Interior Lighting Methods

[flfoxjr]

Hello all,
I am working on trying to get some input on interior photography lighting. Mostly I am trying to see what other people use as far as supplemental lighting, to light their interior shots. Are you using 1 light, 2 lights, 3 lights? Are they strobe or hot lamps? What brands, or setups can you recommend taht will help get the job done, and get it done right? I can tell you right now that in larger rooms my SB-600 just doesn't get the job done, and I need to know what I can do to remedy my lack-of-appropriate-lighting issue.
Any insight would be appreciated!
Thanks!

[Rob C]

If you really want to learn all about lighting, I would strongly recommend reading "Light Science & Magic" by Fil Hunter and Paul Fuqua. It's a great book on photographic lighting, not architecture specifically.

Unfortunately architecture is big, so you need big lights, and you can never have enough. One shot done by one of the best pros I know at one of my projects used 7 lights. On my own, I got one Speedotron Force 10 mono light and a large Photoflex softbox. Photoflex has some nice tutorials related to their equipment on a sister site (www.photoflexlightingschool.com/), btw. I really should have more lights, but I though I'd start with one and see what I can do. I did "cheat" once by making two exposures with the one light in different locations, and then merging them in Photoshop. It would be better, though, to have more lights in the first place and do less work in Photoshop.

You also need a good combo flash/incident light meter.

I can't really talk from experience with hot lights. Softboxes for hot lights are more expensive than for flash. Hot lights are necessary for video, but some still photographers are using them.