019: 8 Tips to Take Better Photos Indoors
Today we are going to talk about how to get great photos inside buildings.
We run into this problem a lot when travelling. You are inside an amazing cathedral or museum or castle and you want to show people how amazing the inside was. But every time you take a photo it turns out really dark or really blurry or just doesn’t look as good as you think it should. While, today, we are going to talk about some little steps you can take to remedy some of these problems and create amazing photos while inside.
I’m going to give you 8 tips that should help you do this. One thing we won’t cover specifically in this episode is how to take better photos of people while inside. Although all of these tips apply to taking photos of people, there are some more specifics that we will get into in a future episode.
Tip #1 - Learn the Exposure Triangle
Understanding the Exposure Triangle is fundamental to taking better photos inside. This is because you will have to take control of your camera and its settings to get a great image. If you don’t know what I mean by Exposure Triangle or just need a refresher, check out episode Episode 12 where we talk all about the exposure triangle and how it will drastically improve your photography. In a nutshell, the exposure triangle talks about how three of the elements of exposure - ISO, shutter speed, and aperture - work together to expose a scene.
While shooting indoors on auto, your camera will often drop the shutter speed super low. This makes it much more difficult to get a photo without shaking the camera and thus causing blurry images. Or your camera may misread a scene due to a candle or one bright window and severely underexpose the shot. This is why you will need to learn the exposure triangle.
Pulling your camera into manual mode will give you a much better chance of creating a great image. But you need to understand how ISO, shutter speed, and aperture work together to create the best image.
So learn your exposure triangle.
Tip #2 - Watch out for Bright Spots
Most indoor spaces you will be in will have some sort of bright light source, such as windows or a fire. These light sources can quickly become overexposed if you are trying to show off the rest of the interior. Severely overexposing light sources, like windows, can lead to losing details in your highlights or washing out a section of your image leaving that weird, muted flat glow.
There are a few things you can do to avoid this.
If you can, don’t include the light source in the image. This allows you to expose for the rest of the scene without worrying about blowing out your highlights.
Shoot a bracketed shot. This means you will shoot three, five, or seven images in a row from the same spot without moving, or changing your focal length. Most cameras have a bracketing feature in them that will change your shutter speed for you. Bracketing allows you to shoot the scene so it is generally exposed properly in one frame and then have a few more frames that are under and overexposed so that you can layer them back together to recover details in the highlights and shadows. Watch out overdoing this in post, however, as you can quickly create a cartoonish, unrealistic image. This is best used subtly to bring detail back in spaces like windows. This is commonly done in real estate photography. If you look at a picture of a place for sale you will frequently see that both the interior and what is outside the windows are visible. This is normally only achieved by taking a photo that exposes for the details outside the window and then one more that exposes for the interior. One of the spaces where bracketing doesn’t work great is where the light source changes a lot, like a fire. In this case, you will need to do a more intensive relayering process in Photoshop.
Lastly, if you can’t keep the light source out of your image and bracketing won’t work then expose slightly to the right, just ensure not to blow out the light. You may not get all the details in the shadows or all the details in the highlights, but in post you can more easily recover detail from highlights than shadows. So slightly overexposing a light source can work. Just don’t go too far.
Tip #3 - Think Wide and Fast
Often, inside spaces, you are going to want a lens that goes really wide and has a fast aperture. This allows you to capture the space more easily without worrying about stitching panoramas. It also allows you to get more light into your camera, meaning lower ISOs and higher shutter speeds. We talked about this in episode 17 ‘travel gear you need’, but something akin to a 14mm f/2.8 is a great lens for inside tight spaces.
Tip #4 - Try to Stabilize your Camera
Stabilizing your camera can be done on a tripod but it can also be done by resting your camera on a ledge or on another solid surface. This allows you to use longer shutter speeds, lower ISO, and a better aperture for the space, which all makes it easier to expose shots in dark spaces. Of course, follow all rules for the space that you are in. Some buildings won’t allow tripods and others certainly won’t want you resting your camera on some stuff.
If you want to know more about how to stabilize your camera, check out episode 13 of the podcast!
Tip #5 - Watch your Lines
One of the big things to watch for when taking photos indoors is intersecting and horizontal lines. When you are shooting, watch for where the position of tables, chairs, and other items in the space intersect with each other in your photo. Often, a line of items one after the other will end up being a bit messy, but if you can rearrange the space or rearrange your composition to unclamp these items, you will get a better-balanced photo. Also, watch how objects cluster around your subject. Is your subject clear or are there too many competing objects around, leading into or away from your subject?
Also, watch for lines on the walls. This is one of the subtler problems in interior photos but can make a huge difference. Lines on walls can frequently bend away from each other when they should be going in a straight line. This can cause your photo to have a warped feeling to it that makes your viewer uneasy. Mostly, this is caused by lens distortion and can sometimes be fixed with careful correction in post-processing.
Tip #6 - Keep the Ceiling out of It
Too often I see people taking interior photos and including a ton of the ceiling. This just doesn’t make for a very interesting shot overall. Unless you are in a space with an amazing ceiling, try to include as little of it as possible and include more of the details in the rest of the space. Including lots of uninteresting ceiling leaves your image with a lot of dead space that isn’t working to guide the eye nor is it working to enhance the feeling. This can easily lead to a dull composition. Instead, try changing your angles. Get low to the ground and shoot along the floor, or try to get up high and look back down over the space. Changing from your eye viewpoint to another angle can open up some very interesting compositional options. Just watch that you aren’t including too much of the ceiling. If the ceiling is amazing looking or a feature part of the building, of course, include it in your compositions.
Tip #7 - Keep it tight
One of the biggest problems I see in travel photos inside buildings is people trying to include everything in every shot. Of course, it’s great to get an overall shot of a space. But then, in subsequent photos, don’t keep focusing on everything in there. Look for all the little details in the space and cut the space into smaller sections to show off each part's individual beauty.
Overall shots are wonderful, but they limit how much people see of the details that make a space truly amazing. So show those details off. Bring your viewers into the space with you.
Tip #8 - Use the light you have
We photographers often lament the shots we can’t take because we don’t have the right lens or the light isn’t just right. And that can be amplified indoors where window light or firelight only falls across a portion of the space, making it much harder to shoot overall scenes and show off certain parts of the space. But instead of focusing on what you can’t do in a space, you are better off focusing on what you can do.
Focus on where that window light is falling and how it is catching subjects in the room. Can you use that window light to make beautiful portraits of someone? Does the sunlight capture an object and make it glitter? Does the window cast a cool shadow?
Don’t focus on the shots you can’t take. Instead, use your creative juices and find the shots that are there in front of you.
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