Lighting interiors -mix strobe & daylight

[c_phillips1]

Hello,

 

I am shooting my first job doing interiors, I have been

shooting a personal project doing long exposures with avaiable light

4x5. I have been playing with the casts caused by the various light

sources, but for the job I need to create clean, color balanced shots.

The space gets lots of bright sunlight and has lots of big windows, I

was planning on renting two large pro-photos and maybe getting

elichromes. But I am worried about using strobe inside. Any

suggestions interiors that "look" like natural light. The sunlight

will be hard to control or predict. I don't have a ton of lighting

experience.

 

Thank you,

C Phillips

[david_beal___richmond_hts.]

First, search this forum and search the web for architectural works. Go to libraries and bookstores and search out books.

 

I don't think you can rely on sunlight to help, because of the requirement that you need "color balanced" shots. That implies the use of a color temperature meter. Since you say this is an interior shoot, I'm going to guess you are shooting reversal film. If so, tolerances will be tighter than negative film. That's another argument for relying on strobes. Also, don't forget Murphy's law. Even if you get a flood of sunlight, you may not get it in the right place and the right quantity when you're ready to shoot.

 

 

Yes, you'll need quite a bit of light. There was an article in View Camera within the last 6 months on a fellow who lives out west (US) and travels around doing architecture. IIRC, he travels with 4 x 2400 w/s packs and some odds & ends monolights, etc.

 

You'll also need Polaroids or a good digital outfit to check your setup before you start shooting for the record.

 

Good luck and good shooting.

 

/s/ David Beal ** Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

 

 

, you

[leicaglow]

You would be okay using Elinchrome's or Pro Photos to supplement natural lighting. They will be very close to the same color temperature. The trick will be to position them so the output looks natural.

[c_phillips1]

Thank you all for the advice - I am planning on bringing plenty of polaroid. I am interested why you suggested E-6 - I rarely use positive film. What would be the benefit? I am much more comfortable with color neg. My main concern is lighting placement and quality. I would like to recreate the bright flooded sunlight look.

[brooks short]

If the images are to be used in a 4-color printed piece, catalog, brochure or ad, transparency film is the industry film standard for seperations.

 

The reasoning is that a transparency is a true original that can be used as a reference for color and density. Transparencies are also the choice for hi-res drum scans when making seperations.

 

Color negative/color prints ae used only if no other original is available.

[david_fisher6]

The Gossen Color Pro 3F is specifically designed for mearuing the photographic color temperature of flash and ambient light. Just press a button and the meter calculates out the filter values required to achieve photographs without color casts.

 

Good luck.

[J.W. Wall]

I believe Brooks Short wrote a weekly lighting topic on simulating sunlight last year. Check the static content.

[J.W. Wall]

No, it was Garry Edwards: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EQ5v&tag=

[johnmarkpainter]

C,

 

Ask your Client if they prefer Transparency. It often doesn't matter to them...it depends

on what they are using them for.

 

It can still be tricky with a lot of sunlight. It won't exactly match the strobes. Consider the

Color of the Floor. I recently shot some lofts that had big windows and wooden Floors.

The bounced Sunlight had an orange tint to it that was hard to fight. Light that came in

through shaded sides of the building were Blue Tinged.

 

I lucked up and had a section of Wooden ceiling that I could bounce my light off of.