Example: Interior Looks Too Dark

Solution A: Lower the Outside Light

You can't turn down the sun, but try shooting when skies are heavily overcast. Or shoot near dawn or dusk when daylight levels are closer to interior lighting levels. Carried to extreme, you can shoot interiors with very low light at twilight... a very pretty effect. The shot on right used bounce flash and Photoshop for lighting... what could be easier? But in general I don't like shoot interiors at night because the dark windows look depressing.

But let's assume you have no control over the outside lighting or what time to shoot. So...

Solution B: Turn on the Lights

Hot lights (as opposed to flash) are relatively easy to work with: since the lights stay on, you can adjust what you see to what you want. I like to use lots of lighting and shift toward slight overexposure to give a bright and cheery look, even if the lamps burn out (we don't need to see highlight detail in a lamp shade). Here is some guidance for interior lighting, starting with the easiest.

Existing Lights. Switch on all existing lights in a room: lamps, ceiling lights, appliance lamps... everything except fluorescents (which are rendered green by daylight film, but less of a problem with digital). Turn on lights in adjacent rooms too, so visible doorways don't look dark. Even if the room already appears bright, glowing lights will have a positive effect.

150W Halogen Bulbs (inside lamps)

Use Powerful Bulbs. I carry several 150-watt halogen light bulbs to replace the existing lamp bulbs (typically dim tungstens). The halogen light is whiter and the additional brightness of the 150 watts makes a difference. In the Stafford House shot on the left, all the artificial light was provided by four lamps, with the three interior ones bulbed with 150W halogens. Bringing along the extra bulbs also solves a common problem: burned-out light bulbs. After turning the lamps off, let halogens cool down for several minutes before removing them: they get burning hot. To minimize the heat build-up and so I can move on to the next room quickly, I keep them off until I'm shooting.

Borrow more lamps (with shades) from another room and use them to add light if the room still looks dim. Either place them into the scene if that looks good, or put them on the floor behind or under the camera position to throw more light into the room. I always bring extension cords for this sort of thing.

Bring your own floods. Not expensive photofloods and stands: just cheap halogen work lamps commonly sold at home improvement stores (500 or 1000 watts). In a big room, you can hide them behind furniture, in closets, and other discrete locations to get strong light throughout the space. In a smaller room, just put them behind the lens bouncing the light off the wall and ceiling to smooth out the illumination.

Use Reflectors to redirect available light where you need it. You can even set up reflectors outside to bounce daylight into an under-lit window (which might otherwise look dismal on film). I have spread reflectors on the floor behind furniture to bounce incoming sunlight and to remove the tint from light hitting a colored rug. The wire-hoop portable reflectors are great, especially if you have a stand to hold their position just right. Home improvement stores sell plastic tarps with a silver reflective side, and in a pinch you can just use a white bedsheet.

Solution C: Use Flash

This solution requires investment in one or more flash units and accessories, with the most useful flashes costing several hundred dollars. Flashes can add complexity and time to each setup, but it's hard to beat the control you gain over lighting -- especially with powerful studio flash. Watch out for reflections of the flash in windows, picture glass, and mirrors!

Avoid Direct Flash. Using an on-camera flash pointed directly at the room will almost certainly produce unsatisfactory results: the foreground will be starkly illuminated with flat light (no sidelight to define textures and forms), and the corners and background will fade into murky darkness. Either switch off a built-in flash or find a way to diffuse the light or bounce it off the ceiling (try some foil and tape).

Use Bounce Flash. A hotshoe flash can light up a small room nicely. Just bounce it off a white ceiling to diffuse and soften the light. If your flash head will pivot, aim it backward and up to bounce off a white wall behind the camera. This bouncing really helps spread the light throughout the room rather than just illuminating the immediate foreground. But it diminishes the flash power, so with a weak flash or a big room you may have to push your aperture open more than you'd like (sacrificing depth of field) in order to let in more of the flash. Don't expect even the most powerful hot shoe flash to light a room at the same level as outside daylight.

Flash outside window adds sunshine

Multiple Flashes are useful for adding power, extending range and coverage, lighting details, and lighting adjoining rooms and hallways. You can place slave flash units where you need them, which is especially useful in a big room. Optical slaves fire when they detect another flash firing - very convenient (see note regarding slaves and Canon E-TTL flashes). Other slaves are triggered with radio or infrared signals, or using wired sync cords from the camera.

Flash products range from little battery-powered suction-cup slaves ($25) to big studio lights on stands. Place the flashes so the light is evenly distributed through the room, usually by bouncing off a white surface out of sight from the camera. You can also flash from closets, doorways, and behind furniture. If there's no handy white surface to bounce, use a shoot-through umbrella or softbox to diffuse the light.

When filling a room with strong flash, doorways (bathrooms, halls) can appear dark on film, and you may need to put flashes there too. In the shot above left, I put a large flash outside the window (left) to add the effect of sunshine (overcast day, dark shaded porch, dreary window). This cheered up the window to complement the bright and warm interior.

A digital camera really helps fine tune a complex flash setup, because you can review and adjust the lights. If you're shooting film (e.g., medium and large format), consider getting a cheap digicam to preview the lighting.

Light Modifiers. Various attachments give you more control over flash and its effect. Umbrella reflectors and soft boxes diffuse the flash to reduce specular highlights and soften shadows. Barn doors, snoots, honeycombs and other attachments help direct light where you need it and prevent spill to other areas.

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