Real estate photography plays an important role in the real estate industry. In general, many real estate agents hire a professional real estate photographer to take some attractive and beautiful pictures as they want to show the best pictures of a house and sell the property as much as possible.
Now, we’ve collected some tips about real estate photography, which are good for some beginner real estate photographers as well as experienced photographers. We hope that these methods are useful and will take your real estate photography skills to the next level.
Best Gear for Real Estate Photography
Real estate photographers often invest in a few key pieces of gear to ensure they can take some great shots that impress their clients. To prepare for a real estate shoot, make sure you understand these gear tips:
Or If you want to take some impressive picture and surprise your clients, some high-quality equipment is must-have. Excellent gear, sometimes, has a strong connection with your real estate photography career.
Camera Lens and Camera
When it comes to camera’s option, the full-sensor DSLR camera is the best choice. This type of camera can allow you to take pictures manually and has a fast response when taking pictures. Additionally, you need to purchase a wide-angle lens which shoots some great pictures whether you are in a narrow or spacious space. For example, if you want to make the small room look like spacious, the wide-angle lens could help you. It is a great addition to your photos.
Tripod
Tripod is a must item for many photographers as it allows you to take a stable and clean image without any haze and blurriness. Sometimes, if you don’t use the tripod when taking pictures, a sudden movement will create some blurring and hazing photos, which look so bad. Tripods offer a good and stable condition for long exposure photos.
Flash
Many real estate photographers may face the problem that there is no enough light when taking shots. Therefore, a flash is a good device. You can photograph clean and bright pictures even in low-light situations with flashes. Godox 100pro and Godox ad200pro are highly recommended. They are not only powerful but also affordable price.
But before buying a flash, you need to check out whether the flash is equipped with a built-in receiver or not as the in-built device can allow you to turn on and off the flash easily.
Real Estate Photography Tips
1. Choose Right Time
If you want to take stunning real estate photography, choosing the right time is very important. A sunny day is the best choice and you get some natural and bright light in the daytime and make your picture look so bright. But if you take pictures at a cloudy time, you may choose another day and use other accessories（such as godox flashes）to create a high-light situation. Or some people like taking an attractive shot at the sunset. Sun behind the house is a perfect time and position. Keep in mind that you need to know what the weather will happen beforehand via some weather app.
2. Turn On and OFF All the Lights
Powering on and off the light is one of the useful tips when taking some real estate photography. But finally, it depends on your goals and what kind of pictures you want to take. In general, if you take on all lights inside the house, the color of the house may look warm and bright. While it looks a little cold when you turn off all the lights. But I think that you need to add some extra light to bright the situation when all light is off.
3. Shooting Pictures with Great Angles
What angles are the most pretty for your real estate photos? Then you need to look for some unique and interesting angel. For experienced photographers, it is easy to find that angle. You, as a beginner real estate photographer, need to look at some great real estate photos and get some inspiration. if Remember that sometimes some housing pictures are taken from a special angel, it will trigger some customer’s great feeling and maybe they will buy this house quickly.
4. Put More Attention On ISO Settings
It is believed that if you want a high shutter speed, meaning that you need to improve the ISO. A high iso will increase the digital noise to your pictures. So, you need to adjust your iso value according to your need. Below 400 may be a good choice. Higher shutter speeds require increasing the ISO value. Do not forget that too high ISO can add a lot of digital noise to your photos. Try to set ISO below 400.
5. Open Blinds/Windows
Some beginners think that natural light is the best light for taking some real estate pictures. Natural light brightens your room and makes the picture look a little warm. On a sunny day, you probably open all windows of the house. Additionally, you can also use some led lights or reflectors to highlight some details of the house and other items. Finally, it can rich your house and get customers’ attention quickly.
6. How to Make Empty Rooms Look Attractive
As a real estate photographer, you have many chances to take different kinds of properties, including ugly and beautiful houses. Many photographers take pictures of houses which are filled with much furniture. But then it may change over time as there are many virtual staging services. You can take a picture of an empty room. After that, people can use the virtual service to add some furniture they love to that room. I think that it will beat your other competitors.
7. Pre-Shoot
Before taking some photos of houses, you need to do something.
Walk around the houses;
Capture some photos for testing in every room or outdoor space;
Examine some pictures;
After testing, you need to examine these pictures and find a unique angle and then take these pictures as that focal point.
8. Ask Your Client to Clean the Property
When you want to take some great and clean pictures, you need to collaborate with your clients and tell them to clean their houses. All need to clean including furniture, ceiling, etc.
9. Highlight the Best Features
Some special and unique feature of this house can motivate customers to buy a house as quick as possible. So, as a real estate photographer, you need to highlight some special and creative features of the house and downplay some bad things.
If you have no idea what the best angle and best features of this house are, you can ask the owner or walk through the house and take some test photos to find the best one.
10. Don’t show too many or too few photos
If you want to have a rough idea of what the property looks like and share them with your clients, Taking many pictures as much as possible. But it is probably wrong. You only need to take some right photos. According to Street Easy, “if a listing has between four and 10 listing photos, there is a 5x likelihood that a buyer will contact an agent. But as for that magic number — that sweet spot — we found that when a listing has 11 to 14 photos, there is a 6x more likely chance a buyer will contact the selling agent versus a listing with zero photos.
11. Use Props
Using a prop can add some different styles to your pictures. Maybe you can stage the flowers and some fruits to make the picture lifestyle.
Our houses may have a lot of clutter, such as paper, trash cans, etc. Maybe you need to get rid of all these things to make the house and background clean.
Get rid of clutter (stacks of paper, trash cans, spices and oils in the kitchen, and toiletries in the bathroom), and stage interiors for best results. When it comes to photographing the kitchen, you can remove some devices, such as blenders, toasters.
12. Correct Lens Distortion
Perspective distortion is a fairly common problem in photography for real estate. It occurs because of the use of wide-angle lenses. There are two types of distortion: When taking real estate photography, some distortion problems may occur. In general, there are two types of distortion: Barrel distortion and Perspective distortion. When photographers are taking pictures using ultra-wide zooms and the barrel distortion may happen. While perspective distortion occurs because of wide-angle lenses. If you want to solve this problem, it is a good idea to use photo editing tools.
13. Shoot in RAW
This kind of file format is the best choice for great editing. Many real estate photographers will take JPECG photos and these photos are high-quality.
14. Get a Drone for Aerial Images
Some customers not only want to look at the inside of a house but also want to look at the house from the sky. So now you need to buy a drone. The drone is a great tool to take a creative and nice photo from above, allowing customers to look at the whole house and its surrounding environment. Additionally, many property agents love these aerial images and it can make buyers get a full sense of the whole house and furtherly encourage buyers to purchase this house.
15. Sign a Contract Before Shooting
If you want a steady and profitable job, a guaranteed contract is must-have and protect your right as well. For a beginner real estate photographer, it is an important step when you want to become a good real estate photographer.
Many real estate agents will inform you that they will pay you after the houses have been sold. At this time, you need to take care and must know that you are a photographer who takes pictures of a property, not an agent who sold houses. So, you need to make this thing clear.
We hope these tips will take your real estate photography to the next level.