[ClareS]

Hi All, very new here, and need some help fast. Have been approached to do real estate interior shots to promote interior designer and furniture supplier. Using Nikon D50 with Nikor 18-55mm and 70-300mm lens with SB800 speedlight. Edit with Photoshop Elements V5. Gonna buy a wide angle lens to suit the medium, looking at Sigma 10-20mm seriously. Have to buy in next couple of days to have enough practice time with lens before shoot. Any suggestions for this medium. Would love to see some gallery shots of interiors with sigma 10-20? Also wondering if I should get more lighting for the job. All thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, and hi to everyone in the pixalo community, what a great resource

[VikingPhotography]

No, you don't need more lighting - the best way to light interiors is with natural daylight; my advice to you is to use a sturdy tripod and stop down to about f/16 or so when shooting at ISO100 - this will necessitate a long exposure time probably into the tenths of a second range (or longer).

At thosee speeds you'll want to avoid camera shake as much as possible so I'd suggest a remote release for your D50 - preferrably a cabled one so that line-of-sight issues don't come into play.

Other than that you'll have the freedom that digital provides to check your exposures and correct them accordingly as you go.

[Dave]

If you want to go the extra mile to produce shots beyond the normal photographer, look to shoot RAW & bracket the shots, & then look in to something like PhotoMatix to get shots that have perfect exposure for indoors, plus shots through external windows.

Example here I took in Garden room of my last house using this method :-

[Charlotte]

Very impressive Dave And colour too

Only thing I notice there is a few reflections that could've used a polariser?

[Dave]

Note the shot above also used "Neatimage" to clean up any noise ....I was shooting at higher ISO due to no tripod.

From looking at some other shots I took when trying to sell the house at the time, I was using the Nikon 18-70mm lens. Haveing the Sigma 10-20mm lens I really don't think you'll be able to go anywhere near the 10mm end without seriously distorting the perspective of rooms. You'll have to use the "perspective" function of the crop tool to straighten all the sloping verticals for example.

Here are some example shots with 18mm & these also needed perspective corrected, plus I sed neatimage again, as all hand held at high ISO. Note these were just JPG shots with no use of Photomatix :-

[Dave]

Notice the difference between the last shot above , where trying to get intermediate exposure has meant a dark interior & over exposed shot out of the window. See why shot 1 of the garden room now works so much better with Photomatix

I think your focal range of your kit lens is fine for the job. If you want a bit extra quality in the shot then look at the Nikon 18-70mm kit lens, or even the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 which will be better for this light

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Charlotte

Only thing I notice there is a few reflections that could've used a polariser?

Good point Charlotte ..... defintely worth noting

[Dave]

Forgot to mention shots 3 & 4 were taken using only natural light, but shots 1 & 2 used the inbuilt flash to provide some fill in, due to size of room.

[Dave]

OK, realising I now live in a smaller house than before I thought it best to run some shots off with the Sigma 10-20mm lens. You'll have to excuse the washing up in the sink All shots were handheld & have not been tweaked in any form. I did have to crouch down a foot or so, when at 10mm, to stop the verticals leaning in like mad.

Sigma at 10mm:-


Sigma at 15mm:-


Sigma at 20mm:-


I think I take back that 18mm might be wide enough now from the kit lens

BTW installed the above kitchen, wall tiles, floor tiles etc on my tod, so no finding fault with it

[Charlotte]

Originally Posted by Dave

... BTW installed the above kitchen, wall tiles, floor tiles etc on my tod, so no finding fault with it

Actually I was just admiring it before I saw your comment ... Very well done D'you do windows too?

[Dave]

Never done em, but they look pretty straight forward to fit. Saying that, with some good negotation skills you could get some galzing firms to do for it for not much more than doing it yourself

[Steve]

You can't paint a straight line though