Lighting a model home

awesomesean

awesomesean

Active member
Does anyone have any ideas on how to light the inside of a model home for a commericial I am doing. During the day the windows are always very blown out and the night looks funny but ok lite on the inside.
any ideas?
 
Re: Lighting a model home

So you're talking about lighting the interiors right? The pro way would be to gel the windows with either ND gel, or 85ND gel, depending on whether you're shooting tungsten or daylight balanced. This is time consuming and a pain in the butt. The best way for you to do it would be to shoot away from the windows when possible, and use them as your light source, maybe enhancing with some well placed lights with blue color correction (or not, because sometimes shooting architecture, warm interior lighting looks ok) and shoot daylight balanced. Another thing i'd recomend is to shoot with a wide angle lens. Makes the rooms look bigger and more interesting.
 
Re: Lighting a model home

model homes are famous for having big picture windows that beg to be shown but you face the blown out issue you mention.
Only solutions are:
ND the windows which is extremely difficult on a very large windows.
Use several 1200w HMI's depending on the setup.
Shoot right at dawn or dusk when you have a good balance. You will still probably need to do some lighting and that will still require daylight balance but you won't need as much as during a sunny day. Work fast!
Shoot during a thunderstorm!
 
Re: Lighting a model home

I am an architectural still photographer. Everything the others have said so far is correct. Try shooting away from the windows as much as possible, and use blue filtered lights to fill and balance. I carry several strengths in varying warmth. Also, if the windows have shades or louvers experiment with them. You'd be surprised how effective that can be. I did a shoot last week with the most incredible powered window shades. It was a messy, dirty snow, car filled parking lot, totally blown out thru the windows. With the shades mostly closed, you could still see the shapes of buildings, but the light was cut in quarter, and you couldn't even see the lights reflect in them. I loved them. Wish every building had them! But one of the best things you can do, is shot away from the windows, and shoot the shots with the windows in them at dawn or dusk. The light is cut back considerably, and the colors can be incredible. Just make sure you test a little, and of course, color balance to your inside lights. Good luck...
 
Re: Lighting a model home

I found myself always doing that as well, shooting away from windows, and instead concentrating on the furniture and the room itself, using the window for lighting. It was always easier for me to do stills of interiors than video, because my 2400Ws strobes were so bright they could balance anything. :) Definitely need HMI's to balance windows if you don't have ND gels, or the time for it. You have to cut it to fit each glass piece :-/ HMI's are great, just bounce them off the ceilings and side walls to create a nice balanced fill, with a gradient of some direction. ;D
 
Re: Lighting a model home

Just delivered a promotional video of for a bed and breakfast.
150-year-old house had large deep windows throughout.
Lit parts of larger rooms with two 500w Cool Lux lights with difusing gels and shot in sections. It was a bright sunny day intensified by snow.
Avoided shooting windows directly. Used the beginnng of blowouts to start or finish some cross fades in post.
Kind of a soft flash transition. Quite effective. It would have taken a day to gel windows.
Am about to embark on project to video home interiors for real estate firm. Unbroken steaditracker fly-throughs. No chance for cutaways of disolves,
Any suggestions?
 
Re: Lighting a model home

Disregard HMI question.
Found Anser in John Jackman's book.
Great book, by the way.
 
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