JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

I'm not a pro photographer, and will agree with you up to a point, but but don't condemn all Real Estate photographers for the sins of a few; I have a hard time thinking that good real estate agents would accept lousy prints. When we listed and sold our house in MA, the photographs, both still and video, were generally very good; there was one taken of the front of the house that showed too many roadside trees & shadows that hid the house. I called the agent and she agreed so I took another photo from the middle of the street shot from closer to "our side" of the street and they used mine instead. I never heard of any complaints, but to my way of thinking, he was taking pictures of our house and spending our money so we had the last word. In a tough market the house sold within 30 days.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

Nicely done, I like your work. Real Estate sales are all about the wants and desires of the buyer and as such you need to have shots that appeal to many different buyers. I think you've done that.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

I think your lighting was very good for the most part. There are a few that show just a tiny bit of a 3rd wall that would be improved by cropping the 3rd wall out altogether. I've read some RE photographers prefer to include only two walls at a time.

byjoe Loc: Stillwater, OK

What lens are you using? When shooting rooms you want to show as much in one shot as you can thus you need a wide angle lens.

LouV Loc: Juno Beach, FL

I concur with most of the previous comments. Your exterior shots don’t work nearly as well as your interiors. Your interior shots are very well exposed and, in most cases, you’ve achieved the proper depth of field and field of view. My only criticism is that a handful of them, e.g. the tighter shots and those where the furniture dominates the foreground, are more about the furnishings and less about the room. As a perspective buyer that’s not what I want to see. But, really, except for those few minor criticisms, this is fine work.

twosummers Loc: Melbourne Australia or Lincolnshire England

Hi Jules, thanks for taking the time to respond which I really value. Receiving advice from photographers is always more valuable than advice from non-photographers. The camera is a Canon 6d and lens is Canon 17-40 f4. ISO 100, f11, shutter speed varies according to light etc. I shoot in manual mode and RAW, no HDR in these shots. Remote (off camera) flash with wireless trigger, some tethered with iPad.

All have been edited to adjust white balance (I just play around until I think they look about right). Some bracketing and then I just select one for editing. I use Luminar, Aurora (for HDR occasionally but not here) and also DXO Viewpoint if I can't fix perspective otherwise. I've now invested in DXO Photolab which really is brilliant (but Luminar is terrific for sky swaps and editing out artefacts). Photolab recognises that I have viewpoint and is now an embedded "tool" in Photolab.

Since reading up more since I came back to the UK I've now changed my camera settings to ISO 320 and f7.1 and WHAT A DIFFERENCE this has made. Although the exposures are technically the same as always (one or two stops "over") the light quality seems better and of course when I use flash these settings for ISO and aperture DO make a difference. I think I'm getting somewhere now and I think I'm on the right track.

I will try my "new" settings and ideas next week on my own home to see if I really am "getting there" or maybe it's just jet lag. Thanks All.

twosummers Loc: Melbourne Australia or Lincolnshire England

Just an update to my work here in the UK for anyone watching this subject. I keep updating my website so more content is local to UK property market. I am now engaged with several service agencies that provide services to estate agency clients. Mostly photography and (the dreaded) floorplans.

Given to low fee structures I have switched to HDR from flash. I just don't have the time to use elaborate lighting (like some of my earlier, Melbourne, property photographs). The houses here tend to be more modest day to day and typically less well staged. However I do come across some surprises and I have added a few of these to my website.

I have also sold my Canon F17-40 lens and bought the Canon F16-35 F4 which I used almost exclusively for my estate agency work. I have also upgraded my tripod to a Fanfrotto and I have added a Benro geared head. I love my Canon 6d but I'm always looking at the 5d Mark IV online alongside the new Canon Mirrorless FF newbies.

I am improving my light metering skills I think (still on spot metering with added advice for UH contributions). Generally now I can get good results with 3 bracketed images (+2 and -2 ev). I've switched my ISO to 320 and my Aperture to F11.

Biggest change and it's been great is BBF (Back Button Focus) - This is great to use as once I've set my shutter speed (based on "average" light in the room) (I'm shooting in manual) I can focus my attention on composition and positioning camera. Then I select something about one third into the room and press the focus button and once that focuses I'm good to go.

My "workflow" if I can call it that is to copy my raw images onto my shiny new iMac (my 9 year old MacBook was struggling and slow). I then load each bracketed set into Aurora HDR 2019 and merge the images, I make minor adjustments in Aurora to get realistic images, mostly boosting shadows a little and contrast, where there are no windows I can play around with exposure a little too. When I've converted all my images to full size jpegs I review all of them in DXO Photolab (with perspective add-in) - here I remove small artefacts if needed and straighten verticals and horizontals as needed.

Occasionally I will replace a sky and for that I use Luminar 3 or 2018 (if only for 1 pic or 2)

Some "photo shoots" surprise me and look great almost right out of the bag whilst others, for some reason, continue to disappoint. I think it's called "photography". Thanks again for all the contributions ladies and gentlemen, I now consider myself a professional (property) photographer!

Cheers for now

James

propertyphotgraphy.net

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

FStoppers has an excellent series Where Art Meets Architecture which deals with lighting, photography and post production techniques for Real Estate and Hotel photography:

https://fstoppers.com/store

Expensive, but totally worth it.