Approaching a kitchen

I may need to shoot an interior shot of a kitchen as part of another job. I

haven't seen the kitchen yet and won't for about a week, but I'm trying to work

out my approach to lighting this. My initial thought is to use as much

available light as possible, make multiple exposures and maybe fill in any

black holes with a tiny bit of strobe...but this really is not expertise and

I'm sure there is a ton I'm not thinking about...

For those of you who shoot a lot of interiors how do you approach lighting

them? Any tips, pitfalls etc? Thanks!

Hi Stacy.

Though I'm not an expert, here are some thoughts that did come to mind. You might find them helpful.

1. Select a true wide-angle lens, so that you get as much of the kitchen as you can into your picture frame.

2. If you're shooting a digital SLR, set the White Balance to try and match whatever type of lighting they have. If you can afford to slow-down your technique a little, and spend about $80, you can get a gadget called the ExpoDisk, (www.expodisk.com) , and use it to set a custom white-balance that is fine-tuned to the ambient lighting of the kitchen. That will help you get accurate color tones, but you have to reset the custom white balance each time your lighting changes. (ie, each time to go to a different room).

3. If you are using your camera's pop-up flash, and want to see a more diffused lighting from it, they do sell another gadget that will slip down over the pop-up flash, and it acts like a mini-diffuser. They sell these at Wolf Camera & Imaging retailer stores. If the flash lighting in your inyteror shots is looking too harsh and direct, you may want to try using one of those. I think they cost about $25. Sorry, but I forget the name of the product.

4. If you are not sure you are getting correct exposure when you shoot the kitcken, you can always bracket it, by shooting 2 extra pictures. For the first extra picture, bracket 1 Stop Less, by switching up to next fastest shutter speed OR next smaller aperture. And for the 2nd extra, shoot 1 Stop More, by switching to next slower shutter speed OR next larger aperture.

Well, the Library PC is kicking me off. So gotta run.

Good Luck, and hope your pictures come out fantastic.

AP

Atlanta GA

Much will depend on how much available light there is. One of your biggest problems is going to be colour balance. Kitchens often have fluorescent lighting which is deficient in parts of the spectrum, and hard to correct well for: however, you may well need to have the lights on for a "realistic" shot - multiple strobes echoing the artificial lighting angles may be called for. Make sure you have a good range of gels for your flashes. You are probably going to want to aim for a warm colour balance in the final image. Be careful that any strobes don't cast unnatural and unsightly shadows (e.g. upwards from the tops of cupboards to the ceiling), nor unwanted reflections - you may need to use a polarising gel, or bounce/diffuse. Don't forget that exterior scenes through windows in daylight will be at a very different colour temperature and exposure level unless you apply gels to the windows - shooting after dark can be easier. If you are going to shoot in daylight, try to have the windows obliquely at the distant end of the shot and light the foreground. Avoid direct sunlight through windows by using net curtains, awnings etc.

Even with a wide angle lens, you will be shooting at a narrow aperture to get front to back sharpness (so long shutter speeds =MLU and/or lots of strobe power are called for). A tripod that offers good positional flexibility is essential (you may be operating in tight corners and need good height to be well above counter tops), as is a remote release (and time delay if it isn't a radio trigger) so you can be out of the way of the shot if the camera is set up in a corner. Be sure to have the camera level to avoid converging verticals - use a twin axis hotshoe bubble level. If you are going to attempt HDR, try to minimise the need to touch the camera by setting up automatically bracketed shots.

An old thread on this topic:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Iw2f