Interior Photography Strobe kit suggestions?

I shoot interior photography for builders, architects, designers, and local

merchants. I shoot on location and rooms that are usually no larger than

20x20. Day and night. During the day there is usually lots of natural light

and at night usually well lit. However, I need to be able to fill in the

darker areas.

 

Can someone suggest a good strobe kit that is not too expensive and not too

many heads? I want the lighting to look as natural as possible.

 

What are the main differences between the major strobe comapnies Balcar,

elinchrome, alien bee's, white lightning, novatron?

 

What type of smaller screw in slave strobes can be used to accent areas? What

comapy makes these or do they have to be homemade?

 

Can I then buy gels to put over my strobes for nighttime use?

 

Thank you in advance!!!

hello jessica, sadly im unable to help - but hoping you could answer my question. im only now trying to get into interior photography - can you reccommend a couple books that are very popular in the industry for interior photography? thank you

1. Interior Photography by Eric Roth

 

2. Photographing Building Inside and Out by Norman McGrath (not published anymore but can find used copies)

Main differences: Price, quality, consistent output, correct color. For their money, I like the Elinchrome, AB's and White lightening, but dislike one of the brands mentioned and haven't used the other. I use BKA SP Excalibur series and really like their price, controls, and consistency, but usually rent Broncolor's for larger out-of-studio shoots. I use the SP's for screw in strobes. I used to do a lot more interior / architectural photography, and would replace dozens of bulbs with these to regulate the light, though I don't think it is as much of a problem with the availability of Photoshop these days. Any decent lighting system will have gel holders available. I believe you may get more mileage out of monolights rather than power packs and heads because they are a little easier and cheaper to use stand-alone.

Jessica,

 

It sounds like you are on the right track, lighting to look as natural as possible. Main

differences between all the major strobes?...money, quality, availability, power, repair/

rental availability...

You can buy AC strobes to replace lamp bulbs, but you can end up buying a whole lot of

these. Easier to color correct these in post. Gels for nighttime? You want to convert the

strobes to tungsten to match the existing lights? Full CTO, Lee gels, Rosco gels,...

Jessica-- If I were starting out in architectural today, and didn't have enough money to go with Elinchrome's, I'd probably pick up either the AB 1600's or the White Lightnings. AB's are smaller, lighter, and cheaper. They aren't as tough, but I've put mine through a lot and they still look and work like new.

 

While you might be able to work with three such heads and a few corner-poppers, I would consider four to be the bare minimum, five to be still less than adequate, and six to be a decent basic supply. I also have four self-contained units made from Vivitar 285's and custom battery packs that give me nearly a thousand full-power pops before they need charging, and an attachment kit that allows me to grip them to nearly anything. Other than that, you might be able to get away with four AB 1600's then also get two AB 400's and use those to pop up dark areas.

 

Note that no matter what you get, you will always need more.

 

Rather than use screw-in slaves, I'm more apt to pick up some daylight-balanced florescents made specifically for photographic use. I put them into lamps that I don't want to show up as too warm (though warm lamps are not always a bad thing). They are not perfect daylight but certainly good enough for small areas of the image.

 

Making the light look natural is YOUR part of the equation. An Elinchrome with a 60-degree reflector is going to look much like any other strobe with a 60-degree reflector, the fact that it may be slightly better balanced and versitile not withstanding. You will achieve natural-looking images after long experience, by choosing the right placement of the lights and the right modifiers.

 

I'm not certain why you think you would need to put gels over the strobes for night-time use. You can put gels over the strobes anytime you want to in order to balance the COLOR of the strobe output to the ambient, say when you have florescents or incandescents that are supplying a major part of the illumination. If you want to cut down the power of the strobes, then you can simply dial down the power on any of the strobes mentioned in this thread.

 

Generally (but not always), you will find it expedient to overpower any raw daylight and ambient light in the frame, sometimes leaving a bit of it as accent (though I nearly always like to turn off the d***ed florescents). Blitz the strobes up into white walls or ceilings just out of the frame on both sides, or use umbrellas, to throw soft, even light into the area being photographed. This will go a long way toward filling in those dark areas you are worried about. Sometiems I'll gridspot a couple of accent pieces in the room.

 

There are times when a good architect has created a really nice lighting scheme, and all I need to do is balance things correctly. Sometimes this can be achieved by using long exposures and turning the lights on or off during parts of the exposure (tricky but do-able with practice). During some long exposures, I'll even put a gel in front of the lens for when the flash goes off at the beginning, and pull it away for the rest of the exposure (or even vice-versa). Some people are color-balancing different aspects of a scene by taking several identical digital images with different color-balances and combining them in PhotoShop.

 

There are a lot of tricks, but the best way to go about it is to get yourself five or six flashes that are powerful enough, and experiment until you get what you want.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

http://strobist.blogspot.com/