Real Estate Photography Tips Pretty Please

12-40 is quite narrow for interior work. You can still make it without an ultra-wide lens but it's not too practical.

If the images are going to be put on the web only and no large prints are needed, you can go cheap with a Samyang 7.5mm f3.5 fisheye and defish the images. I've done that and you get excellent resolution for web application and you can choose how much you'd like to crop the image. It may be a bit hard to see the shot in your mind as you are framing before you defish it but it is doable. This approach also lets you have a FOV even larger than the Panasonic 7-14.

Still my main advice is to shoot from a tripod from about chest height ~1.4m in order to avoid having too much ceiling but still having a reasonable height. Always keep the camera horizontal in order to keep the walls and other verticals parallel.

Shooting at F5.6 for m43 is fine. Focus in the middle of the room or slightly more towards you (1/3 of the distance to the end of the room) in order for the DoF to encompass most of the room.

HDR processing on the computer is great if you can do realistic HDRs. If you can't, I suggest that you use a powerful off-camera flash to bounce around the room and merge differently lit shots as layers in PS. It's easier than HDR.

You may try the ladder for the fun of it but how many serious photographs in magazines or other advertisements have you seen taken from a "security camera view"? I haven't. I suggest that you stick to the tripod shots - they are more easily acceptable by the audience.

Attempt to include open doors in the shot in order for the client to get a better idea where other rooms are located relative to each-other. Don't turn on the lights if you can't balance the colors later. Depending on whether the lights overwhelm the sunlight or the other way around, or if they match in intensity you may have a great shot with the lights on or a complete mess. Until you learn how to match the colors I recommend that you keep the lights off.

This is what comes to mind in a short notice. I wish you fun and success!

PS

Here's a quick example of a defished shot of mine. It is taken from a sequence for a virtual tour and that's why it's vertical. I shoot interior stills horizontal. You can see how sharp this lens is and still how much detail it retains after defishing. This is quite an extreme example and I believe that defished shot is wider than the 7-14 and so is more stretched.

I really recommend that you do not use HDR or doctor the colors in anyway . . . that is the stuff of real estate law suit legends.  (My wife is an office manager in a local real estate office) and has horror stories galore involving the buyer not getting what they thought from a photo.  Just use as much available light try to make the house look natural. Look at the photos in any of the home magazines - everything appears natural and bright. Oh, and make sure the floors and surfaces are dusted. Bring a swiffer.

Droogie45 wrote:

I really recommend that you do not use HDR or doctor the colors in anyway . . . that is the stuff of real estate law suit legends. (My wife is an office manager in a local real estate office) and has horror stories galore involving the buyer not getting what they thought from a photo. Just use as much available light try to make the house look natural. Look at the photos in any of the home magazines - everything appears natural and bright. Oh, and make sure the floors and surfaces are dusted. Bring a swiffer.

Due to what monstrosities I've seen when people attempt HDRs I could agree with you. Still here are a few examples of my interior HDRs. You can decide for yourselves whether interior HDRs are doable.

fuesting wrote:

My friend (realtor) has asked me to shoot a very nice home that he just listed, so I'm throwing my hat into the world of real estate photography sometime this week. It's a vacant house that is apparently beautiful. I do not think it's furnished at all. I will have as much time as I need in the house. I really don't know what I'm doing in the sense that I have never shot real estate and my strategy is to just copy what others have done.

Would any of you have any tips for me? I'm looking for pretty much any information.

My gear consists of an E-M1, 12-40mm f2.8, 25mm f1.4, 45mm f1.8, 75mm f1.8, and a 40-150mm f-cheapo. I also have a sharp Canon FD 50mm f1.4 w/ adapter. Of course an old tripod that "works".

My game plan is to shoot most of it at 12mm and maybe HDR? Maybe do HDR in post. The house itself has an incredible view of Pittsburgh. I figure I better show that off. Should I bring a ladder for a more top-down approach to showing rooms? Any panoramas?

Thanks in advance!

First, I've only done architecture shots for fun, so salt and all that.

Depending on how large the rooms are, 12mm might not be wide enough. The 9-18, 7-14, and normalized fisheye 9, 8, and 7.5mm lenses would be better for interior shots. Unfurnished will make it easier and harder. Not as much stuff in the way, but also not as much in the photo. This also might let you use the 12mm, but the wider angles make the rooms look bigger, a plus for small rooms.

Make sure the verticals are straight up and down. Furnished this is usually easier from 3-4 ft off the ground, as then the chairs and tables don't look tilled. Unfurnished, I guess halfway between the floor and ceiling might work better. Non-normal views also draw the eyes; another reason the 3 ft shots work well. A ladder might give a cool view, but I wouldn't expect it to unless it's a split level house, or one level can over see a lower one.

Try shooting from corners, walls, and through doors. Wireless remotes help shooting the corner shoots after it's set up. If it's unfurnished, what are you going to do for lighting?

