nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

Simply put, use a wide angle lens, always use a tripod(you may have to use a long exposure, which is no problem because nothing is moving), and keep the lens parallel to the floor. If you tilt the camera up or down then you'll get distortion making the walls look like they are falling.

Rally-Gator Loc: North Carolina

My wife is a realtor, and I shoot most of her homes for her. I have a 60D, which is an APS-C sensor, with a 10-18mm lens. I shoot HDR with the cannon DSLR controller app from my phone, using 7 exposures, and in AV mode with an aperture of 8.0. I use manual focus (the 10x focus zoom on the app is great for this) and select an area with mid level lighting for exposure. I always use a tripod, as some of the exposures will take several seconds. The tripod needs to be much lower than you would expect, around the 3 to 4 foot level, for most shots, and be sure your camera is level, as was mentioned before, to avoid bending at the edges of your photo. A little bending is easily remedied in PS. Be sure all the lights are on in the room, and all the shades & curtains are open. I like to shoot facing towards the windows, so the clients get an idea of what their views will be also. Using the HDR mode you will get severely over-exposed & under-exposed shots in the group, but be sure your center shot has decent exposure. Next, using PS, click on File, Automate, and Merge to HDR Pro. Open a set of the bracketed photos, and adjust the levels for a "comfortable" look. With the HDR you will be able to clearly see all of the shadowed areas of the room, as well as the bright outdoor views, very similar to what your eyes see. I don't believe you will win any photography awards with your results, but the results will be excellent for Real Estate photos.
As a side note, if you decide to do a walk through tour, PS is a great video editor as well!

Daisy Dog

In the Architect business there is a saying about design magazines: "they display excellent photos of architecture not photos of excellent architecture". If you look at a photo array in most any design magazine pay particular attention to the interior lighting. One of the well known pros I used would set up numerous (3 to 5) artificial light sources for each interior shot. He would back-light certain areas, remove shadows from other areas, etc. His set up time always took hours to do. He would not do an exterior unless it was the 'correct' time of year because of sun angle, intensity, and condition of landscape.

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

This is absolutely true for high end magazines like architechial digest, but most Real Estates will not pay for that kind of superb photography, unless it's in the multi million bracket.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

Yes, exactly this...a speedlight with a dome will solve all your problems

BebuLamar

Unless the OP wants to sneak into people's homes and take some quick snap, a tripod should not be a hassle among other thing. Lighting is important not because of light level but the light simply doesn't look right. Lens is also important but the camera performance at high ISO is the least needed. This type of photography should be done at the base ISO and at base ISO the 7D is perfectly fine.

Nikonman44

first determine why you are shooting.

What ambience are you seeking?

Do you want real time colours or a sureal look?

Lots of issue to be answered before you set the camera for best results/

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

If I were doing this today, and being on a budget, I would be using two battery operated high output light sources on light stands with the light being bounced off the ceiling and/or walls ( must be WHITE).

I would be using a SONY mirrorless APS-C camera so that I could use an Irix manual focus full frame 15mm f2.4 pentax mount lens on a shift adapter. Bouncing off the ceiling requires that you NOT include the ceiling in the picture and that the verticals remain vertical - the reason for shifting !

The Sony also does in camera multi-exposure HDR and sweep pano if needed. Sorry, no RAW shooting for me.

jayd Loc: Central Florida, East coast

Shoot in raw. Photoshop. Bridge. Tripod wide lens low iso.I shoot 3 shots with tilt shift or 10-18 or Rokinon 14.Then off to bridge to correct verticals. Its a process, or, workflow you need to develop for the equipment you have. Then there is the lighting.....HDR or several flashes.
So what i am saying is it can be expensive in money and time.....depends on the results you desire

jayd Loc: Central Florida, East coast

I also have used portable led light pucks to hang in light fixtures so as to not get overexposed lights in a dim room setting

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

If you are photographing rooms with the intent to sell the house (real estate photography), I would make sure that I had a super-wide angle lens (a lens with more than a 90 degree field of view), but not a fisheye, available as an addition to any wide angle lens you have. That will allow you to place your camera in a corner and capture the whole room. I would also always have the camera on a tripod; nothing hand held. If you are photographing a large number of houses, you may find it expedient to shoot in .jpg, but if you have time for post production processing, RAW is always preferable.

For lighting, I would use the existing room lighting, if it looks good, plus bounce flash and or other diffused supplemental lighting. Also, do not rely on automatic color balance if there is mixed lighting types, i.e., incandescent lights and flash, etc. Manually set your cameras color temperature by using a white card or another method.

If there are windows, close the drapes, shoot at night or use HDR during the day to balance the outside light with the inside light. If there are dark areas of the room, additional lighting should be added.

Either keep the back of your camera parallel to the room's vertical lines or plan to correct the perspective in post production if that proves necessary.

CaltechNerd Loc: Whittier, CA, USA

All good comments, but also I recommend keeping the camera level. If the camera is truly shooting on the horizontal, you avoid keystoning. You can improve this in PP with Lightroom/Photoshop but better to not cause it in the first place.

aweisbach Loc: Omaha Nebraska

I do Real Estate photography for many agents in the Omaha area. I use a Nikon D7200, and virtually all my shots are taken with a Nikon 10-24mm lens, always on a tripod. I shoot HDR with 5 bracketed jpeg exposures, at F8, with White Balance set to auto. I turn on all lights (don't forget the light over the oven/range, and under cabinets), and open all drapes, shades, etc, unless that causes serious glare. The market here, for the average house, does not pay nearly enough to make it worth it to take the time to deal with setting up lighting. Tips are to keep the camera level, and zoom in as much as possible yet show as much of the room, or relationship between rooms, as you can. The wider angles tend to exaggerate the size of the room, to the point of being misleading. I use Photomatix, in batch mode, for the HDR part. I also make basic edits in PS, such at straightening lines, contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.

Daisy Dog

As photographers why would we differentiate the quality we want to achieve shooting a 'real estate sale' photo or an 'architectural design magazine' photo or a 'multi-million dollar real estate' photo? Shouldn't each photo be taken with the same care and attention?

aweisbach Loc: Omaha Nebraska

Ideally, but if you are being paid one amount to produce 36 photos that will be glanced at for a moment, after being compressed to just acceptable quality on a computer screen, as opposed to being paid 5 times as much to produce a half dozen beautiful architectural photos, for a magazine, are you really going to put the same time and effort into it? Probably not . . .