Daisy Dog

I understand and appreciate aweisbach's approach but I respectfully disagree with it. There have been countless examples of herculean efforts made in the pursuit of solving minute problems with little expectation of comparable financial gain and I believe this especially applies to the arts. My own experience in my architectural business has had me spending way too many hours solving inconsequential design problems but I've always had more clients then I can handle and have made a great living. I believe the two are related . . . of course I might just be a little slow.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Since real estate photos are virtually always of non-moving objects, a slow shutter speed and tripod solve the problem. Tripod a "hassle?" Take a look at "Architectural Digest" magazine, which has the best quality real estate photography in the world, and try to convince me it's all done hand-held. I don't think so. The tripod has another advantage... it gives you time to more carefully compose the shot and make small adjustments a little at a time before you click. >Alan

ramseynet

I use a tripod for almost all of my interior shots. Using a tripod makes sure that my camera is at a consistent height throughout the property, and is perfectly level. That keeps my post processing to a minimum.

russchristopher

Being an amateur photographer and marketing my own real estate, my experience is that a high quality wide angle lens is certainly a necessity. Although I did my shooting during daylight hours, I still used all of the interior lighting as a buyer might see a staged house. Direct sunlight shining in the windows is a problem, but the indirect lighting is not. I believe you could stick with just your auto settings particularly because you will be going from room to room and shot to shot and adjusting constantly for different lighting can get cumbersome.

ramseynet

Good point re: the window light challenges. And, thanks for the comment about wide angle lenses. I've tried several lenses and my experience has been that realtors like a light touch on wide angle photos, as they create some misleading photos. Sometimes I give them several options for them to pick from.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

If the rooms are decently lit and the OP uses an f/2.8 or faster lens, he can probably keep the ISO at 800 or even below to better control noise. I agree that in lower light interiors noise may be problematic above ISO 800 with the original 7D, and it will certainly be.an issue with slower lenses. My 7D Mark II is very clean at ISO 3200, and very usable at ISO 6400 with just a little quality noise reduction. Even at 12800, I can often get usable shots, albeit with much more noise reduction required.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

I love this place, You get 100 replies with a hundred different opinions. First off, your 7D is absolutely fine! My wife and I are both photographers, and we've shot hundreds of houses for local realtors. She, my wife shoots with an old Nikon D300, and I shoot with an even older Canon 20D, and both set to native ISO. (100 and 200) The answer is simple, you don't need a fast lens because you need deep DOF, you need a speedlight. You actually can underexpose the room some and let your flash do the heavy lifting. You will bounce your light off a wall / ceiling junction, or just off the ceiling, as long as it's white. By underexposing the the shot in manual, you can get very nice, not blown out window light with good details. Geez man, get a speedlight and you'll be all set. You will want a widish zoom lens, and it does not need to be a fast lens. Most of your shots can be done around f/5.6 - f/7, you can bump up your flash output (actually flash duration) as needed. Pay attention to your histogram, and make flash adjustments accordingly.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Honestly, depending on the size of the room and how close you are to what you focus on, the depth of field with an f/2.8 lens may only be shortened a foot or two compared to f/5.6 or f/8. Depending upon the size of the final image, the difference in DoF may not even be noticeable. And while a speed light can be very useful, it's not always the best way to go.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

To the OP:

Pay attention to the color temperature mix of light. Window light can be 5500K direct sun, or 9000K skylight. Artificial light can be tungsten (2600K to 3200K), or LED (2700K, 3000K, 4500K, 4800K, 5600K, or 6500K) or fluorescent (2700K, 3100K, 3500K, 4100K, 5000K, 5500K, 5600K, or 6500K).

The point is to turn on sources that dominate the scene, and turn off different or conflicting color sources that don't dominate. Some real estate folks carry several flash units, plus a case of popular color temperatures of LED and Fluorescent lamps (2700K and 6500K). They may have various gels to use over their flash heads to correct the flash color to match 2700K tungsten or 4100K cool white fluorescent.

Sometimes, photographers will deliberately let tungsten lamps or 2700K CFL or LED lamps stay yellow/orange, for mood. Usually, they override most of their effect with bounce flash (off the ceiling).

If you attempt to match color temperatures (close counts), you can then bring everything back to neutral with a custom white balance at the camera, or a click white balance in post production, provided you use and photograph a proper white balance target. (If you don't have one, go to the B&H or Adorama web site and shop for "white balance tools".

Popular zooms for real estate work:

8-18mm or 7-14mm on Micro 4/3 cameras
10-22mm or 10-20mm on APS-C cameras
14-24 or 16-35mm on "full frame" cameras

Carry a tripod. Set it so the lens is placed half way from floor to ceiling, and aimed straight ahead. That will help keep your wide angle distortion in check (as much as possible).

Use a depth of field calculator on a smartphone until you learn which apertures work best in various circumstances for the depth of field you need.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

First off, you're shooting for a real estate site, or for a piece of their literature...you are not shooting for Better Homes and Gardens. You don't need fast lenses, tripods, multiple off camera light setups, (and we own all that stuff) it's just not needed for this level of photography. Nowadays, many real estate shots are done with a cell phone, by the agents, and most of those are crap. A speedlight, and an 18-55 kit lens is probably sufficient for 98% of the jobs. And yes, depending on where you focus, f/2.8 may be OK, but you can't count on enough light in many of the rooms to go straight ambient...the simple, and probably the most cost effective solution is still a speedlight. Fast lenses cost many $$$$, and a speedlight can be purchased for <$200 for a third party light. Like shooting weddings, every job, every house is gong to be different, you just can't rely on a fast lens alone doing the job for you.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

👍👍 fast lenses don’t matter. For interior real estate photography, you’re not trying to isolate a subject, you want the whole room in focus, and unless you have an uncommonly well-lit room, or you just want that ambient light effect, that means a bounce flash (and perhaps multiple flashes/diffusers IF the job pays enough to warrant the time) and an aperture more like f8 or f11 for DOF. It’s the bright windows (if you want to see the view) and matching the temperature of multiple light sources (that Bill referred to) that are the challenges.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

Again, YES! And this is so key to what you said "...IF the job pays enough to warrant the time" because most real estate jobs do not pay well because it typically is coming out of the agents pockets, and when you consider the editing time, you are lucky if you break even.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Better real estate photographers are not bottom feeders. There’s money at the top of the market. That’s where you can sell video tours and every photo has to look as though it came from a magazine.

Realtors who are motivated to sell houses quickly are interested in professional staging, professional lighting, professional editing... They will support it. They will even let the seller pay for it separately!

Remember that life always follows the 80/20 rule...

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I agree. My point was you can't ignore a faster lens or available light. It can be part of the mix. And you can always stop down a faster lens when appropriate.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Agreed. If you’re selling million dollar plus houses where it pays to stage the house and have it professionally photographed, then you might spend the better part of the day preparing and shooting both stills and a video tour (which is challenging to do well), but if it’s a 225K townhouse, then the parameters are a little different. It’s amazing how many of those are shot with Iphones and how bad they are. Btw, when I do this, I prefer to shoot for and be paid by the seller - that way they own the content if they decide to change agents. (80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients)