Some tips to enhance your real estate photography work

Want to take eye-catching real estate photos?

Do you want to impress your customers and stand out from the rest?

Today, if you search for “how to make money as a photographer.” Real Estate Photography is an increasingly high ranking keyword. The current real estate market is developing and the demand for real estate photography is increasing day by day. Here we discuss how you can improve your real estate photography skills. 

Real estate photography is sometimes challenging not only for professional photographers but also for beginners. Sometimes, if you’re not a professional photographer or the equipment isn’t working properly, real estate photography can be a bit difficult and even stressful. The amazing following tips can help you enhance your real estate photography skills and create outstanding photos in no time.

What is real estate photography?

The real estate industry shows no signs of slowing down. To attract satisfied customers of your property, realtors must provide a striking, sharp, and professional images to showcase the listings. That is where real estate photography comes in. Moreover, the outstanding difference between real estate photography and other photography disciplines is the combination of art and business. A real estate photographer is an artist who takes great pictures of commercial and residential real estate. This creates diversity and attractiveness in the profession. Therefore, images are indispensable in the field of real estate.

With large businesses, they always focus on real estate photography because of its usefulness and importance, therefore real estate photographers are always sought after any time. This is why real estate image is one of the fundamental elements of a successful transaction.

What equipment do you need for real estate photography?

First and foremost, to improve your real estate photography, you need some essential tools. Real estate photography is not a demanding genre in many ways, so the equipment is pretty straightforward. Even if you’re on a budget, you can help get started and deliver professional results.Here are the most basic equipment that you need for most real estate photography jobs if you want to take your real estate business to the next level: 

A Tripod

A good, sturdy tripod will bring sharpness and depth of field in your images by keeping the camera still in low-light environments. It helps to allow more careful composition, while framing the shot exactly how you want it

Nowadays,  big and heavy tripods can still be suitable and affordable for beginners. You can also read our post clearly: Highly Recommended Tripod for Real Estate Photography

High-quality digital camera

Full-frame cameras are the right choice for most real estate photography jobs as they can capture large spaces and produce the highest quality images. 

In fact, you should probably choose based on your photography preferences to make your photos perfect.

Here are the most basic pieces of equipment you’ll need for most real estate photography – top 10 camera for real estate photography 

Smartphone camera 

Besides, real estate photography does not necessarily need to use expensive equipment, but only mid-range devices such as phones. 

Taking photos with a smartphone still can produce sharp, realistic, and professional real estate photos.

You can read this post to know more about HOW TO TAKE REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH SMARTPHONES 

• Lens

In Real Estate photography, the aim is to help buyers visualize the home and make quick decisions. As a result, you’ll need to resort to lenses with different focal lengths so buyers can see everything from interiors to exteriors.

Having a wide-angle lens of your choice is essential and important for real estate photography. The best lenses for real estate photography will allow you to cover any type of space. There are types of lenses that you should refer to: Wide angle lens, Zoom lens, …

• Wide Lens

While Zoom Lenses can offer great versatility, autofocus or weather resistance to broaden their market appeal. The wide angle lens allows you to capture the entire space and allows you to capture the entire room even if it is a tight space. They are suitable for capturing large areas such as living rooms, dining rooms

Another lens you might consider is a tilt lens. Without the tilt shift, certain real estate photos may appear distorted. With this lens, making images with some vertical lines actually look straight becomes easier and saves time more than using tools like Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom.

• Flash 

Lighting is very important and is the easiest way to turn an amateur into a professional. Natural light is essential, but beyond that you should look for some opportunities to apply new techniques and further improve your photography skills. And a simple and affordable way to add light to a scene and reduce heavy shadows is to use flash.

If you want a soft and even light for the room, you can use the flash from above, like the ceiling, so that the light can cover the whole room.

Alternatively, if you want to highlight a particular subject or room feature, you can use a diffuser or use multiple direct beam flashes.

There are some additional lighting devices to consider, you can read this article to know clearly: Real Estate photography Lighting Guide

• Good editing software

Real estate editing photography software is also necessary as it mostly needs quite a bit of post-production. With its help of real estate photo editing software, you can remove blemishes, add details to your images, perform color correction, edit your need light bright, etc

Fortunately, the assortment of products to improve images is ever-evolving. Some popular applications that many users must mention: Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Illustrate, Adobe Lightroom,… You can refer to the article for more details: How to edit real estate photos in lightroom?

Amazing tips to enhance your real estate photography-

• Choose Right Time to Get Natural Light

Choosing the right time to get natural light is important. It makes it easy to shoot and get the right color of the photo.

• Day

During the day, you’ll get plenty of natural light and bright, saturated colors in your photos. To get maximum light, you should open curtains and windows to let in light. But there are some downsides to daytime shooting that you must be aware of. Avoid rainy days or shoot with the sun behind the camera to brighten the house and avoid shadows

• Night

In addition, Sunset is also a favorite time for many photographers. Actually, who doesn’t enjoy seeing the beauty of the sunset? Amazing works of art at sunset with only a camera can capture that wonderful moment so you can enjoy its beauty anytime you want. Without a doubt, you will be able to create great photos at this point.

• Using drone

How can you present the house with the whole view including the pool or the yard or the location? Real estate photographers are turning to drones to take some of the photos they love

Capturing handheld stills or video is useful, but they can’t match what real estate drone footage offers. One of the biggest benefits of using a drone is the ability to see the location. The aerial view is the best way to capture this whole composition

Drone photography of the property also allows you to showcase the area around the property. Those who may not be familiar with the area have some insight into the location of the property they are buying and what makes the area around it worth buying.

