Real Estate – Where to put the second light
Recently I have started playing around with multiple off camera lights with my real estate photography. I use a Canon 580EX and 580EX II triggered with three Pocketwizard MultiMAX units.
By the way, my wife wanted me to mention that this home has already sold, but if you would like to discuss selling or buying a home with her you can contact her from her web site.
The first light is rather easy to place. Typically I attach it to a silver umbrella, then sometimes bounce it off a wall or aim it straight at the room but reduce the power. Sometimes this is enough to light a room. For example, in this room I wound up using just this one light – which was to the left of the camera.
The tricky part comes with what to do with the second light. First, I have come to realize that the second light isn’t always necessary. For many pictures, it is best left turned off and to the side. However, there are times when having the second light really helps.
In the room above, it is probably evident that I placed the light under the second chair on the right. I did this to try to remove some of the shadows from the room – particularly those of the chairs themselves. You can still see the shadow of the first chair but overall the shadows are much less than without the second light.
The trick here is to get the power on the light perfect. In this shot it is a tad too strong but in this next one I got it completely wrong.
Here you can see that my attempt to reduce shadows actually caused more shadows. Sometimes the results can be a bit comical, but here they’re just plain ugly.
Verify often the second light can be very useful in bathrooms with sliding doors covering the shower.
Here, as you can see, I placed the light in the shower. Unfortunately the ‘curse of mirros’ got me and you can see a reflection of the light in the mirror. As you can see, I’m still working on placing the light correctly. In another shot that is no longer with us, the flash was too powerful and gave the impression that ‘God was speaking from the shower’.
This shot came out a bit better. The second flash was in the walk in closet at the end of the shot – illuminating the night gown. It does a very good job of reminding viewers that there is a walk in closet.
As you can see, a second light can be very helpful both for removing shadows from the first light and illuminating parts of the shot poorly lit from the first light. The second light can also be used for accenting part of the picture – giving a hint of particular aspects of the house that viewers should pay attention to.
Nelya’s next listing is much bigger than this one, so I should have an even better chance to practice soon.
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Tags: house, light, lighting, photography, real estate, second