Eric is right my friend. Need to see a specific thing so that we can move forward.
A couple of my habits for interior:
- I shoot at the widest focal length in combination with the FX format.
- I often use flash
- I shoot RAW files for further edits
- The exposure triangle can be seen in the accompanying demonstrations

I wish you much success


 


p.s. titl shift lens is not a necessity, I would rather invest in a good flash and a tripod head with micro adjustment

Very well executed my friend!   

p.s. titl shift lens is not a necessity, I would rather invest in a good flash and a tripod head with micro adjustment

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I couldn't agree with this more!

Eric/Alkaline,

Amazing shots.  Are you two using HDR in your shots.  The details look almost surreal.

I for one do not use HDR in any of my photography; to me, it's just an unnecessary step.  I do not by any means discourage or frown upon those that do.  When I setup complex shots, I reach for plate glass filters or ND (neutral density) filters to achieve the look I want. 

Now, to answer your question:  No, this is not an HDR composition, this (and I'm speaking for my image) text book example of what lighting can and will do for an image. 

To piggyback off of Paul's comment, these are not pop-up flashes or even the external speedlights, and not to say they can't be used, to achieve the look, there is a time and place for these types of lights.  When I can, I often opt to use the absolute best light possible and that includes the sun! 

Also, when shooting flash, most tend to shoot at higher apertures as the aperture controls the flash and shutter speed controls the ambient.  The "surreal" that your experiencing is due to the stopped down apertures, and again is almost inherent in flash photography.  Another tip related to this: your lens performs at its absolute best stopped down.  Now, I will tell you that there have been times that I've been blown away with lens sharpness wide open (i.e. f/1.2, f/1.4, f1.8, f/2, and f/2.

To recap the setup, the bar shot has three mono-lights setup with modifiers. 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Alkaline's images are also using artificial light (flash/strobe).  I'm simply going off of the natural light coming in through the windows in the last two shots:

- in the bedroom, the ambient exterior light is at least 1/3 underexposed relative to the interior
- in the dining room/sitting room shot, he balanced the exterior ambient with the interior exposure

Now, I will say there is a lot more effort that he as put in to these exposures, but these are the two things that stand out to me when I look at photographs.  He did an absolutely amazing job with all three images!  (and Alkaline, I hope you don't take offense at my attempt to dissect your photographs!  )

So, if you would like to try an experiment, try taking a picture in a room that has a window sans flash, say your kitchen or living room and shoot into or towards the window, and you will see exactly what I mean!

Also, while a FX/FF or full frame camera would be my weapon of choice, I know that it may not be in the budget for some.  The industry has made amazing advances in wide angle lenses for DX or crop bodies, so take a minute to consider that as well; say the Canon 10-22mm.

I hope this helps and that I haven't added additional complication.  Flash photography is not for the faint of heart.

There have been two very distinct milestones in my photography: 
1.  when I went FX/Full frame
2. when I learned and understood flash photography

Remember that lighting will make or break a photograph...

Eric/Alkaline,

Amazing shots.  Are you two using HDR in your shots.  The details look almost surreal.

To piggyback on Erics comments about HDR, it's useful to understand what it is and why a properly lit photograph might resemble HDR.

HDR or High Dynamic Range is a software processing of an image to enhance the perceived dynamic range of an image. That begs the question what is Dynamic Range (DR)? Well it is the overall range of tones from black to white that a given imaging medium (slide film, negative film, photo print, laser or inkjet, digital sensor, iphone screen, etc.) is able to capture or display. Typically the capture mediums have a higher DR than the display mediums. In a practical sense it is often described as the amount of detail that can be seen in the deep shadows and bright highlights. Back in the film days, generally speaking negative film had the greatest DR, next was slide film and far behind was the photo printing paper. You may have experienced this when a print came back from a lab and all the highlight detail was gone and it was all white. The info was on the negative but the paper was unable to render it. It would go back to the lab to be exposed differently to retain that highlight detail only to find that the shadow detail was now all black. Some folks like Ansel Adams would overcome this with elaborate dodge and burn schemes in the darkroom, dodging or blocking the light in certain places from getting to the photo paper and burning or enhancing the light in other areas using a sheet of cardboard with a hole in it. Along came computers and photoshop and some folks started experimenting with combining 'dark' and 'light' scans of the same film to bring together both the shadow and highlight detail into one printable file. Eventually came digital cameras and todays sensors have a very high DR (higher than the display screens we use to view the images with) and the HDR software in the camera will quickly do the same trick that early photoshop folks were doing in hours or days.

Well if a scene is properly illuminated in the first place such that it is already in the dynamic range of the computer screen or output paper then HDR becomes less useful. Careful lighting already balances the shadow and highlight levels retaining the details there within the display mediums ability to render it. Technically there will always be some deep shadows and highlights in the scene beyond the ability to render but if they are a very small and insignificant part of the overall image then they don't distract the viewer.

photo shoot using the ambient light...


 

My problem is almost similar, I would like to learn to take good pictures with my professional Panasonic Lumix ...