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| *SoulEyes Photography>>>Flash Photography |
Which flash for interior photography? |
I am going to be taking some real estate photography. I have a canon XTI and want a good flash for taking pictures of the inside of houses. would the canon EX580 II be enough? What do you guys recommend? thanks The 580 EX II is easily capable of doing the type of thing it sounds like you are going to be doing. As the first answerer said, you will need a tripod and you will be bouncing the flash. For a tripod, get a good sturdy one - it's a piece of equipment you are investing in. Swivelling the flash head so that it shoots behind you and up towards the intersection or corner of the wall and ceiling gives a very even lighting and nice shadows for a lot of shots. You can also do the same thing 90 degrees to either side of you. It depends on the lighting that shows the room well. If the room is empty, any even lighting will work. If there is furniture, etc. in the room, then you have to make choices about what type of lighting does the best job. The standard lens that comes with the XTi, called a kit lens, may not be wide enough depending on the room and what you are trying to show. At 18 mm, the widest it goes, it will give you effectively the same coverage as a 29 mm lens on a 35 mm film or full frame sensor camera. That's not that wide for residential interior photography. If you can rent lenses in your area, rent a Canon 10-20 mm lens. It is a better fit to what you will be doing. If the house isn't empty, make sure that it is cleaned and straightened up. This is especially true in the kitchen. Get things off the counters or make sure they are placed nicely. Long hallways present a problem. You'll get correct exposure in the foreground and towards the end of the hallway it will be dark or even black. You will need to use a technique called 'dragging the shutter'. This means setting the exposure for background and letting the camera take care of the foreground lighting with the flash. What this does is keep the shutter open so that the background records much like if you had shot without flash. Look up how to do this online with the Canon since it is tightly integrates the flash control with the camera settings and metering and if it the controls are not set correctly you won't get the results you are looking for. Other flashes you can consider instead of the Canon are: 1) Metz; 2) Sunpak; 3) Canon 580 EX (used) and the Canon 550 EX (used). Metz and Sunpak both have websites and even professionals use them. Final comment. If you have a laptop, try shooting with the camera tethered to it. The EOS Viewer utility that came with your camera should allow you to control the camera with the computer and you can see the results on screen. The images are also stored directly to the harddisk. What you will need is a longer USB cord than Canon's and you can get one from most computer stores. There's nothing special about them and you don't want to pay Canon's price. A local computer store will usually have better prices than a place like CompUSA or, Heaven forbid, Radioshack. I use a 12' cord. Good luck! Vance Source(s): Professional photographer/photojournalist Hi, You will have an option on using a tripod, since this is indoor you can control the available light with bright curtains too, if you still feel the light is not enough then go for a flash,and remember using a bounce and not a direct flash,as it would reflect from furniture and metal objects with the EX 580 II you can secect the direction of the bounce and make sure you reflect from a matty white surface. Mehul |
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