Knowing how to photograph an interior is important in a variety of areas, including real estate, architectural, and interior design photography. Home Décor photography is the technique of photographing interior settings, ranging from rooms to individual items of furniture. Most people don’t know how to do home décor photography which is why this guide is here to help.
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Home decor photography is a common activity as people capture their products or furniture or the entire living space to show or share the images at a platform with someone. It includes capturing pictures of living rooms to close-ups of end tables. To capture beautiful interior photos, you don’t need to be a professional photographer: all you need is some good tips to do interior photography.
Let’s take a look at some settings and requirements that you must meet before moving on with home décor photography.
Quick Settings for Photography at Home
Aperture – f/2.8
Focal length – 35mm to 75mm
Contrast Parameter – +2
ISO – 200
Shutter speed – 1/100 or
1/125
Exposure Value – 0, -1
White Balance – Automatic
Requirements For Interior Photography
You will need the following tools and settings for home décor photography.
- A good camera is a must. Having a camera with manual control with parameters such as focal length, exposure, shutter speed, and ISO is a must.
- A tripod is another necessity that will stabilize your camera and result in clearer, sharper final shots, whether you’re using a zoom lens or need help keeping the lines of the background matched up in your viewfinder.
- The next thing you need is a flash attachment for interior photography to produce brighter, more colorful images.
- Consider keeping an extra lens with you for detailed photographs in interior close-ups, like a normal zoom lens or prime lens. A wide-angle lens may be used to capture a whole room at once, which is very valuable in home décor photography.
How to Do Home Décor Photography – Step by Step
Once you are ready with everything in place, you can move on with your photography. You may utilize aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings to capture enough natural light to flood the area without using artificial light sources if you understand how they affect your camera’s photographs.
As an additional tip, you may also bounce the light to fill in regions with deep shadows, and LED lights, which simulate sunshine, are a wonderful choice if you must use an artificial light source. However, you’ll almost certainly need to perform some post-production work, and shooting in RAW will make that much easier.
Using Suitable Light for Your Room
To start with, you must know and understand the intensity of light. One of the most difficult aspects of any form of interior photography is deciding what kind of light to utilize, so let’s talk about how to solve that problem. Natural light is preferred for interior photography, according to experts.
Even when photographing interiors, you should utilize natural light to eliminate shadows and undesired color casts, therefore opening the windows as much as possible. Light bulbs throw shadows and color casts on your photographs, giving them an unappealing yellow tone.
You can turn off all inside lighting and open all the shades as much as possible to bring in as much natural light as possible. However, you may need to picture the lighting alternatives in the inside area if that isn’t adequate. Still, if you feel the need for artificial light, LED bulbs should be used.
It is because fluorescent lighting is the most difficult to work with, while LEDs can simulate natural sunshine. Because of this benefit, most architects and designers are already employing LED lights, but you should carry your own bulbs in case one goes out. You may use tools to bounce the light and sculpt it for the sorts of shadows you want in interior shots in darker locations.
Set Up The Spot
The greatest interior images are arranged with care. To begin with your work, you have to clear out all of the clutter, such as wires, cables, and mail. To improve the composition, don’t be afraid to remove or relocate accessories and furniture. Untidiness is the most distracting factor in an interior photograph.
So you must place a suitable background like a backdrop for photography of a specific product or you can use the wall for support. Use the space and make it stylish according to your own demand. Set it up in a unique way that will look even better in the photographs that you are capturing.
Setting the Aperture
However, since the aperture setting also determines your depth of field, it depends on what you’re photographing. So, if you’re photographing a complete room and want everything in it to be in crisp focus, you’ll need a smaller aperture to accomplish the focus. But it must still be large enough to allow in enough light.
That’s a difficult balancing act that will require some expertise with your specific camera model. So you should be prepared for that. You can capture fantastic low-light photographs by tweaking your camera’s aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings. In low-light situations, such as those found in interior photography, shutter speed and ISO settings are also crucial factors.
Slower shutter speeds let more light enter the image, but they also make it more susceptible to motion blur. As a result, if you want everything in focus, you’ll need a quicker shutter speed. Low-light situations, on the other hand, need a slower shutter speed.
With your aperture and ISO settings, it’s a balancing act. Shutter speeds between 2 and 8 seconds are typical for aperture settings between f/10 and f/18.
Pro Tip: Shoot in RAW format – RAW format allows you the most versatility in post-production processing. This is one of the finest suggestions for anyone who is taking pictures by himself. This provides a lot more control over the end result.
