Real Estate Shooting
August 6, 2015
I recently have started doing some work for local Construction and Contracting company out here. It has been a quick reintroduction into the world of architectural and real estate shooting. For this Blog post, I just thought that I would share a little bit about how a simple looking Twilight Shot is a little more complicated that you might think.
Like so many other things, digital photography and digital compositing are a life saver in any type of architectural shooting. With this luxury at my side, my greatest friend has become a strong spotlight. My $20 spotlight puts off 1100 worth of light, making it about 10 times stronger than your average flashlight. This spotlight allows for me to take a series of exposures, while painting in dark areas, or important areas that I would like to highlight. The brightness of the light makes it very useful even before it has become completely dark, allowing for a more efficient use of those pre-twilight minutes.
For this particular image, I used a series of 25 different images, with each highlighting a different portion of the building. I use a wireless remote to trigger the camera, and walk around the location throughout exposures. If you do not have a wireless trigger, then a 10 second timer or a helpful friend can be used to press the shutter for you.
Using a series of exposures from a Sony A7R means that we will have a great amount of resolution in the final image, but will require a computer with a decent amount of processing power, as well as a bit of patience. Once you have all of your files loaded into a single file, I recommend saving often.
Once Everything is in place, just make sure to carefully mask each image to show the desired area of the building and correct for diverging lines….this is easier said than done, and can take some time to get right.
Get it right however, and the final results are far more exciting than anything that you can get without the use of additional lighting.
