Real-estate Photoshoot how to get started

Have you ever wondered if you could start shooting real-estate photos and videos for your local agents? Maybe you are a primarily portrait or sports photographer, even a landscape photographer & you have been asked by a local realtor to come shoot a property for them. How do you get started? Do you even have the gear needed? Well Follow along with me on this recent photoshoot to get some of these questions answered!

Some key points to keep in mind:

First let’s talk about about the point of real-estate video. You are strictly providing a service for the realtor or home owner to help sell the property. Time is money for them so speed of shooting the property as well as timely turn around of the final products is important as well. Developing those relationships and providing a consistent service is important.

Next let’s talk about gear. You likely have everything you need to get started if you are already taking photos. Any crop or full frame camera made in the past 10 years or so should work for you. You also need a wide angle lens. for a full frame camera anything in the 14-24 range with 16 sort of being the industry standard. Keep in mind you will also be highlighting key features so may be shooting at 35 or 50 for some highlighted images - but for the most part the room shots will be at around that 16mm to 18mm view. This helps to visualize the whole room in one image. If you are shooting on a crop sensor camera then this means you are looking at a 10-14mm lens, 10mm or 12mm giving you the best view of the room.

Key to using the gear is the importance of obtaining a higher dynamic range in your images - that’s why I said a camera made in the past 10 years or so.

With this in mind, if you choose to shoot bracketed images, all you need is a tripod with a gear or ball head and Lightroom or Photoshop or access to an editor to stack and complete the edit of you images. Likely you are already using some editing software that can handle this. If you choose to use the Flambient method then you need light - this can be flash or constant. If it is a constant light and you are using it for video - purchase one designed for videography. any old led light may not work due to the frequency of the led, and you may get light that gives a vibrating output look.

So how to shoot?

2 widely used methods are the Flambient, (a mixture of ambient and flash) and the HDR, (stacking of bracketed images).

I start on the inside and get 3-4 views of each major room, highlight the key features, (don’t forget to check in with the realtor to see what they want to highlight on the property). 1-2 views of the bedrooms, bathrooms. These are all shot on a tripod some from the corners and some straight on to give a variety and at waist to chest height. I want to be able to see the counter tops, table tops, and over the furniture but also trying to keep the balance of floor and ceiling equal. It is major important to keep horizon and any vertical lines straight or the image will look off balance and the viewer will not like the image.

Finally, I move outside where the camera height can be adjusted more freely to capture the home. I try to get a front elevation straight on then a variety of images from various angles and some from a distance and some from closer to the front door. Same in the rear, a few highlighting the backyard from the backdoor and then some from the rear of the property towards the house.

It can be a s simple as this. I personally use bracketed images and flambient methods depending on the need of the property. I use a Nikon D810 with a Sigma Art 14-24mm f 2.8 lens. My tripod is a large carbon fiber tripod with a Manfroto ball head.