.Kumar]

I've done multiple exposures with film for interiors for a long time, not only for balancing exposures, but also for filtering different light sources. Gets complicated very quickly :)

Kumar

[Jim Jones]

I've opened the shutter in a dark room and illuminated the room with multiple electronic flashes as Doremus and Kumar mention. It requires care to avoid getting yourself or unwanted light in the photo, and comfort in working in total darkness.

[bdkphoto]

If you watch the videos on youtube of Mike Kelley for Interior/Architectural Photography, you will notice that he lights the spaces little by little and he blends them together in photoshop.

I need to shoot my projects and so I was thinking of getting a Canon 6d and a 17mm & a 24mm TS lens for this.

I mentioned to a friend that it must have been difficult for film shooters during the day to have to light up the whole space and shoot it in one go. He then said, we could use film but shoot multiple exposures, lighting up the area little by little.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Any tips?

Thanks!

I almost always lit my interiors in one go when I used film. I would balance lighting by turning off or light banks for portions of the exposure or multiple pops of strobe on occasion.
The 6D and TSEs are the way to go now.

[macolive]

"Painting with light," i.e., setting up your camera in the dark, and then walking through the scene with a floodlight or such and illuminating the scene little-by-little, giving more light where you want it and less where you don't, is a time-honored method. I've done it with good results occasionally. It requires that you know your light intensity and exposure in advance, but allows you to work on one sheet of film.

A similar method is simply lighting one area at a time, leaving the others dark, and closing the shutter between lighting changes, basically making a multiple exposure, except that it's really a cumulative exposure, since the each area of the scene only gets exposed once.

If you're thinking of getting a Canon 6D, you're in the wrong forum here... :rolleyes:

Best,

Doremus

I'm going to give it a try (light painting) with my 4x5 and see how that works out.

[macolive]

I almost always lit my interiors in one go when I used film. I would balance lighting by turning off or light banks for portions of the exposure or multiple pops of strobe on occasion.
The 6D and TSEs are the way to go now.


It's certainly easier to go that route...but imagine how much 4x5 film I can buy instead of a 6d and TS lenses :-)

[macolive]

I've done multiple exposures with film for interiors for a long time, not only for balancing exposures, but also for filtering different light sources. Gets complicated very quickly :)

Kumar

Exactly! I've seen how some have to change the lightbulbs to slave flashes just to get consistent color.

[macolive]

I've opened the shutter in a dark room and illuminated the room with multiple electronic flashes as Doremus and Kumar mention. It requires care to avoid getting yourself or unwanted light in the photo, and comfort in working in total darkness.


I've tried it on digital and I always manage to see the light source or myself in the image...which of course is easy to remove in digital.

[AtlantaTerry]

If I remember correctly, when he worked for the US Forest Service back in the '30s, Saint Ansel used to light interiors he was photographing with his LF cameras using a light bulb in a metal reflector to paint the walls with light.

[ghostcount]

Dean Collins photographed a Hyatt hotel with a 4x5 Sinar P2 averaging 12 rooms per day.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3BF6B74DB529E262

Low quality video but his words resonate. Good stuff.

[Robert Opheim]

I have shot some interiors with 4x5 using corrective filters for each type of light bulb. Correcting for incandescent and fluorescent bulb color temperature. I have a daylight balanced light I use to even out the interior lighting. I used daylight film. I knew a professional photographer that would shoot the interior as I do, at night and wait for morning to shoot the daylight portion coming through the windows.

[Bob Salomon]

Did you ever see "All The President's Men"? If so you would see that the WaPo news room was properly lit and properly color balanced even though there were movie lights, overhead fluorescent lighting and daylight lighting through the windows.
To accomplished this they used Rosco light balancing gels on the windows and Rosco light balancing gel tubes to slide over the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling lights. ND Rosco gels were also used on the windows to balance the daylight exposures to the room light.

No Photoshop required.

[Kirk Gittings]

That's a great example Bob. I noticed that too the very first time I saw it and subsequently viewings too. When I saw it I also thought about the budget necessary to do that lighting right. A budget I had never seen for an interior shoot.

