Due to the nature of an assignment (29 Jan 2012), I borrowed this book for some research.
http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Photography-Professional-Techniques-Shooting/dp/B005HKNOF6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1328274107&sr=8-3
The assignment was to capture the interiors of a building.
The insights that this book brought was the use of a graduated filter to reduce the contrast lights on the ceiling have on the whole room. Never have this idea; but the concept is similar to balancing the bright sky with the duller earth in landscape photography.
Also brings to mind the long forgotten tilt-shifts, but not useful since it would have been cropped fiercely on my DX cameras. Even with my widest 12-24, I have to work in very tight corners. The polariser was also used to reduce as much reflection on the glass as possible.
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| one example where the graduated filter will work to its best. The original was to expose correctly for the ceiling lights but the shadows were severely underexposed. This was later brightened up with Nikon Capture NX2. |
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| The same site in the day. While the shadows were still dark, I lit them by bouncing the SB600 from the right since I have a large glass pane at the right! |
The decision to bring an assistant who is trained in design proved insightful in composing the pictures. She even noted the dark corners and we tried lighting them with CLS!
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| The far corner was too dark and was lit by a SB600 via CLS. Balanced with orange gel. There was also some re-arrangement of furniture and the blinds were pulled down to remove the reflections of ourselves in the glass panes. |
While every picture worked fine (since we previewed every capture on the MacBook via Nikon Camera Control), one picture stood out particularly un-noticed.
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| Notice the red reflections on the chairs nearest to the camera. They were from the neon lights just opposite the building. We should have drawn the curtains for this shot... |
I can finally appreciate what a tilt-shift might bring in this category, but first I will have to shoot in FX... and that means a new camera.
