In this article, whether you want to do real estate photography professionally or just take photos of your own home, you will get some tips to help you out.
We tend to think of real estate photography as architectural photography and, although the principles are similar, shooting homes is quite different.
Our job is to entice buyers to make a viewing appointment with the realtor. The listing with the most appealing professional photographs and presentation is likely to be chosen over the rest.
I’ve used a cropped sensor Nikon for years and it does the job just fine. Although if you go this route you will need a slightly wider-angle lens than you would on a full frame camera.
You’ll want a fairly wide-angle lens, but not so wide that you noticeably distort the image.
It is essential that your camera does not move when taking multiple images and the better your tripod, the less chance there is of camera movement.
So, spend as much as you can afford on a tripod that will last you many years, you’ll be thankful for this investment.
Firstly, you need a shutter release to avoid camera movement as mentioned above.
You’re shooting at slow shutter speeds and don’t want to disturb that tripod by touching the camera, especially when set up on a soft carpeted floor. So get a remote trigger to fire the camera without physically touching the button. An app for your phone may work if you don’t have a remote.
Secondly, you’ll need something to trigger your flash.
I use a simple radio frequency remote setup (here is one option, Yongnuo remotes are quite affordable, and are available for many camera brands), but some people use something with a Wi-Fi connection, such as the CamRanger. Personally, I find it too time-consuming for the typical small to medium sized property when the agent and homeowner often want you in and out as quickly as possible.
Remember, you’re not creating an art project for a glossy magazine here, just good quality images that will be used for a limited time to market a home to potential home buyers. Or if you’re shooting for yourself, possibly just for practice.
In most cases, one or two speedlights will do just fine.
I generally shoot in full Manual Mode and leave the White Balance set to Auto (AWB). White Balance can be problematic when you have multiple light sources in the room as will often be the case in real estate.
You may have natural window light as well as incandescent and fluorescent lights, all in the same room. One solution could be to turn off all or some of the lights, but that sometimes loses the “mood” of the room.
Usually, the flash exposure will take care of most of it when it’s set up correctly, but having a RAW file with the ability to make WB and color adjustments in Lightroom or Photoshop later is also important.
I usually shoot two or three exposures for a flash/ambient blend. The settings below are merely a starting point to use as a guide and generally work fairly well.
The second exposure will be shot with your flash pointed straight up at the (hopefully white) ceiling.
In this photograph, I held the flash at camera-left and pointed it up at the ceiling. If the ceiling is dark, you may have to use a reflector to bounce the flash.
For this exposure, I added two stops ( 2 flash exposure compensation) above the setting used for ambient light, leaving the ISO and aperture the same.
When blended with the ambient shot, this helps reduce/eliminate color cast and glare, bringing out the true color of the walls and furniture. We’ll blend these images later in Photoshop to create the final image below.
If a third exposure (above) is taken, it would usually be for a window pull to showcase the outside view. However, we won’t cover the window pull here.
In some cases, however, it may also be necessary to light up a really dark area of the room with your flash and that third exposure would simply be blended in using Photoshop.
In this case, the bathroom was very dark (see Images 1 and 2 above), so I took a third exposure with my flash set to quarter power inside the bathroom (Image 4 above). In Photoshop we can simply set the blend mode of that layer to Lighten and bingo, the light comes on! (See Image 3)
It is usually best to follow the two-wall rule of composition for real estate photography.
Next, decide on the most important features of the room and concentrate on those.
What is most important to the potential buyer?
They want to know what type of floor coverings the room offers, will their furniture fit, how much cupboard space there is, does the house have air conditioning, a fireplace, external light and windows, views, access to outdoors and many other considerations.
Look at the room from this perspective before composing your photographs. Unfortunately, you cannot always show everything the room offers so decide on the most important features and go with those.
In some cases, for example, larger living areas, you can always take additional shots from different aspects of the room if necessary. Naturally, that wouldn’t be worthwhile for a kid’s bedroom, but I recommend doing so in the main bedroom if there is a master bathroom, or large living rooms and entertainment areas. Just use your discretion.
Set up your tripod between waist and chest height.
Kitchens: You should be able to see the tops of the counters, not just their edge. Tilt-shift lenses can be helpful here so you don’t show too much ceiling, but they are costly and not essential unless you have one already (Image 7).
Bathrooms: Same with bathrooms, just above counter/sink height (Image 8).
Bedrooms: In the case of bedrooms, you want to be a little higher than the bed so waist height is usually fine (Image 9).
Living rooms: Can be a challenge sometimes, but I generally shoot just above waist high unless there is something blocking the view (Image 10).
Choose a focal point of interest or use leading lines to draw the viewer’s eye into the room (Image 11).
I use the viewfinder level on my camera to set both horizontal and vertical levels. Some photographers use a spirit level on a tripod.
In closing, I must mention that I’ve learned almost everything I know about real estate photography from a true master of his craft, Nathan Cool.
He has a comprehensive range of tutorials on his YouTube channel and I owe him credit for sharing his brilliant ideas and techniques, many of which I use. He also has a series of eBooks on real estate photography, not only about photography techniques but also about the business end of real estate photography.
I highly recommend subscribing to his YouTube channel if you’re interested in learning more about real estate photography.
Please remember that this article is intended as an introduction to how I currently approach real estate photography. We are all learning daily and we learn by sharing. Please feel free to share your experience and ideas, we’d all love to take our craft to the next level so let’s do that together.
Thank you.
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