It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Real estate photography is no exception. People no longer start their home search in the paper or driving by properties. With the internet and social media, people can screen their homes without leaving the couch. Listings with breathtaking photos and video tours excel in the market, while homes that lack clear or well-chosen photos are often overlooked.

If you’re a do-it-yourself person, you came to the right place. Here, you will find the same tips and tricks that professional real estate photographers use to make properties look more appealing.

All that’s required is your time, some gear, and the basic knowledge of photography. So, let’s get started.

Having the right tools for the job makes it much easier, starting with a camera. Before making a purchase, consider the following:

• Camera – Our in-house camera is a Sony A7III ,but that’s already too much camera for the job. All you really need for professional real estate photography is an entry level camera and basic knowledge of how it works. The camera function most necessary to taking great real estate photography is manual mode. Manual mode lets you control the three basic functions of your camera: ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

• Lens – Lenses are sometimes more expensive than the camera itself. With a wide variety of lenses. It’s easy to get flustered. Our 16 mm wide angle lens is our go-to. When you’re shooting real estate, it’s important to get the most in your picture frame to get a better feeling for a room. One thing to be aware of while making this purchase is the distortion you get from going too wide. This causes the edges of your pictures to be uneven and the straight lines to be stretched and curved in the corners.
• Tripod – When you want to capture all the details in the picture, you have to shoot multiple exposures. This compensates for the light difference outdoor and indoor. Otherwise, you will have over/under exposed pictures that don’t look good. This also gives you consistency in all of your shots. There is an abundance of tripods on the market and the least expensive one will work but will take longer to set up.
• Editing Software­ – Professional photos that you see everywhere, ranging from sports photos to advertisements, aren’t really what they appear to be. All photos today are adjusted using editing software. This can be a minor tweak or a heavily edited photo that looks unreal; they all go through the process. Light Room and Photo Shop are our preferred editing software.
• Drone (Not needed BUT good to have) – Having a drone is not necessary but it never hurts. Shooting your property from a higher vantage point is always a plus. Drones can showcase the surrounding areas much better than a camera, but there is a catch. You are going to need a pilot’s license in order to fly for commercial use. If you’re the homeowner, you’re good to go. Our Mavic 2 Zoom is equipped with a land at home button and 4K capability. Once again 4K is unnecessary because most media on the internet can only process 1080p. Whenever flying your drone, make sure you stay clear of power lines and anything else that potentially can be a disaster for the neighborhood and your drone.

Settings and Using Manual Mode

With Manual mode, it’s important to remember that you can use different functions of the camera to create the same effects. A camera is just a machine that captures light and it’s your job to know how to control that light to the achieve your desired outcome. In real estate photography, the biggest problem is the dynamic range from the inside to outside of the home itself. Manual functions like shutter speed, aperture, and ISO should be able to tackle any room in the house.

• ISO – This function is related to the sensor and how it reacts to light. Light falls onto the image sensor, that light gets converted into electrical signals that are sent for processing. ISO sensitivity is raised by amplifying those signals, going from ISO 200 to ISO 400. In real estate photography everything is still, leaving the ISO on the lower setting is best. Setting to high levels will introduce grain into the picture, this in the photography world is called “noise.”
• Shutter Speed – The shutter is the mechanism that lets in light onto the image sensor, it operates by closing and opening. Adjusting shutter speed exposes the sensor to light for longer or shorter periods of time. This is useful in real estate photography when you have a room that is poorly lit and adjusting the shutter speed to a longer time will let in more light onto the sensor.
• Aperture – Sometimes called the iris of the camera, it’s made up of multiple blades ranging from 5 to 14. It also controls the depth of focus in your picture. We recommend shooting at a aperture of  f8-f11 capturing focus throughout the room.

Preparing Your List of Shots

It’s always good to have a game plan when approaching a project. Here at Photo House we like to think about the shots that will showcase the real estate property to its maximum potential; our motto is less is more.

Areas to Focus On

• Any special architecture that stands out to the eye – These can be staircases, sunrooms, guest houses or a beautiful mud room.
• Bedrooms
• Master Bedroom
• Bathrooms
• Dining Room
• Kitchen – Used to entertain guests and a lot of time gets spent in this area so feel free to shoot multiple angles.
• Street View
• Backyard – A lot of time this can showcase a lifestyle of the “good life.” Like lounging around drinking mojitos at the swimming pool. Remember people buy on emotion so with your photography make them feel that this can be them.
• And last but not least, view’s that the real estate property has.

