 Gale Stoner |
Shooting Home Interiors I've been asked to shoot a small bathroom remodel. I'm looking for tips to avoid lighting reflections in the glass shower doors.
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
John H. Siskin |
Bathrooms are tough. Some days, it seems like every surface is reflective. For a small bathroom, I will use a single 30-inch shoot-through umbrella and a 200 watt-second, or more, strobe. This is easy to hide, and if the bath is painted a neutral color, the bounce fill will help a lot. If I am going to have to have a reflection, I will put it into the outside window. Then, if I shoot on a tripod, I can take two shots from the same place, one with strobe and one without. I can use the window from the shot without strobe to fix the window with the reflection. If the bath is larger, I can use a couple of lights, just look for good angles. This article might help: www.siskinphoto.com/magazine/zpdf/architecture-phototechnique.pdf. Also you might want to look at this blog entry as it is a chapter from my next book about shooting interiors: www.siskinphoto.com/magazine/zpdf/architecture-phototechnique.pdf Thanks,
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Gale Stoner |
Thank you for the quick response and your suggestions. I've attached the image of my first attempt at shooting the bathroom. I used available light so the only reflection on the glass doors is from the ambient light sources. As you can see this is a very small bathroom so I'm very challenged to create a good shot. Thanks again for your recommendations. Gale
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
John H. Siskin |
Hi Gale, The light works pretty well in your shot. If you have Photoshop yyou could straighten out the perspective. There are a couple of ways to do this, I usually use the crop tool. A wider-angle lens would help also. Thanks, John Siskin
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
Have you also considered the option of taking the glass doors off their tracks? And yes, a wide-angle lens would be terrific for this...
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Gale Stoner |
Yes, thought of removing the doors but my neighbor declined. I took another shot using a wide-angle lens and used photoshop to adjust the perspective. Any thoughts on using HDR for interior shots?
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
If not removing them, perhaps sliding the right panel over towards the left (ie, so both panels are on the showerhead side)---that would eliminate the most noticeable light fixture reflection...? How would that look? And I think I prefer your earlier position, which showed a bit more of the sink and the wall-mounted faucet... I like HDR combinations for interiors, if you can avoid the heavy "HDR" look (where it tends to get so exaggerated as to look very digital-darkroom-ish.)
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Gale Stoner |
Christopher, Thanks for suggesting to slide the right glass panel. Great idea!
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
One more thing---would a polarizer help reduce the glass reflections, once you slide both doors over to the left? And have you tried a position for the camera a little below eye level, with the wide angle? You should be able to get a result that needs little to no perspective fixing, though it could tend to exaggerate the sink in the foreground. (But I do think it is good to show that sink faucet, rather than cut it out of the composition.)
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Gale Stoner |
Great suggestions. Can't wait to shoot again with a polarizer and at lower level. This is fun stuff.
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
I keep thinking of ideas...! What about taking the bathroom door itself, off the hinges? (I assume all this photography is for a potential home sale?) Might give the look of a slightly more spacious bathroom, by seeing wall on the left, rather than opened door. That's my final idea, I think... ;)
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
John H. Siskin |
Hi Gale, The entry on my blog, actually a chapter of my second book, has a discussion of the way the same shot look with HDR and with several other means of capturing the image. I do not like HDR most of the time. Here’s the address for the entry: http://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=621 apparently the original address I entered was wrong, sorry. The polarizer won’t work very well indoors. The light from a bulb or tube diverges, and the polarizer only works well with light that is moving in the same direction. You can use polarizers with lights if you also put a polarizer over the light source, but by that time you don’t have a lot of light left. Thanks, John Siskin
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Gale Stoner |
Thanks John. I will go to the link you suggest. This conversation has been well worth the price of admission.
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
John H. Siskin |
Hi Gale, I really like architectural photography. It is a wonderfully challenging type of work. I am glad you’re enjoying BetterPhoto. I really like teaching here. Thanks, John
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
| Log in to respond or ask your own question. | |||||||||||