1. Get your lighting right

This is one of the basic but still useful tips in real estate photography. Just like you would photograph outside real estate, interiors can greatly benefit from sleek, stylish lighting. Use the lights on and off to achieve your different goals.

Artificial light will add warmth and coziness to your photos and for magic space. Lighting fixtures also allow you to capture details in those dark areas. An effective technique to fill your shadow areas evenly is to use a Speedlight on a wall or ceiling

• Using a wide Angle Lens

Do you want a room to appear as large and open as possible, while being able to capture the entire space into a wide-angle shot?. For professional real estate photography, usually, wide-angle lenses play a larger role. Wide angle lenses allow you to capture a wider view of the space you are shooting. It will help you visually enlarge the room and create a more comfortable and attractive look.

To know about this clearly, this article could help you: Best lens for Real Estate Photography 

• Remove Unnecessary Objects

A clean, tidy home lets buyers know that the property is well maintained. Your photos will look cluttered with unnecessary objects. Before picking up the camera, make sure the house is neatly arranged, organized and scientific

Tips for exterior shooting

• The position of the sun.

Try to position your photo shoot location so that the sun shines on the house perfectly while you’re there. At that time, the house will have the most harmonious brightness and wonderfully absorb maximum natural light. But remember that when shooting at noon, when the sun shines directly overhead will create bright spots. and the shadow is too big for the exterior of the house, this problem will make the house much darker while the sunlight is too bright. Thinking about the position of the sun when shooting outdoors will help you show the house in the best possible light.

• Take a photo at dusk or early-evening.

Sunset photography is any photographer’s favorite subject. Rich colors, dramatic lighting can make for stunning photos of sunsets. Furthermore, providing additional sunset shots can be a great way to “sell” your home, making it possible for them to show off your home at different times of the day. During this time, you should turn on all exterior and interior lights, which can create a balance of light between the inside and outside of the house. Ideally, the brightness of the property’s lighting should match the brightness of the sky.

Related post: Twilight in real estate Photography

•  Another angle creates a better look.

The advice is when you want to take professional real estate photos,  go around the house first,  keep an eye on the shooting angles and brightness pulses. Ask yourself ” If I open the curtains, will I get a lot of natural light or will it be too bright?” or  “turn on the lights to create a warm and inviting atmosphere at the same time?”. Once you’ve got your safety shots in place, try shooting the house from different angles to find out which side of the property looks best and to showcase the main functions of the home. 

For example, the beautiful staircase detail near the entrance or the children’s bedroom is airy and safe.

Shooting at different angles of the house is to create the atmosphere that I want buyers to experience when they first see your listing.

•  Use a tripod and camera’s timer.

Tripod is a great support in landscape photography in general or real estate photography in particular. For the sharpest results, mount your camera on a tripod and use the camera’s timer.

Using a tripod will help the photographer better balance the angle, align the frame, eliminate vibration when shooting at slow speeds, making the image not blurry.

•  Focus on the details.

In the process of photographing the house, you need to pay attention to the small details and remove the clutter and mess in each room (if any). These small details can make the scene stand out and make the space feel real when viewing the picture. Consider adding a little color to emphasize features and to create a fresh atmosphere. 

For example, add a few colorful chairs, a vase or other accessories to “show off” the space.

Tips for interior shooting

• Switch on lights in the room

When it comes to real estate photography techniques, light is everything. You should turn on some lights such as table lamps, reflectors, hidden lights, etc. This will make the room brighter, reducing the difference in light inside and outside. Many pictures are beautiful not only because they are well staged, but also because they make good use of light, giving the room a lively look and feeling of luxury.

• Use Wide-angle Lens 

The aim is to show as much of the interior as possible so viewers want to go and see it in person. Using a wide-angle lens allows you to capture more of the scene, giving a better overall impression of the interior and its layout.

• Set the camera to manual mode

Nearly photographers feel frustrated when realizing at least half of the images are over- or under-exposed. But there is an in-camera mode that will improve this.

Manual focus is the process of adjusting the depth of field to bring the image into sharp focus without technical assistance. This mode allows you to choose a shutter speed for the normal exposure of your in-frame sequence. It also ensures that aperture and ISO remain the same throughout all shots taken in the frame. Just like when shooting in manual mode, manual focus gives you more creative control without compromising accuracy.

• Test shot

You should take a test shot before taking a photo. During the test shoot, you should zoom in at 100% to make sure your focus is sharp where it should be and that there’s nothing in the frame that shouldn’t. Don’t be afraid to move things, especially if they’re ugly or unnecessary. Doing that is a lot easier than letting Photoshop create your image later.

Also, when taking a test shot, you’ll get the best results when the exposure in your frame calculates properly for the bright window scene and the darkest parts of the interior for your future photo.

Conclusion

For real estate photography, mistakes are inevitable. It is important to draw on your own photography experience. Especially factors such as lighting, shooting time, equipment type, image composition…

Remember, the goal of the work environment is to use images to sell as much real estate as possible. The better you know your audience, the more appreciated your real estate photos will be, because we can make a specific request.

Above are the sharing of real estate photography tips, hopefully this article will help you improve your shooting technique. Besides, Havah is currently one of the companies providing professional real estate photo/video editing services. We provide high-quality services related to any editing for real estate photos at very minimum prices compared to others providing the same services in the United States. For more information about our services and related blogs, keep visiting our website.