Identifying the Best Angles

If it’s your first time doing your own real estate photography go trigger happy! Take multiple angles from different heights and then go back and see what you like best. This is very critical because here you can use certain angles to your advantage to make things appear bigger or cut certain things out of the frame you don’t want. At Photo House it’s our job to figure out what those shots are but just like anything in life, after countless hours of doing this we just kind of have an eye for it.

Best Height to Shoot Real Estate Photography

Remember photography is subjective, meaning that what you find looks good another person might not. The rule of thumb that we use is generally around 5 feet depending what’s in front of the camera. This height gives a sweet spot for indoors showing not too much floor and not too much ceiling.

NOTE: This height is for standard 8ft high ceiling; adjust properly for commercial properties or high ceilings.

Lighting

“to-may -to, to-mah-to” Right? No!!! Not with lighting! Light bulbs range differently on the Kelvin Color Temperature Scale. Lights give off “warm” or “cool” light giving a house different aesthetics. The goal here is to have a common look throughout the house, if mismatching bulbs are in place editing during post processing can easily adjust that. Basic functions of a camera is to capture light, adjust indoor lights and flash to best show off the characteristics of the house.

How to Shoot HDR Photos Like a Pro

Another issue that you will encounter is exposure from outside/inside, with HDR photography you take multiple picture of the same frame and merge them in post processing in order to capture a higher range of light. When taking HDR photos a tripod is necessary, without it you’re setting yourself up for failure. With not moving the camera take multiple exposures (controlled with shutter speed) and make sure you set a timer delay so that any shake from pressing the button stops.

Editing

In addition, having to compensate for exposure you also want to color correct the image. Fluorescent lightbulbs give off a cooler (blue) spectrum of light and tungsten giving off warm (orange), a process called masking also takes place in Photo Shop to get rid of any unnecessary shadows or light. The goal of editing is to make the photograph look the closest to what the human eye sees.

Straight Lines and Distortion

In photography having straight lines is more pleasing to the eye, Real Estate Photography is no different. Distortion happens because of the wide angle lens. Since the wide angle lens needs to capture more in the frame it has a bigger convex angle element, therefore distorting and making straight lines appear curved at the edges. This can be corrected in the geometry section of Light Room, keep in mind this will only correct small distortions.

Room Prep

We can talk about a number of reasons why you should declutter and tidy up the property but we will just focus on the major ones and IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD!!

A cluttered house will make the rooms appear smaller than they really are. So put away anything that doesn’t need to be there and make the most of the space.

Also a cluttered room is very distracting. It can take away from the detail of what you’re trying to showcase. For example if you want to show off that beautiful mudroom that we talked about; having shoes, jackets and helmets everywhere won’t help and it will be impossible to draw the eye to the fact that there is a mud room!!

Styling, We all can’t be Martha Stuart

When it comes to styling and the appearance, you want to keep a couple of things in mind.  First, furniture isn’t always placed to make the room look large but instead for comfort and necessity to fit our lifestyle.

When furnishing rooms you want to capitalize on the space, moving a couple things here and there to open the room up goes a long way. In real estate photography showcasing the space is very important, space = décor and its possibilities to make the home “ Yours.” In addition, you don’t want to declutter so much that the house feels cold. You want to make it easier for the buyers to picture their belongings in the house and that’s hard to do when there is so much “stuff ” in the way. Also depersonalize the house, removing family photos and personal belongings like toothbrushes, pictures etc. People don’t want to see someone else’s life in the house they want to vision theirs. They want to imagine their life in the home so help them out and scan through the house and put away anything that might be in the way. Leave just enough items to soften the edges and style the rooms.

Should You Hire a Real Estate Photographer?

Internet data shows that 90 percent of Americans go shopping for real estate online.  With majority of Americans going online for their searches, it’s more important than ever to have high quality real estate photographs. This can be the difference between selling a property within a week or months. Take a couple of things into consideration.

• Time – How much free time do you really have? With only 24hr a day we have to choose wisely how to spend those precious minutes. If you’re just a first time photographer, you have to learn how to use your camera and its software. Then you have to take into account the time it takes to photograph the real estate property you’re trying to list on the market. For first time photographers the learning curve can take up to 12 hours, when in a time crunch it’s probably not your best option. If you value your time at 20 dollars an hour it’s already cheaper to hire a professional.
• ROI – If you’re starting from scratch you will have to spend money on equipment. Entry level cameras that are the best for the job star at around $500, then a tri-pod and a lens. You’re looking at about a $2000 dollar investment. In addition to spending the money and time you should plan to get a return on your purchase. Depending on what situation your in take into consideration the opportunity cost it would take you to do everything on your own.