Flambient Real Estate Photography: The Guide to Creating Eye-Catching Photos
To create flamboyant photos in real estate photography, you should utilize the blending technique of flash and ambient lighting. The first set of photos involves using ambient lighting, and the second set involves using flash. You should not simply take pictures with different exposure settings, but in addition, you should shoot two sets. Eventually, you may edit the photos to achieve the desired effect, such as vibrant, clean, and attractive photographs. Read on this flambient real estate photography guide to know more:
Equipment You’ll Need
A DSLR camera paired with a wide-angle lens is the best way to get quality photos. Besides that, the following real estate photography equipment is required: tripod, photograph printer, photo software, and printed photographs.
Remote Shutter Trigger
A camera remote control or a specialized app for mobile use is necessary to successfully release the shutter on a camera. Even the slightest press of the camera’s shutter button can disrupt the shot, so it’s critical to get a camera remote or a mobile app that will allow you to release the shutter remotely. Consider the model of your camera when searching for a remote control. There are both universal apps for common camera brands and apps for particular popular brands.
Flash
To get the most out of any flash for real estate photos, simply get an outdoor model. This will enable you to receive more light, which can be particularly beneficial in darker settings.
Flash Trigger
The device attached to the camera sends the necessary signals to your light source using this gear piece. You may send or adjust the flash’s power remotely using remote flash triggers, which is far more convenient and time-efficient.
Some photographers keep light reflectors and stands in their cars just in case the house light isn’t the right colour. On rare occasions, this equipment may come in handy.
Camera Settings
To get the most out of your real estate photography, set your cameras to manual mode. That’s the only way you will have complete control over the exposure parameters.
The recommendations are as follows: Aperture: f/5.6 to f/8. To maintain the proper range of shutter speeds for using flash, you should use wide-angle lenses.
If you must move the aperture, you should strive to keep it at f/7.0. ISO: 400. The shutter speed is determined on location by the particular conditions you will have to shoot.
You should also experiment with the camera’s focus a bit—shoot a few shots while the camera is set to “wide”. If you are a beginner, you should stick to auto white balance.
Techniques
The Ambient Shot
You shot this commercial property photography without flash, relying solely on the natural lighting that fills the property. You maximized the dynamic range boundaries by shooting the shot in RAW format. The photo was taken in the middle of the frame. You took as many ambient photos as you needed. To capture all the highlights and shadows in extreme lighting situations, consider shooting a bracket of 3 shots. Begin with the mandatory exposure and then take a shot with +2 and -2 to capture everything.
The Flash Shot
To take a properly-exposed flash photo with an attractive window view, natural wall colors, and a bright interior that is lit by the flash, you need to do the following:
1. Position the flash between 18″ and 2′ (45 cm to 60 cm) below a white ceiling, aiming it upward
2. Remove the flash unit from the camera.
You can keep the flash on the camera, but the photos you’ll take will likely have flash-caused shadows from various interior objects.
A photo is best taken when the view and the interior are exposed properly. To determine the proper flash strength, first estimate the exposure required to properly light the windows. You can adjust the flash strength until the interior is properly exposed.
The Window Shot
If the property has a particularly beautiful or important window view, I recommend taking a third photo specifically for the windows. To take photographs for real estate photos that showcase the property’s window view to its best effect, use a powerful flash unit and aim it straight at the window frames. You can experiment with different angles until you find one that has the smallest amount of flash reflections. Try to remove all of the flash reflections from a photo if possible. Turn off the flash and take a picture without it while keeping the camera’s exposure parameter unchanged, and later include that photo in the blending process.
Post-Processing is Key in Flambient
Photographing the moment without blending the RAW images with Photoshop, alternatives, or photo apps is useless. You must blend them after capturing the moment with the help of Photoshop, photo apps with similar functions, or layers. You can blend photographs with Aurora HDR software, InPixio Eclipse HDR Pro software, and Luminance HDR. Aurora HDR, InPixio Eclipse HDR Pro, and Luminance HDR software are all recommended for HDR merging and correcting the ambient exposures before combining them with flash exposures. You should place the ambient layer on top of the flash shot and set the blending mode to Luminosity. It blends the lighting in the photograph without impacting the colors. To make a layered image, add another layer and set the blending mode to Color, which will result in a 3-layering image.
