Shooting office interiors ..... Who can give me a headsup?
Shooting office interiors ..... Who can give me a headsup?
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bobo

Original Poster:

1,726 posts

308 months

Thursday 9th July 2009
quotequote all
I have a tripod, a canon 30d, a tokina 11 - 16 and a tripod and have to do a few snaps of the inside of one of our offices for a brochure .... now, im no expert at this but im keen to give it a go... if it goes horribly wrong i will call in an expert.

so do any of you pros have any tips or recommendations for getting the interior shots of buildings right? my main concern is getting the light right.

thanks in advance

andy-xr

13,204 posts

234 months

Thursday 9th July 2009
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There was a Strobist post about this, I'll see if I can dig back and find it.

  • Assuming you have a flash or two?*
Edited by andy-xr on Thursday 9th July 18:56

S. Gonzales Esq.

2,559 posts

242 months

Thursday 9th July 2009
quotequote all
Lighting large interiors could require a lot of power - you're probably better off using available light and a longer exposure.

The tripod will be essential, and as you'll be on a very wide lens I'd recommend keeping the camera level to avoid sloping walls.

If you're shooting a working office it will look cluttered if you don't clear a lot of the stuff off the desktops, and the bins from under them.

Other than that, it's one of those things where it'll be easier to critique your results than offer guidance upfront - too many variables for specific advice.

Starfighter

5,350 posts

208 months

Thursday 9th July 2009
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Take some trial shots over a weekend / evening if possible just to get some ideas about what looks right when looking through a veiwfinder, it saves looking a right lemon when the office full as you know what views you want. Remeber tyhat at 11mm the view will look distorted anyway wven with the camera held flat (think fish-eye).

It will also be worth trying a range of aperture / speed combinations to see what works best controlling vignetting and CA which you will only really see at the post processing stage.

Time the actual shhot to suit outside light to advantage. If you can balance inside and outside light levels then this may add to the shot but personally I find burned out windows rather unattractive.

Andy M

3,755 posts

289 months

Thursday 9th July 2009
quotequote all
A few thoughts:

An aperture of f11 - f13 will probably suffice, remembering to focus around 1/3 into the scene to get best depth of field.

If you're shooting in daylight try to keep the office lights turned off, as they'll produce an unattractive colour cast. If in doubt shoot RAW and try to take a grey card along with you, then you can be certain of getting the colours (white balance) right.

You don't want your tripod too high, or too low. I'd recommend setting it to around chest height, and possibly look at buying a spirit level. As already recommended, to keep verticals parallel you'll need to keep the lens level.

Given your camera is a 1.6x crop I'd not want to shoot at much below a true 20mm focal length (13mm on your lens). If you don't have a shutter release cable I'd use the cameras timer (2 secs) to try to prevent too much movement of the camera.

HTH smile

bobo

Original Poster:

1,726 posts

308 months

Monday 13th July 2009
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thanks for the advice so far....