6 Different Ways to Light an Interior Space

[@mrhevia]

I'm always debating between starting a KZbin channel or not. When I see your channel, I feel discouraged. How can such a great photographer and content have so little views and followers? I don't understand. You will always get a thumbs up and follow from me. Please, don't stop creating this content, we really appreciate it.

[@MatthewAPhoto]

I appreciate that. Rome wasn't built in a day though. Just like anything else, building an audience takes time and work 🙂

[@marchdevin]

This is an interesting comment. I think you have to consider the potential size of the audience going in. That said, it's also probably why sponsors shouldn't judge a channel by the number of subscribers or views. The average captive viewer of this channel is likely spending a lot more money than the channels with a higher viewership.

[@marchdevin]

Also, fantastic content, and I'm surprised I haven't come across it sooner.

[@Bishnu_Deb]

Real estate photography is way more difficult than wedding or e-commerce product photography so, quite obvious difficult things will have less interested people.

[@0741921]

​@@Bishnu_Deb depebds. Weddings is a lot mrke stressful. So muhc can go wrong, no 2nd chances, so mnay personal emotions. So I woukd say basic real estate is easier. Fine you get to more fine arts architecture or luxery properties that require extensive lighting and compositing, then it gets more difficult

[@Papparratzi]

I’m thankful there are photographers that actually consider lighting methods per shooting situation. I’m a Real Estate Publisher/ Photographer and print quality images are what I’m always requesting. Most of today’s real estate photographers are what I call, drive by. Hit it with a hot flash, pop a window pull, your done. Im in a mountain resort area. Most homes typically are darker with wood or darker colored ceilings. I usually use modifiers for the money shots, blended with ambient and window pull exposures. As you can tell, I’m concerned on how the image represents the home and its natural lighting is a huge factor. I tell people that each home design tell me how to shoot it. In other words, if staged by an interior decorator, I look for what they want people to see. Your illustration of lights on vs lights off and how lights on, might showcase the lighting design, is a perfect example of that. A popular photographer in my area advertises shooting homes on under 45 minutes. I don’t understand why a fast shoot is more important than quality, but as long as the shot meets my minimum standard and I don’t have to reprocess it too much, in this market with few homes for sale, I’ll take it. Thanks for your examples, it makes me feel better about spend time to get the qualify the homes deserve.

[@MatthewAPhoto]

Thank you for the kinds words. I'm with you 100%. I try to showcase a lot of my strengths as a photographer and business person, but the LAST thing I would want to be known as is a "fast & cheap" photographer.

[@alexandermontlary8461]

May I ask where you're located? Mind posting your website?

[@0741921]

The problem is, most real estate agents want to pay anywhere from 200 to 500 for full houses which is a joke and only deserves pop and go photos. And in most case, that's whT you need to sell houses

[@abderrahmanes323]

Hey, i searched for many of such videos i will say you re channel to me it s in the top 5, keep up, you ve got a high quality content. Thank s for the knowledge shared

[@lisarettenbacher7008]

Great video! it would be cool to show them all next to each other for a few seconds, so we can pause and look at the differences in detail :-)

[@KenImduaikiat]

Interesting vdo. My first shot in the scene is all light off. Then I do a series of flambient with out interior lights. Finally finish with a shot with flash bounce over ceiling w interior lights. In the pose I build the shot on fambient and top up w the final shot that has interior lights on. This way I can have full control of the interior lights and will deliver two sets of photos with and without the interior lights.

[@vanodyssey1659]

I was waiting for you to talk about blending various styles together, like a frame with spotlights on blended with eithr natural light / ambient or flash daylight shot.

[@noam8314]

A combination of natural light with selected windows blocked and one with an umbrella and a flash seems ideal in this situation. You can customize the colors of the natural light shot to match ( mostly ) the one of the umbrella shot then blend the two with masks, you get the natural look and the control and mood of the flash

[@playoflightphotographicsllc]

Good stuff, Matthew! Yeah, I try to mimic the light that I see when I'm in the scene, but use a little flash to control that WB. All my clients want lights on!

[@thomak28]

@matthewanderson why not combine the ambient (luminosity filter 50-80%) sealing bounce flash to get less color casts and get that "moody" shadows from the ambient shot? Imo works like a charm...

[@GregGoodson-me6il]

I just bought a bunch of garbage bags and tape from Amazon thanks to you 👍

[@tomashudolin7197]

For real estate, I think the best is to bounce flash from the ceiling - because you don't have so much time for shooting and more time noone will pay. But you need to have white ceiling :)

[@jmart3170]

Awesome explanation. Thanks for sharing!