[Bob Salomon]

Just a union crew and day(s) of pre-production

But the OP didn't indicate what his budget is and his lenses are not inexpensive. Plus, if you are careful, the gels would be reusable.

And, time is money, both for the shooter and the client. So this may be the most economical way and the fastest way to get to the desired result. As long as the subject isn't the inside of The Pantheon.

[Kirk Gittings]

This is an example where digital is vastly superior.

[bdkphoto]

But the OP didn't indicate what his budget is and his lenses are not inexpensive. Plus, if you are careful, the gels would be reusable.

And, time is money, both for the shooter and the client. So this may be the most economical way and the fastest way to get to the desired result. As long as the subject isn't the inside of The Pantheon.

The OP doesn't seem to know much, as he is looking to do light-painting. Not a technique that I would recommend, especially to start with. The big deal is how you would proof your lighting set up on location and make it repeatable. With film it would require polaroid to do it right. Learning how to light interiors isn't going to happen without a lot of trial and error - especially with film when you have to go back to reshoot once you see your mistakes day(s) later.

[Luis-F-S]

I mentioned to a friend that it must have been difficult for film shooters during the day to have to light up the whole space and shoot it in one go.

Thanks!

Why we made the big bucks! A Sinar F2 and lots of Polaroid. L

[Mark Sampson]

+1 to both Kirk and Luis-F-S. The OP should look up Norman McGrath's "Photographing Buildings Inside and Out" to find out how it was done in the film days.

[macolive]

But the OP didn't indicate what his budget is and his lenses are not inexpensive. Plus, if you are careful, the gels would be reusable.

And, time is money, both for the shooter and the client. So this may be the most economical way and the fastest way to get to the desired result. As long as the subject isn't the inside of The Pantheon.
Hi Bob.

I am an architect and looking to take photos of my projects myself. So budget is pretty low considering that I would be paying for it myself. I would call for a few hands but that would mean pulling my own staff to the site to help me out :-) it was really a question on whether or not it was still cost effective to try to do this on film or just go on (for this type of work) with digital.

[Luis-F-S]

+1 to both Kirk and Luis-F-S. The OP should look up Norman McGrath's "Photographing Buildings Inside and Out" to find out how it was done in the film days.

++1 I took a week long workshop from Norman in the early 1990's. Learned a lot; way more than from a book or this forum! Frankly, I stopped doing architectural photography because most architects did not want to pay what it was worth, and they typically took months to pay when they did. Had a difficult time relating to them that I was a photographer, not a bank! L

[macolive]

++1 I took a week long workshop from Norman in the early 1990's. Learned a lot; way more than from a book or this forum! Frankly, I stopped doing architectural photography because most architects did not want to pay what it was worth, and they typically took months to pay when they did. Had a difficult time relating to them that I was a photographer, not a bank! L

Luis, believe me..it feels that way for us architects with our clients as well :-( Nonetheless, my firm pays our suppliers when invoices are due.

[cdavis324]

I'd suggest renting a camera and lenses, instead of purchasing - there's a lot to good architectural photography. There's a reason architectural photography is expensive, and odds are you're not going to be able photograph your work well without A LOT of practice. There's also the fact that a good photographer brings a new perspective and is able to distill the essence of the space without the bias of any problems during construction/design/with clients.

If you're just wanting to learn how to shoot spaces, I say go for it, but start with natural light. A lot of spaces look amazing at a certain time of day, and it's up to you to watch/figure out when that is... Bringing in supplemental lighting is difficult to do well, and it's easy to get overwhelmed quickly.

And instead of a 6d, use a sony a7/r with an adapter for canon ts lenses, or stick with film. The dynamic range of either the sony or neg film will really help you out.

[macolive]

P
I'd suggest renting a camera and lenses, instead of purchasing - there's a lot to good architectural photography. There's a reason architectural photography is expensive, and odds are you're not going to be able photograph your work well without A LOT of practice. There's also the fact that a good photographer brings a new perspective and is able to distill the essence of the space without the bias of any problems during construction/design/with clients.