If it has a great view, use it! Use a window to frame that view. If there are large windows, give half the image to the interior and half to the view. HDR will help for sure, and PP can give better images than in camera if you know what you're doing. I don't like the super HDR look, and I think the HDR that looks like a normal shot works better for realtor shots. If you have all day, and aren't pratived at PP HDR, shoot both in camera and bracketed. I'd try to make sure it doesn't look fake or PSed.

Outdoor shots depend on the house size and property size. A ladder here might help a lot to show the house and the view.

edit: listen to the others more than me.

fuesting wrote:

My friend (realtor) has asked me to shoot a very nice home that he just listed, so I'm throwing my hat into the world of real estate photography sometime this week. It's a vacant house that is apparently beautiful. I do not think it's furnished at all. I will have as much time as I need in the house. I really don't know what I'm doing in the sense that I have never shot real estate and my strategy is to just copy what others have done.

Would any of you have any tips for me? I'm looking for pretty much any information.

My gear consists of an E-M1, 12-40mm f2.8, 25mm f1.4, 45mm f1.8, 75mm f1.8, and a 40-150mm f-cheapo. I also have a sharp Canon FD 50mm f1.4 w/ adapter. Of course an old tripod that "works".

Bring your tripod and your flash. Remember the light coming in from the windows. You are looking for good DOF and focus, so this is where the 12-40mm will shine. You will probably find that 17mm and possible 20mm will serve you better than 12mm. The nice thing is you have the whole range of the 12-40mm to pick from. I would shoot the crap out of each room; from the doorway, towards the doorway, from the corners, and don't forget the closets, interesting moldings, tray ceilings, and any ceiling light fixtures. The 45mm might come in handy for close-ups of interesting details and fixtures.

Don't forget the outside, pick angles that will show off the house and not show anything detracting like the neighbor's five cars, power poles, etc. Don't shoot anything that would be a negative to a potential buyer. Check all the shots before you leave and you might want to bracket exposure or ISO.

My game plan is to shoot most of it at 12mm and maybe HDR? Maybe do HDR in post. The house itself has an incredible view of Pittsburgh. I figure I better show that off. Should I bring a ladder for a more top-down approach to showing rooms? Any panoramas?

Back in the late 80s and early 90s I lived in Upper St Clair. My ex-wife was trying real estate as her latest get-rich-quick plan. The agencies used to charge the realtors a $100 for a Pro to get a couple mediocre shots of the outside. I started doing my wife's listings and I took the time to do a lot better. Pretty soon, I had other realtors asking me if I would shoot listings for them. I wasn't about to give up my career as an engineer so I approached this as an avocation, more for the fun than anything else. I charged them $25 plus the cost of a roll of film. I shot the whole roll and gave it to them to get developed wherever they wanted. Back then, it was all film that got screened by printers for newspapers and flyers. There was no digital and floppy disks were still in vogue. Unless you were rich, you could buy a 300dpi hand scanner and a desk-top publishing program for your PC to do your own flyers.

Thanks in advance!

Got this idea from Darren Miles on his youtube channel:

Get a quad copter drone like the DJI Phantom and get some unique aerial shots of the home and its neighboring houses.

Otherwise, you'll want a UWA IMO. Try to take pictures that highlight how much light is in a certain room. Make everything look as spacious as possible.

I appraised RE for over 20 years and often had home owners asking for additional copies of the photos I shot.  A couple suggestions....I think 12 mm is wide enough otherwise it becomes so distorted it doesnt resemble what it actually looks like, when shooting the view try to get some that includes some of the window frame and/or deck railing so that the actual view is illustrated, and like that other guy said, "when you find a unique room shoot the heck out of it, so you have a lot of photos to choose from, it doesnt cost much more to take extra photos, and you will be glad you did, good luck and have fun.

Not a Pittsburgher anymore but I have fond memories of the years I spent there. If the house is one of the ones facing the city across from the inclines, especially if it's the one with floor to ceiling picture windows, you are right to want to capture some of those views.

Those look great Bots, I agree about the heavy hand on HDR photos.  These look very natural and cheery. Perfect for real estate.

Shoot between f4-5.6. Stitch together a few shots when you need more width using Microsoft's free ICE program. You may also want to take some bracketed photos and make a natural looking HDR. Unfortunately, if you go the HDR route, the only way to make a natural HDR image that I am aware of is to buy Photomatix Pro and use their "Exposure Fusion" option. Using Tone Mapping in Photoshop or other HDR software results in just ugly looking fake images.

I know the interior would be more interesting if it were furnished, but I found that 12mm worked very well when several images were stitched.

Time of day is very important - what you see through the windows will probably be overexposed if the interior is properly exposed - HOWEVER - you can use bounce flash to help the dynamic range.

Choose your camera height carefully because walls will be angled if you don't. Some of this perspective can be corrected if you have software that will do so.

Here's a small gallery of interiors done at 10mm with a Canon lens on a dslr. You can see that the wide angle can make rooms look larger than they actually are! House Interiors

And here's a stitched panorama with the 12-40 lens on a gh2:6 image panorama of large room 12mm held vertically.

Here's one at 12mm from a high viewpoint: High viewpoint interior at 12mm

And, finally, here's a nice article on photographing empty interiors: Photographing empty interiors

Isabel