Interior photography

[The Boys]

I have been asked to take some interiors at a hotel..bedrooms, bar, function room etc (no people). How would be the best way to shoot. Have been advised use the ambiant light, no need for extra flash units, tripod, f8 and slow exposure.
May have to hire a wide lens...any suggestions for a Canon 40d
Does this sound about right.

 

[BandyQuill]

if you use a wide angle lens (or super wide) your going to get alot of distortion of your images...

here is an example from a sigma 10-20mm (at 10mm) in a hotel room we stayed in, you can see in the corners it all gets a bit distorted, but if you get the right positioning you can get some really good images

 

[micloi]

Yep, a wide angle lens will most certainly be necessary.
Sigma 10-20, Tamron 11-18 and 10-24 are good abd not so expensive choices.

If you can afford to pay more the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 is a fantastic lens

Distortion can be, mostly, fixed in photoshop (the plug-in PTLens is excellent)

 

[Flashman]

If you're shooting bedrooms in the daytime (to make them look bright and fresh instead of moody and romantic), you'll often find that the best angle is shooting towards the window... Shoot RAW (if you don't already) and bracket too so you've room to maneuver in recovering the massively over exposed window and the deep underexposed shadows on the dark side of the bed!

 

[Alastair]

I have been asked to take some interiors at a hotel..bedrooms, bar, function room etc (no people). How would be the best way to shoot. Have been advised use the ambiant light, no need for extra flash units, tripod, f8 and slow exposure.
May have to hire a wide lens...any suggestions for a Canon 40d
Does this sound about right.

Wide and slow with a tripod..

But take the flashes and triggers with you, ambient might be the desired effect but it might need some help to get into the corners or capture what the client really wants to see - and what sort of ambient do they want? evening cosiness with artificial light and a flickering fireplace, warm evening sun, or cool early morning dawn through the windows?

The alternative would be to bracket every shot so you've always the option of a bit of photoshoppery or even HDR if the entirely "natural" shot doesn't work out.

The most face-palm comment you can get when you present the images is, "You've given me exactly what I asked for, unfortunately it's not what I wanted". So if the clent is asking for ambient only be prepared for "assisted ambient" if that's what's needed when you get there.

 

[The23rdman]

I always used a canon 10-22 and bracketed 5 exposures then created a NATURAL HDR from those shots. If you're careful nobody will know HDR was used and you'll have so much more dynamic range.

 

[The23rdman]

The other option is to use whatever lens you have, take lots of shots and stitch them together.