Architectural, real estate and interior photography requires thorough planning and preparation. Having some essential gear will cover most of what you’ll need for most shoots, and having them can make or break the task.
The most important aspect of interior photography that you need to understand is that every project, property or location has its own unique details and unique challenges that the photographer must deal with. Your real estate photography brief or workflow should start with looking at design renderings and artists’ perspectives to help you get an overview of the designer’s intentions and possibly plan. ideas for your pictures. However, an important fact that you must be prepared for is that not all interior design plans are made with photography techniques in mind and you will have to bridge the gap between what the designer or the client wants. what customers want and what you can capture with your camera.
The Goal of Interior Photography
Different clients have different uses for the photos you will be taking. While most will likely be for marketing purposes such as hotels, event venues, Airbnb rentals or restaurants, there are also cases where the goal of the photo shoot is simply for documentation. and can immortalize the design or environment that may be special to the customer. However, for you as a photographer, there are some basic goals that you must achieve when it comes to accomplishing what your clients want and expect.
The first is to illustrate the environment in a simple way. Whether you’re photographing ancient ruins or modern minimalist homes, it’s important that your photos capture the entire environment. This involves taking pictures of larger spaces, larger details, and illustrating the size of the place using scale indicators. The second is to introduce the finer details that make up the aforementioned environment. These are objects that create larger textures, surfaces that create contrast and harmony of details, are objects that add accents to the space.
The third is to simply put the place in context and illustrate how the space can be used. Most (if not all) interior spaces have intended uses. Whether it’s for dining, socializing, a workspace or simply living, it’s important to show how the people in that space make use of it. Regardless of how the client intends to use your photos, there is always a story about these spaces that must be told through photography.
Wide angle shooting
The wide shot is perhaps the most basic and obvious part of spatial photography, and that’s because the wide shot brings all the details together to illustrate the environment. The reason why wide shots are the most basic is because they are also the most important. Most designers start by visualizing the entire space before they decide on the smaller intricate details and this part of the task is to turn that vision into photographs.
Wide angle photos are important in showing larger spaces and illustrating their size and proportions. However, many photographers mistakenly assume that wider is always better and that mistake can completely ruin the outcome of the shoot. While super wide-angle lenses are useful for spatial photography, there is a limit to how wide you should use. This limit is dictated by the space you have to work around, and in general, smaller spaces mean tighter limits.
Use super wide angle lens too wide will obviously cause distortion. Not only is this the kind of distortion that will warp your lines at the edge of the frame, but it also distorts the scale. As you work with tighter spaces and get closer to the ends/walls of the space, using a lens that is too wide changes the angle of view and scale. On top of that, even wider lenses may not be enough to fully capture tall structures such as columns or columns and will have to be shot from a considerable height to maintain vertical orientation and avoid perspective distortion or effect. keystone application.
Shift lens vs. Super Wide lens
Instead of using a wider lens, an interchangeable lens might solve the problem better. An interchangeable lens will be able to shift the frame in various directions to compensate for height or length limitations. In doing so, the lens allows you to maintain perspective and direction, and show more space without changing the scale. A (less wide) 15mm or even 20mm . interchangeable lenses can effectively cover more space than a 12mm or even 10mm super wide angle lens.
Standard Zoom and Normal Range Lens
In the simplest sense, two important ranges for interior photography are “wide” and “tight”. The lenses mentioned above are used to accomplish the goals of wide shots, i.e. show a larger space, cover the main design, and illustrate scale. The goal of “tight” scoping is to show finer details, separate patterns and textures, and show the spatial and contextual relationships of visual elements in a segment. of space.
For this, the most versatile option is a standard zoom lens. These lenses, which come in the form of 24-70mm . lens for full frame or Lens 16-55mm for APS-C cameras, allowing you to magnify details and exclude unwanted image elements. Since standard zoom lenses cover a wide range of possible angles of view, and because shooting interiors often require a wider depth of field, they are the most versatile options. Any longer lens (telephoto) will generally not be used when shooting in confined spaces.
Other options are prime lenses in the range mentioned above. One 24mmone 35mmone 50mmor even a 85mm will have different uses depending on the amount of space to work. However, this means there will be more lenses that cover more of the base if you prefer primes over zoom lenses.
Normal range lenses allow you to compress and stitch objects into a frame to show their spatial and contextual relationships. For example, instead of just capturing a beautiful wooden surface, capture it with a plate of food or drink that illustrates the purpose of that design detail. Showing the relationships of different layers of the space can also create a visual flow that not only unifies the images, but also illustrates how the inhabitants of the space use them.
Interior and space photography is a game of perspectives and physical obstacles. Mission challenges are often maintaining scale and direction while also capturing as much space as possible. Wider shots illustrate the environment, tighter shots show details and put them in context.