Set Camera Settings To Raw For Best Results
To recover a lot of information in blown-out or underexposed areas without losing quality, you’ll need camera raw settings. Unlike jpegs, which are compressed and ‘processed’ in the camera, RAW files include all of the data that you collect. Furthermore, you may more precisely adjust the white balance with it too.
With Raw format and wide aperture, you may make the interior space look beautiful, but you must be careful not to go overboard. It just doesn’t seem right to be crammed into one corner while trying to get the other three corners in. It’s not a good idea. Make sure you are in the 16-24mm range that is fantastic for optimal results.
Using Tripod For Capturing Clarity
When shooting for home décor items, you have the edge of using a tripod. If you place your camera on a tripod stand right in front of the space or a product that you want to capture, you will be capturing things pretty clearly. You may not have the perfect lighting indoors which is why I timer on the camera with a tripod should help you.
To obtain an overall crisp image, we recommend keeping the aperture between F/8 and F/12 and the ISO as low as feasible. The shutter speed is no longer a problem when your camera is placed on a tripod. You can easily take images with the stability of a tripod, provided sufficient light inside the room.
Note: Interior photography is full of lateral and vertical lines in compact areas, but nature is characterized by the process of natural selection and wide-open spaces. If the lines in your interior shot are slightly off-kilter, the equilibrium of the photo will be disrupted, and viewers will be distracted from the composition.
Use Flash Where Necessary
Now when you are about to take photos, make sure the lighting is enough and capture some clicks to see if they are working for you. Some photographs may require the use of a flash which will help you highlight your product given the right settings being used for the aperture with manual settings. Flash can have an overall impact on your image so you have to be smart to deal with it.
You may reduce the shadows in the area in front of you by focusing your flash at the ceiling and walls behind you. This can be done on camera, but it also works nicely off camera. You may even just direct the flash at the ceiling with your palm. This can be tricky because shooting in rooms with shiny surfaces and mirrors is difficult.
Note: When framing your photo, be aware of anything reflected and modify your frame or standing posture accordingly. Setting a self-timer and leaving the room is a valuable trick. It will be easier to remove your camera and tripod in post than it will be to remove your body.
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Get Close To The Subject
Provided that you are clicking some photographs of your interior space or your home décor products, you can consider getting close to them to get more details out of them while also eliminating the background and extras. Create room overviews, but don’t forget to include vignettes and close-ups as well. You can capture the vibe of the room in those.
Use Depth Of Field to Your Advantage
Change the aperture of your camera: Because the depth of focus is determined by the size of the hole of light that enters your camera, make it as large as feasible. With a hazy backdrop, a close-up of a vase appears so much nicer. When reshooting a larger picture, don’t forget to open up your aperture.
Sometimes the space you’re trying to photograph is simply too little to capture well in a photograph. If you find yourself in this circumstance, consider shooting from an adjacent corridor or room with a different perspective. Interior photography takes on a new level of intricacy and appeal when these aspects are taken into consideration.
Using Editing Software To Finish Off The Work
To improve your home décor photos and get the finest results, you’ll need an editing software for a final touch. It’s here that you can work true magic. You will use the unprocessed RAW file, and use it in a tool like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. You can also find several other software like this for photo editing that will help you add a final touch to your photos. Once you are done, start publishing your photos!
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FAQ’s
Which camera settings are best for interior photography?
The most important settings that you need for interior photography of a product or a room for home decor includes aperture settings like f/5, ISO levels around 200, Auto balancing of colors with a bright flash (if needed) and the shutter speed of a camera at 1/100 would be best.
What aperture should I use for indoor photography?
Using the aperture, it mostly depends on the indoor scenario, but for interior design photography, it will most likely be adjusted between f/8 and f/16, and much better between f/9 and f/11.
What are the best settings for interior photography?
You can use these settings for interior photography.
- For portraits, use an aperture of f/4 or smaller, while for broad photos, use an aperture of f/11.
- Try to keep the ISO as low as 200 or 100 if possible.
- For certain lighting, choose a white balance preset or create a custom option.
- For best editing, shoot in RAW picture format.
How can you capture realistic indoor photographs?
To capture some realistic and dramatic wide views, sometimes you may have to illustrate the size of the room, but when it comes to interior photography, it’s all about the design. As a result, you’ll want to create tighter compositions and fill them with vignettes and detail. As a result, a small lens would be recommended for you.