We were recently contacted to shoot this neat home in south area of San Jose California.

There are several ways or traditional techniques to shoot Real Estate or Architectural Interior/Exterior design. Such methods and techniques are Tonemapped HDR, Exposure fusion HDR or on Camera flashes.  

This blog entry is not to discuss the pros and cons with those techniques. Everyone has their preferences. But based on our experience, when it comes to quality in order to deliver a sharp, natural and crispy photo, we use a light painting technique that allows us to control every source of light seen in the image.

The technique is quite straightforward. Instead of trying to light the entire scene with on camera flashes or umbrella bouncing against the ceiling,  we prefer to add the light where it is needed.

Of course,  the final photo will requires multiple shots:  One shot to correctly expose the interior ambient light. Another one for the exterior in order to get the a clear view from any window.   And next, it is just a matter at looking at the scene and add lights here and there. So we put our flash on a stick and we walk around the scene.

The camera is on a tripod remotely controled from our iPad.  We look at the scene through the iPad.  Any camera settings can be changed from the iPad app such as shutter speed, exposure, focus point, iso,…

For Twilight shot, we create a stack of 15-20 images. 

Next with Photoshop app, we layer the images and masking away for the lit area. 

We can accomplish far more complex images than we could with one frame and any amount of big lights.

Here some After and Before photos: