Category: Real Estate Photography

According to a report called Emerging Trends in Real Estate®2021 for the US and Canada published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), over 90% of the respondents believed that companies would continue to allow remote work-from-home setups for employees in the future. The work-from-home trend boosted the demand for homes outside of urban and industrialized areas.

Employees have relocated to rural areas or the suburbs due to social distancing protocols. The 2021 market movement has increased the demand for outdoor real estate photography as more people are looking for permanent dwellings. Listing photographs have become competitive with most real estate deals happening online.

What Makes Excellent Property Photos

There are thousands of ways to take great photos, and you can make the most out of every element available. You can showcase a scenic mountain backdrop on a sunny day or a nighttime light display. There are no hard and fast rules to outdoor property photography, but there are ways to ensure that you get the best results.

Essential Outdoor Real Estate Photography Tips

1. Preparation before the shoot

Excellent planning allows you to perform better and get ready for any external factors. For starters, think about why you’re shooting the outdoor real estate photos and what you’re going to do with them. You may want to post the pictures on a listing website, or you may put it up for lease.

Here are some of the things you should prepare before the shoot:

• Clean and declutter the property.
• Decide on your equipment such as wide lens, drone, diffuser, lighting equipment, tripod, etc.
• Think of a concept or focal point in your shoot.

Your primary reason will determine the production style, composition, and equipment needed.

2. Straighten the horizon

The horizon should form a straight line to avoid awkward angles. If you can’t see the horizon, check out the topmost part of the lawn or landscape and make sure it’s a straight horizontal line. This simple reminder ensures that you’re practicing the correct perspective in your photo.

3. Check the weather forecast or season

Outdoor photoshoots are heavily dependent on the weather. Everything from the sun to the clouds will dictate the quality of your photo. While diffusers and artificial light can make up for cloudy days, you’d want to conduct the shoot while the sun is high and bright.

4. Highlight unique features

Compose the outdoor photoshoot from your potential buyer’s perspective to effectively deliver your message. Select a few angles or features in the property or surrounding that would tell a good story.

Here are some of the questions you should consider:

• Who are your target buyers?
• Why would they buy or rent your property?
• Are they planning to stay short-term or long-term?

You can include the surrounding imagery in the shoot if you’re planning to sell the property as a whole.

5. Post-production

Lastly, spend time and effort in post-production, especially when you’re planning on posting the pictures online. Raw images are only suitable for personal or family use. If you want to publish your photos, you will need to edit them.

Here are some of the standard post-production processes:

• Soften rough textures.
• Apply a blurring effect to illustrate the depth.
• Remove awkward elements like shadows or trash.
• Enhance the colors of the roof or garden.

You need to check how your images look when zoomed in, regardless of how beautiful they appear on the viewfinder or preview.

Competitive Real Estate Photos

Professionally done outdoor property photos are visually appealing to buyers. Images showcasing landscapes and unique property features have higher chances of being selected. Enhance the brightness and color levels to stand out and sell the property faster.

The concept of photography is all about capturing a certain subject or landscape to preserve a specific moment. To do this, most photographers opt to blur the subject’s background to add distinction to the main attraction of the photo.

Moreover, they use it to provide emphasis to the subject’s entirety. With the right instructions, a photographer can grasp this technique easily.

The blurring of the background is referred to as the depth of field (DOF). In a nutshell, the depth of field provides direction to photographers for them to know whether the subject or the entire frame is focused, or if only a certain part of the scene is blurred.

While this technique is effectively utilized in any kind of photography, it is more applicable to real estate photography. The proper utilization of the camera’s depth of field will showcase the property’s highlights, mainly focusing on the marketable features that the house has.

The depth of field is highly reliant on the camera’s capability to work well with light.

First, the camera lens redirects the available light to the camera’s sensor. Then, the pieces of glass within the lens will adjust the light rays, motioning for them to meet at the image sensor. When the points of light meet at the sensor, it indicates that the subject is in focus.

Meanwhile, the points of light that meet before or after the image sensor are considered blurry or out of focus. It requires patience and attention to detail as each turn of the lens or any slight movement may skew the achieved focus.

The focus is also determined by the photographer’s distance to the subject. Using a camera lens with a longer focal length may produce a narrow angle view, with the image’s focal point being farther than usual.

On the other hand, a lens with a shallow focal length can also be a substitute for a wide angle lens, which captures a wider view, but doesn’t necessarily emphasize the scene’s details. If the real estate photographer is photographing the house’s exterior, it is best to use lenses with a shallow focal length, to completely capture the property’s expanse. However, if the main subject is the house’s interiors and salient features, it is recommended to use a longer focal length.

Moreover, the depth of field serves as a guide regarding the certain extent of how the subject will remain sharp. A shallow depth of field can be tricky, for any object straying from the mandated distance will come out blurry.

At the same time, a wider depth of field gives focus to several objects even though the photographer is significantly farther from the subject. The depth of field the photographer will utilize will depend on the level of exposure and emphasis they would like the subject to have.

The camera’s aperture also plays a crucial role. Through this, the photographer can control how much light the camera absorbed through an opening in the lens.

Remember the following:

• The larger the opening, the more light the camera takes in to interconnect more points of light.
• The wider the aperture level, the shorter the distance it requires to produce a sharper subject.
• It is recommended for real estate photographers to use a wider aperture when it comes to focusing on the home’s features, while a smaller aperture level can make almost everything within the frame focused.

Above all, most photographers utilize this technique in order to magnify the central subject or the scene’s entirety while real estate photographers may use this technique to focus on the property’s selling points and specific features, which will effectively catch prospective buyers’ and realtors’ attention.

In photography, panorama is one thing that makes the lives of photographers comfortable and easy.

