Real Estate techniques using off camera shutter release

[jamesbjenkins]

Hey all, I wanted to pick your collective brains on a couple of things regarding remote shutter release and lighting. In April, after quite a while studying the photography market in my area, I decided to shift my business focus more on real estate and architecture. Since April, I've been experimenting with various lighting setups and incorporating HDR and layer masks to try to get the best overall exposure and maintain a realistic look.

I've been fortunate enough to have a friend who's a ReMax broker, and I've been able to get in quite a few homes in exchange for providing a dozen or so finished images to my friend for his listings. I've spent a lot of time on pro real estate shooters site (one of my favorites is Mike Kelley), and watch a ton of BTS videos, but I wanted to have the benefit of real live opinions, so...

My main question is this: In your experience, if you've ever shot real estate, or really any interior space with dynamic or challenging lighting scenarios...how do you do it? I have a sturdy tripod, and the best results I've had so far have been shooting 5 bracketed images, then combining them in Photomatix using the exposure fusion processing, and then finishing off the image with masked in portions where necessary.

I want to make things quicker and simpler, so I'm looking at a combination of the Pocketwizard Plus III and a synced SB-900/910 for the lighting setup. From what I've seen, combining several of these "targeted lighting" images with a properly metered base image seems to be the best bet.

Feedback please?

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[JoshuaSimPhotography]

If the room has a lot of shadows, try HDR. Also look into as tilt shift lens, it helps manipulate lines. AND if you're getting a tripos, make sure it has a leveller, so you know when you're perfectly horizontal. And if you have bad light and have to use a slow shutter speed then use a trigger

[Skaperen]

Light painting also helps, especially in shadow areas. The frames where a specific area is lit extra can be used to bias that area to a degree you can choose in post processing, including bias of color. So in addition to an HDR stack (and/or a focus stack where that is an issue, such as close interiors), a light painted highlight set can also be helpful. What you can do then depends on your tools and how much you learn about using them. It looks like Michael Kelley used some of these techniques.

[tirediron]

Multiple lights, triggers and modifiers. I would go for at least four speed lights, and consider lastolite's Easybox line of compact SBs.

[Big Mike]

I've used one or two remote flashes, fired with radio triggers. I put them onto small tripods, which allows me to tuck them into small places and/or hide them from the camera's view. I tried to bounce them off of walls and/or ceilings, without them causing too much of a noticeable shadow. Then it's just a matter of finding the right spot to put them and where to aim them. If you can adequately light the interior (and balance it with any natural lighting), you may not need to use the HDR techniques.

[fjrabon]

The biggest thing is knowing the style your agent or agency is after. From the OP I can't tell whether or not you are currently working in real estate or are trying to get into it. Your portfolio should be able to sort of show that you feel comfortable with a variety of styles, from teh more arty, HDR type of the images you linked, to the more 'straight, here's the house' style that some agents prefer.

If you're already working, and not looking to work for other agents, then the biggest key is working with the agent, to get an even better feel for what their vision is. This is especially important if you're not the agent's sole photographer. Nothing makes an agent more angry than when he/she is getting wildly different looking sets from their photographers. Usually in that case they stop using the one that looks different, even if those photos are better, just so the site looks more consistent.


As far as my specific technique:

1) If at all possible I want a single exposure image. This will almost always be your best bet, if you can get it to work. Time of day for the shoot is a big factor here. Now, unfortunately this is often not under your control, as usually you will only be able to shoot the property during the middle of the day, while the current occupants are at work.

2) If I have to use multiple exposures, I don't want them separated by more than a half stop. I usually want to avoid HDR, and even if I use HDR, I want it as natural looking as possible. I try not to have more than maybe 2 stops of variation, so usually MAX I'm shooting 5 bracketed images with half stop intervals between. Usually what I favor is simply using the bracketed images and combining them with layer masks, instead of using HDR. Varying the opacity slowly between the areas where I want the lighter or darker exposures. Usually it's only a couple of trouble spots that I am using anything other than the base exposure. And obviously windows are their own special case. Any time I am shooting windows I usually take a special exposure just for them to bring in to get that 'clear, not blown out' look that people are usually after.

3) with regards to lighting, always start with no flash and see what you have. turn every light in the house on. Find your weak spots and go from there. Many, if not most times you don't need flash anyway. You only need flash to even out light. Being too dark can be fixed with longer exposures. When I first started, I tended to set my flash units up too quickly, and was often trying to fix problems that weren't really problems. Also, usually you want the lowest power setting your flash will give. I can count on one hand the number of times I thought "hey, wish I had turned the power on that flash up a bit" I tend to favor the little mini softboxes, that attach directly to your speedlight. They keep you from having very obvious hot spots, while not being unwieldy to hide. Justin clamps and the little mini tripods (that were often designed for point and shoot cameras) are awesome. I always try to bounce out of corners if I can. You typically want to bounce off of matte surfaces. THey tend to need the most light anyway, and they keep you from having the very obvious hot spots as well.

4) A special trick I've learned is when you're shooting with a flash, take 2 exposures without any flash. 1 that is a normal type exposure, and a second that is slightly overexposed. These can be life savers if you realize you had a hot spot from the flash that you missed. You can just blend in the unflashed exposures and save what was a good shot, other than the hot spot.

5) I use the cheaper cowboy studio radio triggers. I've not had a problem with them, and it's not like you're working with models in a studio, where having them not fire one time is all that big of a deal (for the record, I've used them a ton and the only times I've gotten a not fire it was my fault for either not turning them on, or not checking the batteries). I also think the SB 910 is probably overkill. You really only need to be able to set levels. You're using manual anyway, and you don't need much power, so, in my experience, for real estate, cheap flashes work just as well as SB 910s. What you need more than one or two expensive flashes is 3-4 cheap flashes that you can set at a very lower power setting. Real estate lighting needs to be subtle. You're going to be shooting long exposures anyway, so it's not like you need a fast sync time either.