Photos of your home.

[this_is_mine]

Hello all. This is my first post on here (though I have been reading and exploring for a couple weeks now) so I feel it is important to put that as my introduction to my question. I don't know why, I just do. Maybe I'm posting this in the wrong spot and I'd like to claim ignorance if I am.

I would like to know if anyone has any advice on taking good pictures of your own home. Have there been any posts or discussions on this? It seems like a difficult space to take good pictures (cramped spaces, poor lighting, lots of clutter). Magazines publish pictures like this all the time so there must be people out there taking them.

I live fairly far from my family and often want to show them the work we have done on our house (inside and out) and now that I have a nice camera I'd like to take some nice pictures of it.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[OsmosisStudios]

Your best bet is a wilde-angle lens and and a tripod. At least photographically speaking.

As for the clutter: clean! just tidy up. Failing that, there are companies that offer a home staging service, where they come in and make the place look really nice. It's usually used when you're trying to SELL a home (for an open house) but sounds perfect for your needs

[Quo Fan]

Use the wide angle lens and tripod. If the photos are for your family and friends, then you don't need to worry about clutter, because they know how you live and what makes you comfortable. I would clean, though.

The shots for a magazine are totally different than you wanting to show your family how you've remodeled your home. Take some "big" shots, meaning as much of the room as you can in one photo, then do a bunch of detail shots. Also realize that the photographs won't do the remodeled room justice. I remodeled a couple of rooms, took photos and showed them to my family. The photos were nice, and I got oohs and ahhs, but when my parents and sisters came to visit and saw the rooms, they said the photos didn't do the remodel justice.

[JFSanders]

Welcome! Sorry you have to live so far from your family. OS is spot on with the kit needed to accomplish your desires. Wide angles tend to be fairly fast lenses so you may be able to get pretty good pictures with the available light.

If this is your first camera and you are seriously looking to make photographs instead of taking snapshots. Then you need to really start reading all you can find on the 'net about the basics. Exposure, Composition and Lighting.

[this_is_mine]

I guess I should explain. I'm a "beginner" who knows the basics. I am aware of exposure and such, but my issues are mainly with composition in the tight space of a house. I have been taking pictures for years on a point and shoot, but have renewed my interest in learning technique with a recent purchase of a DSLR. I have read some of the most highly recommended books on site, so, while still improving, I understand the basic technical aspects.

I am not necessarily looking for magazine quality shots, but I figured knowing what they do to achieve those would help. Even with a fairly open concept home I can't get far enough away to take it all in with an 18mm lens. Removing clutter and cleaning up is a given. I just wanted to see what sort of advice people have. I also thought it may be an interesting topic for discussion how people set up the shots, what lighting conditions, how to deal with the inherit overexposure from windows, etc, etc. I suspect that good home interior shots are difficult to achieve for many photographers of many skill levels.

[beth0b]

My suggestion would be to try to get up high in one of the corners of the room, and take some shots from there. It will allow you to get a broader angle of the room. Try it out! And of course post any pics you take and let us know what worked for you!

[OsmosisStudios]

You could always position the tripod in the centre of the room, take a succession of pictures in a circle radiating from that point and stitch!

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by this_is_mine

Magazines publish pictures like this all the time so there must be people out there taking them.

Check out the book 'Professional Interior Photography' by Michael Harris. He talks about equipment, lighting and shooting techniques.

For example, he placed a 2000-watt tungsten-halogen lamp with half-blue gel outside the window to create the effect of sunshine on an overcast day.

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by this_is_mine

I guess I should explain. I'm a "beginner" who knows the basics. I am aware of exposure and such, but my issues are mainly with composition in the tight space of a house. I have been taking pictures for years on a point and shoot, but have renewed my interest in learning technique with a recent purchase of a DSLR. I have read some of the most highly recommended books on site, so, while still improving, I understand the basic technical aspects.

I am not necessarily looking for magazine quality shots, but I figured knowing what they do to achieve those would help. Even with a fairly open concept home I can't get far enough away to take it all in with an 18mm lens. Removing clutter and cleaning up is a given. I just wanted to see what sort of advice people have. I also thought it may be an interesting topic for discussion how people set up the shots, what lighting conditions, how to deal with the inherit overexposure from windows, etc, etc. I suspect that good home interior shots are difficult to achieve for many photographers of many skill levels.

Download "autostitch" it's free. Set camera on tripod, take several shots round each room-this program will perform automatic overlap and stitch all images together in panorama mode (as many as you like)

[inkista]

May I respectfully say that I can't help thinking those of you saying "just stitch panos" have never actually done it? In spaces that small, with objects nearby, you really need a panohead to overcome parallax error which can lead to stitch errors of some magnitude. It is not as simple as just "rotate on a tripod and then stuff 'em into Autostitch".

But yes, wide angle lenses and HDR are two tools you'll want to learn about.

I so wish I'd thought of shooting for HDR with this one:



interactive version