If you're just wanting to learn how to shoot spaces, I say go for it, but start with natural light. A lot of spaces look amazing at a certain time of day, and it's up to you to watch/figure out when that is... Bringing in supplemental lighting is difficult to do well, and it's easy to get overwhelmed quickly.

And instead of a 6d, use a sony a7/r with an adapter for canon ts lenses, or stick with film. The dynamic range of either the sony or neg film will really help you out.

Thanks all for the great advice and tips!

[Mark Sampson]

I studied with Norman McGrath in Maine in 1989. I learned a lot; the principles still hold, whether film or digital. Professionally now I shoot digitally and would never go back to 4x5; personally I still work in 4x5, and will as long as I can. cdavis may well be right; the architecture shooters I've worked with prefer the Canon T/S lenses.

[Kodachrome25]

I have a new magazine assignment that has a surprisingly large budget and plenty of time to do it ( prints next Summer ). There is an architectural component to it that I am going to also largely shoot with digital. But for the fun and experience of it, I have decided to try and produce some of it in 4x5 as well.

[macolive]

I have a new magazine assignment that has a surprisingly large budget and plenty of time to do it ( prints next Summer ). There is an architectural component to it that I am going to also largely shoot with digital. But for the fun and experience of it, I have decided to try and produce some of it in 4x5 as well.
Great!!!

Please let us know how it goes.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

This is going to sound dumb, but I will offer it anyway. Many moons ago I did a lot of wedding photography. And in a sense, especially in large spaces such as churches, one runs into the same issues as in photographing interiors. Sure, the emphasis is on people, but unless one wants a couple of people surrounded by black, one has to pay attention to how the rest of the place is lit. So of course, lights were put on the people, but it could have just as well been a piece of furniture or an architectural detail. And if necessary smaller lights (lumedynes) were placed behind altars and other furniture and pointed at significant details in church altars, homes, etc. to bring out detail in them. And of course, one has to take into account the overall fill, or ambient light. So oftentimes there would be a very long shutter speed coupled with a small f stop to give depth, capture ambient light, and control the flash exposure.

Best thing to do before you do much else is get a real good flash meter, and learn how to use it for both flash and ambient light, and learn how to balance those two. Then you can start looking at how you want to light up certain parts of the interior, which will basically be a matter of balancing. And don't forget the inverse square law. Just because you light something adequately doesn't mean that things behind will be lit adequately. Light falls off with the square of the distance (if you double the distance the light falls off the square of that doubling, or 2 squared. i.e. 1/4 the intensity) If you have a very large object or interior you may have to use multiple lights from front to back to keep a balance on the entire object.

[Sasquatchian]

Having shot interiors on 4x5 color neg and transparency and now on Canon 5DS with an array of tilt and shift lenses, there's no comparison. The Canon images are simply superior in every way to the 4x5. What used to take several hours for a single shot using many lights and a ton of Polaroid is now accomplished far more effectively with minimal or more often, no added lighting at all (I recently shot Studio A at Capital Studios with two Arri 650's bounced on the ceiling). What you have today is automatic perfect frame registration which makes blending multiple exposures a breeze. You also have basically infinite color balancing options when processing raw files and it's almost too easy to shoot a set of exposures for the interior and a separate for the windows, balanced for the outside as needed. The lenses today on the high res 35mm digital are actually better in almost every case than drum scanning 4x5, plus you get the added benefit of much greater depth of field from the shorter lenses, and you can shoot at f/11 vs. f/22-32 on 4x5. And for those really wide shots, it's also super easy to stitch three images together with either the 17 or 24 t/s-e lenses and make images you could never do with large format. I don't know a single architectural shooter who would ever go back to 4x5 for commercial work. Maybe for nostalgia, but even then probably not. Heck, I've shot the same rooms a dozen years ago with film and today with digital and there's just no comparison. I'll post a shot that is a three shot stitch with the 24 t/s-e, with each section probably an eight exposure bracket from dark to light and lit with the aforementioned Arri's bounced on the ceiling to make in effect a giant soft box for the Neve mixing board. I don't even know if this shot would be possible on 4x5. A medium format Alpa, yes, but that's a whole different league of expense.

