Interior Exterior

[Bill Babler]

Boy's just a quick question. Now that I have all this durn high priced gear I need a question answered. We would not only like to show off our suites from the interior, but also get a image of the blue lake, just out the window.

This is not happening. We can either stand at the door and get a great lake picture, or move back into the interior, use lighting and get a good room picture.

Is it possible to get the interior or the room, using artifical and natural light, and also get the blue lake outside???

Or do we have to just create the lake with photoshop or one of the other mediums.

When we use the correct ammount of light for the interiors the lake is just flat grey. Help!!!

Or Becky says the windows are just white. I would assume reflecting the flash and light back into the room.

Another question, if I were to use just lighting without the flash, would that work. I may have to rent some light.

[Growler]

Bill,

We deal with this everyday in the video business. First, outside light (sun) and inside light (flourescent or incandescent) are different color temperatures, measured on the kelvin scale.

Inside light, or incandescent is average 3,200 degrees k, while outside light averages at 5,600 degrees k. What this means is a camera, especially digital cameras & video cameras, will balance to one or the other. This is what is affecting the color of the outside. Outside light is blue and inside light is orange in color.

We use blue gels called CTB's to color correct the inside lights to the sunlight. Or sheets of orange gels (called CTO) over the windows to color correct the sunlight to an incandescent temperature

Another issue is the intensity of the light. While the inside lights can be easily measured by the wattage of the bulbs or flash, the outside light depends on the days amount of sunshine.

When not shooting sky, we like to have a gray sky to let our iris open up more for better color saturation. When shooting interiors with large windows or sliding doors, we use large sheets of gray colored gels called neural density. This knocks down the intensity of the incoming light.

So what would I do in this situation?

First, which direction does the window face? This will dictate what time of the day to shoot. Light the interior of the cabin (halogen lights work great for this-but be careful of fire hazard) and shoot your pictures when the sun is in the opposite sky of your view. I.E. if it faces west, shoot in the morning, east view...shoot in the evening. Also use what we call the golden hours to your advantage. This is the first or last hours of light. NOT sunup or sundown, but the actual light peeking up over the horizon. This will give you a flatter, more controllable light source. As you get more or less light, take a picture. Remember, what the camera sees is different from what your eyes see. Take a picture every 7 or 10 minutes as you get more or less light. You should eventually get one that has a pleasing exposure.

If you have Adobe Photoshop or other software for color correction, you can always plow the interior with light, and take the picture through the lens of a pair of polarized sunglasses. Then color correct the picture to what you want. This is especially helpful when photographing clouds. Will give you a crisper image (sometimes).

Hope this miniature novel helps. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me with a PM.

G

[Kansas Fly Fisher]

I don't know if that helps Bill, but it sure answered a lot of questions I had. Thanks for the info, I'll put it to go use for an amateur photographer.

John

[Rolan Duffield]

Nice writeup Growler. Many good points.

Bill: Recommend you go to Growlers paragraph "So, What would I do ---"

You're not going to be able to balance the outside daylight color with the artificial light of the interrior unless you take those extreme measures. Using Halogen lighting for the interrior would make the lighting color balance a closer match.

I would first try some shots in the early evening when the daylight starts to loose it's intensity. Continue taking pictures every few minutes. Perhaps you might find one of those that would be acceptable.

Also try a series on a slightly overcast day. All of this depends on finding a good balance of light intensity as well as color.

Another approach is to set the camera on a tripod and make an exposure for the daylight condition. Then wait until it gets dark and make an additional exposure for the interrior.

Rolan

[jdmidwest]

Bill, I assume you are using a camera with the capability of various settings, ie a professional digital slr of some sort. You did not go into detail on it.

If so, have you tried shooting in natural light only without the flash on a nice sunny day? Open up the aperature setting so you will get the best exposure and the most depth of field so everything is in focus. You may have to use a tripod and even a bulb type release to prevent shake. A wide angle lens will work too. Try adjusting the white balance or turning it off.

To get a true blue lake the polarizer filter or maybe a colored filter could give you the effect. What looks blue to us may not look blue to the camera due to a reflection or a white balance correction. Try metering the exposure with a gray card or different colored cards for an effect too.

If all else fails, shoot the room and then shoot the lake in the blue color, crop the lake and put it in the window with Photoshop!

The trouble with the new professional series digital slr's out today is the learning curve on figuring out all of the features and settings. Auto setting just does not give you what you want to see. It interprets the data given to it and arranges it how it wants it based on the camera settings. I turn off alot of the features and make manual adjustments to get things to turn out right sometimes. I even turn autofocus off and go to manual focus for most of my shots because you never know really what it is going to focus on.

[Phil Lilley]

Growler- I'm looking at one of 2 video cameras to buy- both Canons- GL2 or XL2. Amazingly they're about the same cost- but I'm looking on ebay for a used one too.

Any thoughts?

[Bill Babler]

Gent's, especially Growler, thank you so much for the info. Spoke to one of the pro's at Lawrance and got somewhat of an answer and then he said to have fun with it. Took 170 photo's. With various interior lighting and various app's and F stops.

Got more than fantastic results with an Apature setting of 125 at F10. Vibrant beautiful blue lake with a completely shadow free extremely well lit room using, a 12mm dx lens on a Nikon D70.

Room was in full sun as well as all the florecent lights on and a SB600 Speed flash.

Put the photo on Nikon's picture pro, to see how I did and the program came up with no enhancement possible. I believe I got it right. Color and especially sharpness of closeup room is fantastic. Exterior lake thru the window in full sun, looks as if you are seeing it live.

Thanks you so much for the valuable information. Sincerely Bill

[WebFreeman]

So when do we get to see it? This has been a very cool thread, btw. One of the many reasons I read this board every day.

[Growler]

Bill,

Glad you got something you are happy with. Taking 170 pics is really what it's all about. Bracketing your exposure and just capturing a ton of images is something the pro's even do.

jdmidwest mentioned the polarizer filter. If you are taking outdoor pics, it is something that should be a mainstay on your camera. Works like polarized sunglasses for a fisherman. Better clarity and greater contrast. Also allows you to open up the iris for greater color saturation.

Phil, the XL-2 is a much better camera than the GL-2. You can switch the lens and it's got more (and better) manual features.

BUT, for my money, if I was buying a mini-dv cam, I'd look into the Panasonic AG-DVX100B. While it is a fixed lens camera, the picture is really nice.

One other thing to remember is to get a good quality, fluid head tripod.

This is a good time to mention that no matter what tools you have, it's really the person using them that make the difference. Familiarize yourself with your tools and practice. It takes a lot of trial & error to get good. And this takes time away from fishing.

Good Luck

G

[Growler]

One other thing: I should make the disclaimer that the above advice is just my opinion & experience. Many others may think otherwise, and they are not wrong.

You say to-may-to...I say to-mah-to.

G