If you’re into lifestyle, interior, or real estate photography, Mango Street has a few precise tips can help you get the best look for your photos:
1. Height and Perspective
Shoot from the hip, rather than eye level.
Shooting from eye level often creates unusual slanted lines in the frame.
Most rooms have a plethora of lines—vertical and otherwise—that you might not notice until you take a photo.
If you shoot from eye level, those lines appear slightly angled. When you shoot from the hip level, the lines appear straight.
Recommended tool: tripod.
2. Composition
Most interior shots feature furniture rather than people. Thus, it is important to use the right composition techniques. If needed, don’t hesitate to move things around.
For example, in the shot above, the bottle of soap does not make a pretty picture.
Try adding elements like a book, a mat, a plant—or even a dog—to add some interesting points in the image.
3. Lenses
There’s no single lens that works in every scenario.
On a full-frame camera it is highly recommended that you shoot with a 24 or a 35mm lens. Both of these lenses are wide enough to capture everything that you need without being too wide (and therefore getting weird distortions).
The 50mm lens works for shots where you need more details.
Wide Angle
Wide angle lenses will show off more of a room and make it appear larger, which is often a requirement from clients.
4. Lighting
For natural light, shoot during the brighter times of the day—any time between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. This helps you get a clean and neutral look.
without LED panels vs. with LED panels
LED panels are great for filling in shadows. But don’t sweat it if you don’t have one. Get yourself a reflector to bounce some light and fill in those shadows.
Turn off interior lights. Most interior lights are tungsten and that can create contrasting color cast.
However, if the lighting fixtures are something that you have to highlight in your image, you have no other option. In that case you will have to change the color temperature during post-production.
5. Aperture
Use a high f-number, somewhere between f/5.6 and f/11, to ensure that much of the frame is in focus. This is not engraved in stone, of course.
Depending on the look you want, you can always change the aperture to something like f/1.2 or anything wider than f/5.6.
What other tips do you have for interior photography?
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