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I’m getting close to starting a small real estate photography business, (partnering with some local companies) and I have a few photos that I’ve recently taken. Any thoughts?
Two were taken at the Chief Vann House in Chatsworth, GA, and the other one is of our living room.
- This topic was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .
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Good job!! I am not a real estate photographer, but here are some things that I noticed.
The first one: I would say zoom out a little more. The lighting is super cool, but maybe a touch underexposed.
The second one: The tree/bench area on the left is nice, but the house needs to be on the left side of the pic, not on the right. And maybe include a little more room on the bottom of the pic.
The third one: Zoom out more and use a wider angle lens to include more of the living room. Maybe shoot as you are coming in the door, so you are showing the viewer exactly what he will see when he opens the door.
Great job! I hope your business opportunity is a go!!! 🙂@jinnyschober, ok, thanks for the insight!
As a real estate photographer and real estate broker, I think I can probably help you a bit. Here are some of my thoughts:
Real estate photography has a very specific purpose: to create a desire to go see and eventually purchase a property. Depending on the agent, that can be approached in different ways.
Photo #1 is not a real estate photo. It is a nice photo of a piano, but the piano doesn’t come with the house, and doesn’t tell us anything about the property for sale.
Photo #2 is more informative, and I like how it shows more than just the house, as it seems there is a nice back yard. Being crooked however does not help to create a desire to see the property and creates a sense of imbalance. This is fortunately very easy to correct in post.
Photo #3 is a somewhat typical photo of a home interior. There are several things that would need improving, however. (uncomfortably low camera height, dark outside, poor lighting, colour casting, verticals off, etc) Remember that real estate agents won’t hire you unless your photos can make them (the agent) look better. That means your photos must be significantly better than what the average person can take. Don’t worry, as a photographer it won’t take you long to get there, with a few simple tips. Here are a few to get you started:
1) Keep all your verticals vertical.
In-camera this is done by levelling the camera both directions. It can also be done in post.2) Use composition and lighting to create positive feelings.
Camera height and placement are generally the only way of changing composition, although there is sometimes the option of moving objects in the house. Lighting is no doubt the biggest challenge of any real estate photographer. Colour casting is a big issue (green light coming from the window with the tree outside, blue light coming from the other window, three different shades of orange light coming from the different light fixtures, etc), and can be somewhat mitigated in editing, but ideally you want to get the light and colour as close to perfect as possible in-camera.3) Find out what your competition is offering, and how you can stand out from the rest.
Does your competition offer drone photography? (see this company for example) How is their quality? What is their price? How quickly do they deliver photos? How long do they take per house? How soon can they get the home photographed?4) Check out https://photographyforrealestate.net
There is a wealth of information and resource recommendations there, and it is generally pretty clean, although occasionally the language in some of the comments isn’t great.5) Practice makes perfect
You will want to get enough experience on your own home and your friends’ homes so that when you go in to your first paid job you won’t feel overwhelmed or overconfident. Keep critiquing your own work and thinking about how you could have done better. And sometimes it is good to get an outside opinion, too. Don’t get discouraged – my first real estate photos were certainly not better that yours! And, although they are not where I would like them to be, I can definitely see a lot of improvement, and people are hiring me. When you are beginning, a good piece of advice can be found in Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” If you don’t make anything the first few times, but succeed in making the people you are serving happy it is a good start, and they are more likely to come back and ask you to do some more.@dfrazer, thank you very much! I’ll be purchasing an editing system soon, because right now, all I use is the program that’s on Apple computers.
@rmadaris, sorry I’m rather late seeing this… As far as software goes, I personally use Photomatix Pro 6 (about 100 USD – they also have a trial version) and Darktable (free). I also occasionally use Gimp (free).
Here is how I started:
Most of my work was shot in aperture mode, and bracketed -2 0 +2 although I occasionally need more, and sometimes I add some flash in. On the D3200 you will have to bracket manually (hold down the +/- button, scroll to -2, take a picture, scroll to 0, take a picture, scroll to +2, take a picture) I would then batch all those pictures through Photomatix in “fusion – natural” mode, and do the editing in Darktable (straighten verticals, crop, tone curve, brightness, colour correction, etc). Gimp is great for replacing grey skies and any cloning work. I deliver a final size of 2400 pixels, although if your local real estate board resizes to 1024, there is probably not much point in delivering larger unless by special request.You may find that 18mm is a little too narrow for real estate work. Most real estate work is shot between 10mm and 20mm. I use my 11-16 lens the most, followed by my 18-35. I rarely use my 50mm prime in a real estate context, except for detail shots. A 10-30 lens would be idea for real estate work, but as far as I know no such lens exists.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .
You’re right, @hayhand02 that is a Nikon lens, but it is for the Nikon 1 series, and will not work on their DSLRs. Currently, the closest there is that I am aware of is the Tokina 12-28mm f/4.0 (currently 430 USD at B&H).
@dfrazer, thank you! I’m currently looking at a program called Luminar. @hayhand02, thank you! Unfortunately, though, that lens is for Nikon mirrorless cameras, and I use a D7000.
- This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .
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