Flash for Real Estate Interior Photography

[acroreef]

A question about shooting interiors using multiple small flash units. (I know very little about flash photography).

I do real estate photography. (Tapestryimages.com for some examples of my work). I use HDR techniques exclusively. I am now wondering about introducing flash. However, most clients would not pay for the increased time to bring in multiple light stands, etc.

So I was wondering...Could I set up multiple small flash units, all with diffusers, and all pointing in different directions, set up on one light stand or tripod? For example, a flash to bounce off the ceiling, one pointed left, one pointed right and maybe another low center to get the floor? Would this work, assuming the light was set to a low enough power and all were diffused somehow?

I ask because instead of taking multiple shots, I wonder if the method articulated above would work?

I may be way off base regarding this proposed technique but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Thanks in advance to everyone who responds.

Dave

[Manfred M]

Dave - if you are interested in this technique, I suggest you look at some of Mike Kelly's work. His website provides a view of his work and he is definitely doing a lot of small interior and exterior flash work that he composites into final images.

He does have a fairly good (but not inexpensive) training video through f-stoppers. He has a link there on his website.

[acroreef]

Thank you.

I've read both Mike Kelly and Scott Hargis. Both do excellent work. They use multiple flash units set up around the room(s). I was wondering something else though. Whether I could just use one tripod and place multiple flash units on it. Pointed in various directions.

[PhotomanJohn]

Dave - You could certainly do what you are suggesting and in a small room you could spray around enough light to record what is there. The pictures would probably look flat and not present the room in an appealing way. Getting even lighting would be tough with a large difference in exposure between objects at different distances from the lights (furniture in the room versus the walls for example) due to the light fall-off. Bouncing off a light, neutral colored ceiling would be your best bet. Any hallways leading away from the room will look like caves.

About the most important thing in any type of photography is the lighting. To do justice to virtually any part of a building, the lights need to be distributed around to provide a natural and appealing look. My guess is that you would be better off with opening the curtains and turning on the lights and using a tripod and a long enough exposure with a relatively high aperture. This would give you a more natural look. Of course there is the issue of different color temperatures of the light sources that may need to be attended to in post.

John

[rpcrowe]

I sometimes use a couple of diffused and bounced flashes to open up shadows when shooting interiors. I hide the flashes behind furniture, etc. That is the only time that I will use a Stofen "type" diffuser...