Given the demand for real estate photography your product output, consistency and agent experience will ensure you are the first point of call for agents battling for homeowners attention.
We have shared 5 real estate photography tips & tricks from successful photographers to help you within this competitive industry.
1. Create A Real Estate Photography Standard Shot List
To maintain a consistent styled real estate photography portfolio, stay organized with a shot list. Though every property will be different, having a general list is ideal to reference in every project. In general, a shot list should include:
- One photo per bathroom (unless the bathroom is spacious or luxurious enough to issue more)
- Two wide-angled shots of the bedrooms, living room, and kitchen
- Up to three photos of the exterior landscape
- One photo per pantry, closet, garage, and laundry room
- If you have a drone, then up to three aerial shots
2. Perform A Pre-Shoot Site Walkthrough
Set aside 30 minutes to an hour to walk through the property so you can get a good sense of the space. The walkthrough will also allow you to plan what resources you’ll need for lighting, and potentially support staging efforts. Make note of the property’s unique features along with areas that you feel will be more of a challenge to shoot so you can brainstorm angle/lighting solutions ahead of time.
During this walk through you will also be able to quickly take items out of the shot to declutter. Do not be afraid to suggest hiding of a few items for a better shot, after-all you are the expert.
3. Prepare Gear The Night Before
Preparation is key! There is nothing worse when you forget a critical piece of equipment for a shoot. You could try wing it, or take note of some of our shared tips below:
- Ensure that you are on time, looking where you are going prior to the job.
- Charge all batteries the night before, as well as checking your memory of your camera.
- Do you have spare gear you can bring such as a second camera
- Run over access instructions left by the customer
4. Use A Wide-Angle Lens and Keep Frames Straight
With the human eye generally seeing the world in a 4:3 aspect ratio, real estate photographers tend to favour wide-angle lenses. Ultimately, these lenses enable potential buyers to see more of a surrounding in one given spot than they would in real-time, giving the essence of spaciousness environments.
No matter the angle, keeping your camera frames straight is critical. If not you will then need to photoshop the images to straighten them up.
If you do not trust your hands, a tripod really helps with reducing distortion as well as leveraging your grid settings on your camera for image balancing assurance.
5. Optimizing Lighting
What type of lighting you wish to capture does depend on the result you are looking for. If you are wanting to produce a warm space, leaving the light on will assist with this. Vice versa with the lights off, it will produce a cooler result.
Natural lighting is always preferred, however if natural lighting is sparse using the flash will help. You can turn the flash so it bounces off the wall behind you or above you to try diffuse the light source, no one likes a solo bright area in the middle of the room!