Last month, I had the opportunity to pick the brains of a professional real estate photographer as I followed him around on a couple real-world jobs!

It was so amazing. I learned so much! I’m so grateful he allowed me to come, ask questions and even take video while I was there! Here’s the inside scoop on one of the photoshoots we did at a model home:

 

Takeaways & Behind the Scenes Insights:

• The main camera and lens Daniel now uses (after having upgraded several times) is the Sony A7RIII with the 16-35mm lens.
• Focus peaking is just a cool feature that saves time and gives you peace of mind, but it certainly isn’t a necessary feature.
• It’s a good idea to shoot interiors at chest height versus head height.
• If you’re not using a tilt-shift lens, you can keep walls and ceilings from appearing slanted by keeping the camera level on both vertical and horizontal axes.
• I had never really thought about the difference between “real estate” photography and “architectural” photography. They are very similar in many ways, but they are completely different in other ways, like your photographic approach, what you shoot, how much time you spend shooting, and how much you charge for the job….the purpose for the pictures are just completely different.
• Guess what? He’s shooting in full Manual mode. If you’re not comfortable shooting in full Manual right now, that’s the next thing you need to learn.
• One of the biggest takeaways for me was that he shoots pretty much everything at f/7.1. That’s not what I was expecting. Up to this point, I had thought it necessary to shoot all interiors at like f/22.
• To see where Daniel placed his flashes for each shot was utterly fascinating! At first I was completely perplexed….he was placing them in the most random places….but after taking a look at the shots he was getting, I started understanding why he was doing what he was doing! Flash placement would be a great topic to research one of these days.
• When using bounce flash, the color of light will be the same color as the object you are bouncing the flash off of.
• It was neat to learn that he used the windows as his base exposure and then used the flashes to fill in. I guess that’s how he determined what power to set his flash(es) to.
• Shooting the photos from his iPad was the most awesome thing ever! I’m so totally going to find a way to set this up for my camera.

So, next time I plan to do an architecture interior photoshoot (and if I decide to buy some of the same cheap flashes that he used), I’ll be sure to remember to follow this general pattern for each shot:

1. Set up a good angle
2. Make sure I’ve got proper focus
3. Figure out the right lighting
4. Take the final shot!