[Christopher Barrett]

I've been shooting interiors professionally for 20 years. While I'm shooting more film nowadays than I have in a long time (for my personal projects), I would never go back to film for architecture. My favorite setup right now is the Sony, A7r2 and tilt/shifts, usually all mounted on an Arca Swiss Mf2.

Seriously, I couldn't imagine trying to get consistent, professional results on film... not unless I used digital as a 'Polaroid'. I still carry as much lighting as I did with film, but typically don't use as much and shot times now take about an hour and a half, where 3 hours was the norm with film. Also, I never really understood 'painting with light' for interiors. You can achieve much more accuracy setting up multiple lights.

If I were you, I'd get a digital rig, forget the lighting and learn how to blend exposures. That's the common workflow for a lot of my competitors.

IMHO,
CB

BTW... this is the amount of lighting we usually fly with, but I think my generation of Arch Shooters are becoming the exception.

151060

[Kirk Gittings]

ditto squared......

[Luis-F-S]

This is going to sound dumb, but I will offer it anyway. Many moons ago I did a lot of wedding photography. And in a sense, especially in large spaces such as churches, one runs into the same issues as in photographing interiors........Best thing to do before you do much else is get a real good flash meter, and learn how to use it for both flash and ambient light, and learn how to balance those two. Then you can start looking at how you want to light up certain parts of the interior, which will basically be a matter of balancing. And don't forget the inverse square law. Just because you light something adequately doesn't mean that things behind will be lit adequately. Light falls off with the square of the distance (if you double the distance the light falls off the square of that doubling, or 2 squared. i.e. 1/4 the intensity) If you have a very large object or interior you may have to use multiple lights from front to back to keep a balance on the entire object.

Minolta Flash Meter III. I would not leave home without it with film. I still have it and although if I were going to shoot interiors again, you can bet I'd use digital. You can still use the flash/ambient meter to balance lights and then check it on the digital. It will give you a good starting point so the whole thing does not become overwhelming. I still have my Nikkor PC28 that should be usable on my D800, but I've not had a reason to try it. Maybe I will for the hell of it, though you could use a wider lens and then crop. With the large file size, it's doable either way. L

[tgtaylor]

...

Seriously, I couldn't imagine trying to get consistent, professional results on film... not unless I used digital as a 'Polaroid'.

If I were you, I'd get a digital rig, forget the lighting and learn how to blend exposures. That's the common workflow for a lot of my competitors.

IMHO,
CB

BTW... this is the amount of lighting we usually fly with, but I think my generation of Arch Shooters are becoming the exception.

151060

Chris,

There's a number of Hollywood directors that would vehemently disagree with you and I'm sure they don't shoot Polaroids. Just checkout today's blockbuster film releases (and blockbuster TV sitcoms) and how many of those are shot on...dare I say...FILM; and note the absence of Polaroid credits. Those are shot on 35/70mm stock not LF.

Thomas

[Kirk Gittings]

Chris was a recognized master of shooting LF film for architecture and interiors and continues such with digital. We are not talking about movies but still captures of architecture and interiors. Besides that, movie directors don't actually shoot anything. They have a crew of expert camera and lighting people who do that for them, interpreting the director's vision.

[Taija71A]

Chris was a recognized master of shooting LF film for architecture and interiors and continues such with digital. We are not talking about movies but still captures of architecture and interiors. Besides that, movie directors don't actually shoot anything. They have a crew of expert camera and lighting people who do that for them, interpreting the director's vision.

+100.

[Christopher Barrett]

Chris,

There's a number of Hollywood directors that would vehemently disagree with you and I'm sure they don't shoot Polaroids. Just checkout today's blockbuster film releases (and blockbuster TV sitcoms) and how many of those are shot on...dare I say...FILM; and note the absence of Polaroid credits. Those are shot on 35/70mm stock not LF.

