The MasterClass Series #5
Shooting dark interiors against bright ambient light – Tea service, Radun Chateau
Equipment
EOS 5D Mark III
EF24-70mm f/4L IS USM
EXIF
Focal length: 24mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter speed: 1/320
ISO: 1250
Editing
Adobe Lightroom CC
After last week’s shooting light trails challenge, let’s now look at shooting dark interiors against bright ambient light.
The story
I visited the Czech Republic in July 2018 to speak at TBEX Europe (Ostrava, Czech Republic). A day before the conference, the CzechTourism took us to Opava Silesia and Raduň Château for a cultural tour. Mostly, we were shooting architecture. No big deal. At Raduň Château, we also shot indoors. Spaces with no or low ambient light were a cakewalk. The darker interiors with bright ambient light from the windows posed a challenge. A dynamic range challenge that the cameras cannot handle.
Shooting dark interiors against bright ambient light challenge
One such instance was shooting a well-laid tea service against the bright ambient light pouring in through the windows. The challenge was to shoot the subject against the light and still exposing it well enough to capture the aesthetics of the setup.
The shot
Given the situation, I had to ensure:
- The bright areas must not burn out. For detail-retrieval during editing, I needed pixel data in bright areas.
- Same way, the dark areas must have scope for detail-retrieval during editing.
- Each part of the frame must be sharp.
I went with the above EXIF to achieve a crisp shot. My reasons were:
- An almost wide-open aperture and a high ISO to get as much light in as possible. This ensured I had some detail in darker areas.
- A wide lens to capture most detail in limited space.
- Fast shutter speed to avoid any camera shake-led blur.
An eye on the histogram helped. It told me I had not gone wrong.
I edit on Lightroom Classic CC. I went in for -100 on highlights and whites, and +100 on shadows, while pulling down the RGB curve from 100 to 91.8%. It ensured there was no bright-area clipping. For noise reduction, I pulled up the Luminance slider to 40. The detail was on default 50. Here is the result. Do you like it?