Using this technique, real estate photographers can stitch out the most compelling images you need for your listings.

But why is panorama critical in real estate photography, and how can you make one?

What is a panorama?

Unless you have the most updated camera, capturing the perfect panorama shot is quite challenging. Hence, it would be useful to know how to do this manually.

So, what is a panorama?

In photography, the panorama is a technique wherein images with single exposures and HDR are stitched together to create one comprehensive picture. Panoramic images show the particular captured image in a broad view – something that a standard camera lens cannot do.

Moreover, panoramic photography is only for wide horizontal images. It is commonly used for landscape photography but is now widespread in real estate photography, cityscape photography, and architecture photography.

Panorama Makers for Real Estate Photographers

Today’s modern cameras have panoramic mode available, but if you still do not have the most updated one, try using a panorama maker.

Check out this list.

1.  PTGui

PTGui is one of the most popular panorama makers with photographers. It has a simplified interface, friendly-user features, and fast processing that makes the perfect panorama images.

Moreover, it is also versatile as it supports many types of lenses and cameras.

The PTGui Pro version supports HDR blending and Exposure-Fusion, which are essential in creating the best sharpness through the frame and blending across the photos’ seams.

Here are some of its pros and cons.

Pros:

• It allows fast adjustment of the projections, including rotation and center.
• Automatically recognizes the camera and lens. Once done, it will calibrate the perfect settings for you.
• Offer a wide range of projections such as the essential rectilinear, the obscure Vedutismo, spherical, “little planet,” and cube face.
• Remove unwanted features and allows you to tweak the control points manually.
• Stitch a 1 Gigapixel panorama in just 25 seconds.

Cons:

• Default settings are unconventional and need a lot of manual adjustments.

2.  Autostitch

Autostitch is a wholesome automatic panorama maker with an easy-to-use interface and functions.

Just click on the File menu, then tap on Open to import photos. This software will automatically work on stitching the pictures in one go.

The usual turnaround time is around two minutes. After this, you should already have a panoramic photo. The matching and blending of edges are generally better in Autostitch than manual operations.

Here are its pros and cons.

Pros:

• A simple and functional interface
• Proven effective in stitching images with superb quality

As for the cons, users worldwide do not have specific complaints when using this tool, so it is up to you to judge.

3.  Panorama Stitcher Mini for PC and Mac

Panorama Stitcher Mini is a favorite of most Mac users when creating a panorama.

Its free version allows users to experiment with how to create a stitched panorama by using an app. Such an app can stitch up to five images and is now compatible with macOS 10.12.

Moreover, it also incorporates lens shading correction for more accurate and realistic colors.

Here are some of its pros and cons:

Pros:

• Fully automated panorama maker application
• Create high-resolution images suitable for large prints such as banners or tarpaulins.

Cons:

• Quick memory draining
• Slow speed

4.  Hugin

Hugin is an open-source panorama photo creation tool. This means it can be easily modified by anyone knowledgeable about open-source software to customize it according to needed features.

It is free software that allows users to fix control points manually. This makes various exposures taken from two types of lenses look natural and smooth.

As for the pros and cons, check the following:

Pros:

• Special free software.
• Easy to install and use
• Final panoramic images are high-quality

Cons:

• It can be challenging to use by beginners
• Bugs are common

So, what do you think? Which of these tools above is your best choice? Let us know below!

In photography, knowing how to capture the perfect images is the main point but knowing the technicalities is another thing to deal with and understand

Learning the art of photography is not always taught in the book. Sometimes, you need to invest more time into learning other things to equip you further in the game.

There are always many things to understand and remember. One of these is the file formats.

When you specialize in real estate photography, it is best to know which file format is the most suitable for your photos. The first step to determining this is by knowing your purpose. Evaluate and try to understand what you are trying to achieve.

Then, try to check which format fits your purpose. As real estate photo editors, having a suitable format is one key to a successful editing process.

It can help a lot in completing the project with the highest quality possible. Take a look at this guide and learn the standard file formats in photography in general.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

JPEG is the most common image file type.

Most documents and websites use this type of image, including those used for printed outputs. Nowadays, it is used mainly in social media, emails, and other marketing campaigns.

One of its advantages is that it takes less space in your memory cards but does not support transparent backgrounds for images, and is more prone to losing some color information.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

The PNG format is the most versatile file format.

It is a lossless file type because it can preserve images without any loss in its quality. This format helps a lot, especially if the photos need a transparent background. However, it is hardly practical if you intend to use it for non-transparent purposes.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

TIFF is the best for the post-processing stage since this format is never compressed.

It is also compatible with almost all image-editing software currently available. You can also have options to support different color standards such as CMYK, RGB, Lab, Indexed Color, and Grayscale Images.

It is best to preserve the image’s quality, primarily if used for high-quality printing. However, it is usually a large file size and  is not always supported by most websites and social media platforms.

PSD (Photoshop Document)

PSD file comes from Adobe Photoshop. It is usually used to save images for further editing.

It is one of the only formats that can save a file with all the existing Photoshop features, including the layers, applied effects, and other healing tools used to beautify the image.

Specifically, you will be able to preserve layers, transparency, adjustments, masks, clipping paths, blending modes, vector text, shapes, gradients, and others, but its downside is that you can only open the file in Photoshop.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

The popular animated image you see online is known as GIF.

It is a popular image format online because of its animation property, which is very useful for diagrams, graphics, logos, and others with limited color range.

Due to its animation effect, it is highly favored by those people who need it for their graphics. Yet, it always has limited features in the color range, which are not best for reproducing high-quality images.

These are the most commonly used file formats that every photo editor can use and experiment with.

There is no written rule about what format you should use, but there are recommended ones you can try. Remember that every format has its use, so it matters you choose what fits most your needs.