Thomas

Absolutely. A production company can produce outstanding results on film using nothing more than experience and light meters when they have all day to light a 10 second scene. It's all just math when you have an abundance of time and lighting resources. I try, however, to keep my forum responses grounded in reality and relevant to the actual problems of the original post. Having made my living solely in architectural photography for the last 20 years, the real world constraints are a constant consideration and heavily influence the advice I've given here.

Cheers,
CB

[tgtaylor]

We are not talking about movies but still captures of architecture and interiors. Besides that, movie directors don't actually shoot anything. They have a crew of expert camera and lighting people who do that for them, interpreting the director's vision.

I think it is fair to say that every movie is about architecture and interiors - and exteriors as well. But the director is not interested in merely a record of the subject as the architectural photographer is, rather they try to invoke a certain atmosphere in the scene to be recorded (consider, for example, the Film Noir genera), a Wabi-Sabi if you will, and that requires "the right" lighting - not the correct but sterile lighting of the architectural photographer. After all, it is all about the lighting, isn't it?

Thomas

[Richard Wasserman]

- not the correct but sterile lighting of the architectural photographer.

Now you've done it! I think the architectural photographers among us may somewhat disagree with this statement....

[Kirk Gittings]

So Macolive there you have it. You have gotten sage advice from a few people who actually do this for a living at the very highest levels of the profession like Chris with 20 years in and a client list that most dream of, me with 38 years in practice plus 30 years teaching it at a university level and some others here that seem to know what they are doing vs. typical internet "expertise"..............anyway, good luck. AP has been very good to me and I can't imagine doing anything else.

[Taija71A]

According to Wikipedia...

Wabi-sabi (侘寂 ?) represents Japanese aesthetics and a Japanese world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.
The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".
--
I cannot help but feel, that just 'perhaps' a couple of the responses in this Thread... Sound like 'Wabi-sabi' (*Or at least to me they do).
I.e., they 'seem' to reflect an aesthetic that is... Imperfect, Impermanent, and Incomplete.
--
However, on the other hand 'Kudos' go to both Chris and Kirk for providing responses in this Thread...
That not only were Accurate, Educational and Informative -- But also showed an exceedingly, great deal of Professionalism and 'Restraint'.

Thank-you! -Tim.

[Kirk Gittings]

Thank you Tim. Chris is currently traveling away from Chicago on assignment, but I'm sure he will have more to say when he gets back.

[macolive]

So Macolive there you have it. You have gotten sage advice from a few people who actually do this for a living at the very highest levels of the profession like Chris with 20 years in and a client list that most dream of, me with 38 years in practice plus 30 years teaching it at a university level and some others here that seem to know what they are doing vs. typical internet "expertise"..............anyway, good luck. AP has been very good to me and I can't imagine doing anything else.

Sorry I dropped off for a bit. Thank you all for the great advice. Now on to trying it out :-)

[Thom Bennett]

Really enjoyed the Dean Collins video; took me back to my early days in photo assisting at a commercial studio. When i first saw that he did 12 interiors in a day I thought, "Bullshit!" and then he talked about having two carts with identical equipment on them so that while one room was being photographed the other equipment cart was being moved to the next room. Genius! Or, should I say, a typical commercial photographer - solving seemingly insurmountable obstacles with simple solutions.

[bloodhoundbob]

Really enjoyed the Dean Collins video; took me back to my early days in photo assisting at a commercial studio. When i first saw that he did 12 interiors in a day I thought, "Bullshit!" and then he talked about having two carts with identical equipment on them so that while one room was being photographed the other equipment cart was being moved to the next room. Genius! Or, should I say, a typical commercial photographer - solving seemingly insurmountable obstacles with simple solutions.

I would go with genuis, rather than "typical". As one who had the pleasure of meeting Dean at a couple of seminars, he reminded me of Robin Williams. Although one was a brilliant comedian and the other a brilliant photographer and educator, they had that one thing in common, i.e., a mind that moved at the speed of light. We lost both of them way too soon.