advice for shooting industrial equipment on location

I'm looking for some advice on photographing industrial equipment on location. My photography experience has all been portrait, glamour. The equipment is a large abrasive media blasting room, dust collection system, etc.

Equipment: I have 2 B400 & 2 B800 alien bees, some soft boxes, umbrellas, etc.

Location: Large warehouse 20'-25' ceiling height, some natural light from overhead windows, a few ceiling lights. I have posted a picture of the location which was taken on a cloudy day so not much light from overhead windows and no overhead lights were on. I have also posted a picture taken with a cell phone after some of the equipment (large blast room enclosure) was installed, sunny day with overhead lights on. The area in front of the large doors is the darkest, however the room enclosure has 30 banks of LED lights which should send plenty of light out the front when the doors are open. The equipment I have to photograph will be positioned behind the room enclosure.

I'm wondering the best/easiest way to get some decent photographs for website use. Can I simply use one of the alien bees on a stand next to the camera. I have nowhere near enough equipment to light the entire location.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brandon

This situation fairly screams out for HDR. Used carefully, you should be able to let some longer exposures take care of those shadow-area details inside the enclosure, and then expose for those daylight sources separately. You're lucky, here, in that there are nice straight-line boundaries between the shaded subject matter and the brighter surroundings. Makes it very easy to layer the appropriate pieces in post.

Otherwise, I'd consider hiding your Bees inside that enclosure (behind the near wall) and using them perhaps bounced off the enclosure's ceiling. I'm hoping, here, that you'd have a way to remotely trigger them, and a way to get them some power without having to clone out a power cable snaking through that side door.

You must use a tripod and aperture selected for best DOF. You can apply Matt's recommendations very effectively, but you should also consider long exposures with natural/available light, photo floods, and/or light painting. The small apertures and low light conditions will lend themselves to this type approach. Also, you will need an ultra-wide-angle lens. Don't be shy about getting up close, and I mean very close, to the primary subjects. These two images are in a water treatment plant with a D7100 and Tokina 11-16mm/2.8, available light only from a very stable tripod. They were intended to be documentary in nature, rather than artistic, but they illustrate the issue. I did not have facility to dim or drape the very bright and specular LED fixtures, so they have more impact than I would like. You will want to make a very careful WB reading and adjustment, and shoot in RAW for maximum adjustability in post.

Thank you Matt and David for the tips, greatly appreciated. I'll incorporate both of your techniques and rely on Photoshop to clean up the end result. I'm shooting with a Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 lens and will keep the DOF in mind along with a remote shutter trigger.

Thanks again!

... but you should also consider long exposures with natural/available light, photo floods, and/or light painting

I concur that "light painting" could be a useful technique. (This is where you use a long exposure, perhaps 20 seconds, or so, and use this time to shine various lights around on the subject). I would tend to do it with flash; if you fire your flash(es) at lower power settings, you can walk around and perhaps set off 5 or 10 flashes in that time. The main problem is that the base scene must be nearly dark to do this; you would need access to the facility after dusk AND have the ability to turn off ambient lights, as desired. (I currently have several locomotive shots in my "portfolio" that were done, or "dressed up," in this manner.) <BR><BR>

https://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16600574-orig.jpg<BR><BR>

Another method which I have seen done with large, scattered wedding groups is to light segments separately in different shots, then bring together in Photoshop. The general method is to mount the camera on a stand so that the fixed scene doesn't change between shots. Then you take two or more shots, lighting only one section in each shot. In Photoshop load both shots as separate layers, making sure the images are exactly aligned. Finally, erase parts of the top layer so that you can "see through" to the properly lit sections on the lower layer. You can use as many shots/layers as you have the patience to work with. As a disclaimer, I don't do this, myself, for personal reasons, but I'm pretty certain the technique will work fine.