A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words... Part 3

I wanted to wrap up this series with optimizing the lighting of the interior of the homes you photograph. Four of the biggest things you can do to impove your interior photos is:

1. Use a tripod.... even for a point and shoot.
2. Learn to use Night time mode along with the flash or whatever it is called. Every camera has a mode that will keep the shutter open for the full exposure to expose your photo properly.
3. Learn to use the focus/ exposure lock on your camera. They all have it.
4. Turn on all lights in the house.
   

The following of photos is a series of different lighting situations. Camera doesnt move just camera setting and use of flash.

Photo 1 Photo 2

Photo 3 Photo 4

Photo 5 Photo 6

Photo 7

Photo 1 is just using the window light coming in through the window. One Big Problem is the camera is trying to expose for the light outside the windows and not the interior of rooms.

Photo 2 is again just using the light coming in through the windows, but the focus/exposure lock was used to expose for the interior of the room. All cameras have this feature. If your camera is exposing for a window that is the time to use the exposure lock. What you do is point your camera somewhere in the room where the windows are not any where in the photo(in this case I did the rug with the chair). Hold the sutter button half way down. It locks the exposure and the focus. Reframe the camera the way you want then take the photo. It exposes for the room rather than the outside windows.

Photo 3 is just using the flash on camera. Notice shadows are harsh and some areas go dark.

Photo 4 has all the light on in the house and the cameras shutter is allowed to stay open as long as it needs to. (usually most point and shoots have a special nighttime button but usually you need to use a tripod the shutter is too slow and youll blur the photo).

Photo 5- has all the lights on, shutter left to drag open(nighttime mode) and the flash on camera is turned on. A technique like this will give you some natural looking photos

Photo 6- Is the same as 5 except there is an off camera flash bouncing off the ceiling softening and spreading the light.

Photo 7- Is an old inexpensive point and shoot digital camera using the techniques I use in phot 5- Tripod, all lights on, dragging the shutter speed and flash on camera. The results are good just not as wide as I can get with my more expensive set-up.

Hopefully there was some tips in here people can use!!