[@alanabley525]

Very useful; do you have a video showing what you eventually settled on and how you edited it?

[@darianrundallmedia1305]

I'm actually starting to use an umbrella more after seeing you use a softbox for directional lighting in an earlier video.

[@VivienRenziehausen]

Great video, as always! Thumbs up! Question: how would you shoot a small room (hotel room) where there's just one window right next to the entrance door and no other natural light sources?

[@MatthewAPhoto]

I'd try to shoot it at night then. Show what it looks like in the evening.

[@lynnegraves237]

How would you have shot it? I love the examples but I want to see how you set up to deliver the work? I tend to shut lights off and use natural light, longer shutter speed to reduce "flashy" look and flash off the camera powered down to provide some contrast and pop to the image from natural directions of light in home.

[@fabiofieri854]

very useful video to understand the difference between the different techniques! but it could be more useful to understand what is "the best" or the best for you!

[@eilonkelty3622]

gold gold gold! thank you very much!

[@jordanashley9534]

Congrats on 1,000 subs man! Another great video too. I'm totally ignorant with lighting so I really enjoy learning about the subject!

[@bl4841]

i was about to say, why not use a combo of flash and ambient? i know flambient isn't really considered good for interiors and architectural style shoots, but if its a directional flash, you can soften shadows with an ambient layer. Thats where my instinct is right now, but I'm still learning

[@hstorey]

Great idea for a vid! Thanks. 🙌

[@jacobwalter4103]

Need a video on how you edit thise shots together

[@jacobwalter4103]

Never mind, found one

[@jacobwalter4103]

❤

[@sbvisual3910]

Personally. I always shoot hdr and also one flash to white roof on 4 room angles. On post I choose the best one ! Some time is only hdr, sometimes is only 4 flash pics combine, sometimes is mix of those 2 methods. Really depends of situation ( hotel & resort photographer)

[@viel.anthony]

Appreciate the content, I do have a question.... I work for a small kitchen company and I'm the only one into photography, which means I kind of landed that gig of shooting finished projects. I own a 5D classic with a 50 1.8 (not useful) and a canon 20mm 2.8 (more useful). I don't have a flash nor a softbox, though I might be able to get a small budget for gear and accessories. In the event that I can buy one (1) flash setup (300 to 400 would be max), what kind of equipment do you suggest? If not, do you think I can get away with say 6 bracketed shots and doing some sort of light hdr editing? Cheers

[@neilfraseruk]

Great video, thanks

[@morteneriksen3767]

Great examples!!!!

[@Meltmedia_]

When you were doing the flash pops in the kitchen and looking at your phone was that how you were triggering the shutter and if so what app are you using? Thanks man your content has helped me a lot.

[@MatthewAPhoto]

I use a CamRanger 2. I go into some detail on how it all works in my “photo equipment” video

[@phillcrocker1]

great video, thanks so much for sharing, keep em coming :)

[@solomajicano]

I need to know what kind of flash and light to used it to take video and photo for interior and kitchen in bad light

[@DA-lp4rh]

If you are pressed for t8me on an MLS listing - how do you light a typical middle class home, get in, get out and get paid? Ceiling bounce seems quick and adequate, but I’d agree that upon further “reflection” it’s not very natural appearing, but agents seem to think they look great…

[@MatthewAPhoto]

Later in my career shooting real estate, I starting to use ceiling bounce sparingly. If natural shadows seemed too dark, I would add some bounced light to add just a bit of fill.

[@deeharris8567]

@@MatthewAPhoto so does that mean you were mainly shooting natural light then adding fill flash sparingly? No color issues? That’d be a good video - KZbin is flooded with ceiling bounce real estate shooters

[@fabiofieri854]

Hi matthew is a 7foot white umbrella? 210cm do I have good understood?

[@vladpierre2694]

What's a good quality Strobe or flash? Is that the same one you bounced from the ceiling and had in the umbrella ?

[@MatthewAPhoto]

I use godox lights. Great value and have been using them for years

[@sndx6138]

Did u use shoot through umbrella or bounce?

[@omanuelsa]

hey man, thanks for the content! does magazines in your country like to publish photos with artificial lights on?

[@MatthewAPhoto]

Not a whole lot, no. Honestly the magazines I've shot for seem to be fine either way. Whichever looks best.

