How to shoot interiors
3 The interiors present a range of challenges, starting with the fact that
ash photography and tripods are usually not allowed. The reduced light available means ghting with the shutter speed to avoid camera shake. A lens of 16-35mm works well but be wary of objects close to the camera becoming unduly distorted. Try f/5.6 in Aperture Priority mode and see what kind of shutter speed you get. Your camera type, whether the lens has optical stabilisation and how steady your hands are can all determine the minimum shutter speed you can shoot at hand-held. If the shutter speed is too slow, increase the ISO by whatever you need to get that minimum speed.
As well as the interesting rooms on oer, there are other places that oer photographic value, such as hallways with ornate, vaulted ceilings; kitchens with old-fashioned equipment; chapels; and spiral or grand staircases. What almost all the scenes will have in common, though, is mixed lighting. There will generally be incandescent or tungsten lamps inside and daylight coming through the windows.
Firstly, it’s tricky to get a correct exposure for situations like this because of the contrast between light and dark. Generally, if you expose for the room, the highlighted windows will blow out, but if you expose for the windows, the rest of the room will be dark. Obviously, shooting raw les is essential here, but it’s safer to get an exposure that retains the highlights because you can boost the shadows at the editing stage. An HDR mode will also help.
The other problem is white balance. Lamps have a temperature of around 2800K, tungsten halogen is 3200K,
uorescent light comes in a bit higher at around 4,500K, but the daylight coming through the window can be 5,000-6,000K for sunny weather and up to 8000K for cloudy days. In practice this means that the window light areas tend to be blue and the desk lamps tend to be orange. The camera only applies one setting to the whole scene so it’s better to use a custom WB of up to 6,000K to make the daylight areas a neutral colour and let the desk lamp areas have a more golden-orange tone. You can do it in-camera or later when processing the raw les.