Comments on: Karl Wants Suggestions For Shooting Mountain Lodge

By: Cameron Carothers

Cameron Carothers — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:22:31 +0000

Google Earth is your friend for virtually scouting job sites. It can be tricky to read, but orientation of structures and structures vis views, surrounding obstacles like other structures or trees or phone lines all can be scouted from the sky.

Also, if your budget does not already include an assistant, tell the lodge you need a dedicated helper to be efficient with your time and their $$. Having someone else move the chair while you are at camera (and help schlep from place to place as you move around) will really help crank out the shots.

Good luck!

Cameron Carothers

By: Andrew Ptak

Andrew Ptak — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:20:39 +0000

Take lots of large white bedsheets, tape them to the opposite wall and bounce off them!

By: Michael Yearout

Michael Yearout — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:32:03 +0000

I use the translucent shoot thru umbrellas.

By: Karl Hoelscher

Karl Hoelscher — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:52:58 +0000

Wow, thanks for the responses! Oh, and BTW Larry, I ended getting a call for this because a couple months ago someone had ask you if you knew of a photographer in this area and I did his 2 vacation properties for him, and apparently he is doing the new website for this resort and told the PM what a great job I did shooting his homes in Chandler – so, thanks Larry! all here really with the great advice!

I have some older Vivitar flashes that I can use just need some more triggers for them. I’ll also get an umbrella or 2 and a reflector as well. I have done log homes before and know they can be a bit of a PIA sometimes

But they want about 650 photos of all the rooms/cabin/restaurants and surrounding property – so I need to get in, get a good shot, move on to the next one

And good advice larry on the sunset times, I will coordinate with the PM to try to get their best buildings or lodges shot at those times

On the umbrellas – do you use the white ones – or the reflective silver ones?

By: Michael Yearout

Michael Yearout — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:39:45 +0000

Just had another idea. Do you have anyplace you could rent additional strobes/stands? Or a friend that would loan you a couple for this shoot?

By: Michael Yearout

Michael Yearout — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:57:35 +0000

A couple of umbrella’s would be very helpful. I’ve done some very large log structures and have found they help spread the light around. I use the Enfuse plug-in for Lightroom (basically the same thing is photomatix) and have found it to work well on rooms that are just impossible to light (no place to hide the lights, etc.), or in cases I think the end result will be a better photo than one lit with strobes. Good Luck.

By: M.T.

M.T. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:24:00 +0000

I know it was mentioned wanted to keep processing to a minimum but with Photomatix & its Lightroom plugin doing a 5 exposure blend has produced beautiful results for me so far–especially since I frequently do multiple properties in the same day (I can end up with shots of over 30 rooms/exteriors by the end so cutting down time in the actual shooting & then post-processing is of utmost importance). I recently did a restored school building with very large community spaces that would have been ridiculous to try to light and, in addition, had huge windows with some pretty views that I wanted to keep. The exposure blend of Photomatix did an incredible job. I’ve done a few comparisons with rooms I used lights on & then the exposure blend from Photomatix and I personally had difficulty finding a difference between the two. So… when in doubt, photomatix it!

By: mark

mark — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:56:46 +0000

where on the same ship!, i’ll be phtographing days inn regina in a few hours, i got three strobes but my trigger is just through CLS. my assignment is a combination of almost everything except macro! I’ll be shooting interior, exterior, landscape of sceneries, portrait, product shot. I’m nogood with post production so i usually nail down everything good as much as possible. I bought the ebook lst night for some inspirations and techniques. I’m considering the bracketed shots but my skills with blending and HDR is so crappy yet but i will get some shots on each scene. I hope that somebody with experience here will share their thoughts. good luck to your assignment!