[@omanuelsa]

@@MatthewAPhoto interesting! here in brazil a lot of magazines uses only natural light interior photos.

[@MightyOff1ine]

way 6 + flambient is for real estate the fastest and easiest way. You just did it wrong. Don't bounce of the ceiling, the shadows will fall unrealistic. Use the room corners as your reflector. The farer you are away when you bounce the softer your shadows will get. In this example it may not possible because your corners are big windows but it works in 80% of all real estate.

[@michaelroach3553]

I'm going to be real and blunt. This video gave me 0 ideas or techniques. Lights on/off and simply blocking light / flagging aren't so much techniques, more so just modifying the scene. Softbox / umbrella lighting is a technique because you're purposely adding light. Ceiling bounces are another, wall bounces, corner bounces, compositing, etc This is more comparison of lighting than actual lighting techniques video. If you're interested more in techniques, Scott Hargis blends multiple flashes with ambient in camera (course on Lynda), Nathan Cool does Luminosity Flambient (videos on youtube, books), Rich Baum does Normal Mode Flambient (videos on youtube & full paid course), and then there's no flash auto HDR and Hand Blending HDR.

[@davidepiras4011]

@@michaelroach3553 Another great photographer which blends flash and natural light is Mike Kelley. He did tutorials too.To me he's so good in postproduction and his pictures look so natural

[@bl4841]

@@michaelroach3553 would you say scott hargis videos on real estate are equally good techniques for interior design and architecture ? Im looking for more advanced stuff that isn't just basic flambiant. Ive watch all of Nathan cools and baums videos already

[@michaelroach3553]

@@bl4841 Scott is more of an "in-camera" guy, so multiple flashes, corner bounces. It was on Lynda which I think is now Linked In. Have you checked out any of Mike Kelley or Matthew Anderson?

[@JoshxIZ]

Can anyone give me a good alternative to bouncing the flash off the ceiling? Because it doesn't work when its not white/light material.

[@CTcoreytrevor]

What white balance do you use when working with your flash? I recently was taking photos and I used a grey card to white balance in every room when shooting the ambient exposures (interior lights were on, by the way). Then I'd turn on my flash trigger and start popping. But when I looked at the images the colors were, well, pretty different. So I know you could say "leave it on auto WB all the time and change it in post" but then I have to use the white balance eye dropper and hope it works good, and also hope my memory is serving me correctly. Curious on your thoughts. Thanks Matthew.

[@jonatasnas]

If I got it right, you took a picture of the card without the flash, right? If so, you measured the ambient light and used the card before the right measurement.

[@CTcoreytrevor]

@@jonatasnas on further review using a grey card doesn't work for me. I have switched to doing it by eye, with in-camera manual adjustments.

[@si.sivish]

❤❤❤

[@living.my.life.]

That chair distortion…

[@atistiltins6163]

huh, 6 ways to light, but none of them was a flash and ambient blend or luminosity blending. Flambient can get a bad rep for the same resons hdr gets a bad rep - people who do heavy handed editing are the mayority. In my carrer, flash + ambient has been the way to go, most of the time and the proportions and blend ratios change based on the subject

[@net200777]

No one talks about this enough

[@klayf_]

I already ask you this question on instagram but unfortunately you never reply. First and foremost, I'd want to state that I'm new to real estate photography; I haven't begun yet, but I have a solid understanding of how to get started by watching you and other youtuber. it's really amazing what you guys doing for the community So, here's my concern, I'd like to know how to start my own *real estate photography business* . because I wanted to start it off professionally, like practicing, building my portfolio, getting my first gigs, and adding 3d tours, videos, and other things. But after that, I'm stuck because I have no idea how to start a business. I'd like to hear about your experience and how you went about starting your own photographic real estate business and switch to architecture photography

[@MatthewAPhoto]

The full answer to a question like this would be extremely long. My advice would be to get in touch with some real estate agents and offer to do a few properties for free...something to start building a portfolio. Once you have a decent portfolio, start marketing yourself and offer your services for a fee. You can also practice by photographing public buildings. If you get decent enough shots by doing that, add those to your portfolio as well.

[@ohaidere]

Is there any lighting that fixes someone face? Asking for a friend.

[@MatthewAPhoto]

When all the lights are off in a room...I look AMAZING!!!

[@genegustafson715]

Lighting to my taste can be different by quite a bit from the client's taste. That will even vary from client to client. Need ALL the varieties in our bag.