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Archive 2014 · Real Estate Photo Critiques

  
 
ptrautne
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


I am thinking about getting into real estate photography so I took some practice shots in my house and want to get some opinions from others of what I could do different. Pictures were taken with canon 5D Mark III with sigma 12-24mm and a speedlite 430EXII off camera flash to light the rooms. The bedrooms I did 3 different exposures and merged with Photomatix in lightroom 4.






















Mar 16, 2014 at 08:52 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


There are a few challenges with interiors as you're likely to be rapidly experiencing.

1) Balancing interior lighting with exterior lighting (both in exposure and in WB)
2) Distortion / geometric perspective
3) Falloff of lighting / shadows

Looking at your windows, you have pretty good balance to the external ambient exposure. It is a peeve of mine when the windows are blown out, so I appreciate your effort to balance them here (hopefully by controlled intent rather than merely fortuitous @ time of day). Possibly a plus from bracketing / Photomatix as well, but however, the balance of interior/exterior DR is something that for me is meritable endeavor.

For lighting, I use a globe, or kick flash out of the corners/back wall behind me. The reason I do this is to make the light travel farther around the room. This of course "eats light", but it also changes the falloff pattern of the light as your light transitions from one end of the room to the other. The down side is that you can pick up color cast (correctable in pp) from your wall colors. I try light from opposing ends, ambient from the windows and flash kicked from the other end ... allowing the two light sources to falloff into each other @ cross lighting. This also can help with a smoother transition in WB from the two varying light sources if your room is imparting a cast.

Distortion ... wider is better, so you can see more ... not always the case. Bent lines and exaggerated foreshortening of trivial things (like door handles) have a way of detracting from your presentation. You certainly can use foreshortening to draw the eye to key features, but be wary of how it is a double edged sword.

Learning to use the Skew command in PS is key for straightening lines for me. Sometimes you have to pick and choose view vs. distortion. Personally, I'd rather piece a room together with two different views and nominal distortion/falloff than have one view with distortion/falloff. RE photography is a challenging genre to do well and the learning curve is something to contend with, but if you're observant to your cause/effect relationships, you'll learn what NOT TO DO, as well as what TO DO. For me, the NOT TO DO's can be more telling.

More to it than meets the eye at first thought, but those are a few of my initial thoughts.





Mar 16, 2014 at 09:39 AM
ptrautne
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


I exposed for the windows and used the flash with a Sto-Fen flash diffuser shot from just behind the lens pointed at the ceiling to prevent lens flare. I tried just using HDR with no flash to start with and I was having a hard time with color cast due to each room having different color lights so I found it was easier to use the flash to overpower the room lights. I currently only have 1 flash but if I had 2 I could have put one in the bathroom to reduce the yellow light coming from the room. Do you feel I went too wide to the point that the perspective distortion is distracting? I was thinking I was a little too wide on the master bedroom but wanted to get other opinions.


Mar 16, 2014 at 09:54 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


Kudo's for quickly figuring out that light is your friend vs. expecting HDR to be the miracle worker (although it can lend a hand at times).

+1 @ flash vs. room lights.
If the lights are a key feature, then I may snap a second exposure that lets them shine and put them on a layer to allow them to be seen. Balancing the lighting vs. doing it in post ... more than one way to skin the cat, and you'll learn your own approach preferences depending on the situations you run in to.

As to the yellow light coming from the bathroom ... the fact that you recognize the color diff it presents is about a million miles above where most folks start.

No worries about the lack of second light here (although I do have more than one and will put them in other rooms as noted). Some color correction and a gradient mask to feather it in concert with the falloff is pretty easy in pp for such a small variance. Of course, you can always go the other way and use it for creative draw (when desired).

Here's just a little bit of tweak on the crop, skew (note the picture) and the WB @ the bathroom door, and just a tweak at USM for sharpening (soft light offset).

Imo, studying your light colors and finding your (important) neutrals to mitigate cast is where you can separate yourself from walkthrough P&S (although I've got a buddy who does use a P&S very well with a couple of strobes triggered by the P&S dinky flash) RE pics. The same goes for falloff/distortion ... and those NASTY CYAN casts from under-lit rooms being filled with skylight WB casts from outside that all all over a zillion RE sites... BLECH !!! CHOKE !!! PUKE !!! GAG !!!

Sorry ... I digressed a bit.

Some folks take pictures of people ... and then there are portrait photographers that study their craft and know how to showcase desired characteristics, while minimizing the lesser desirable ones through the tools of their craft @ light & lens, posing, etc..

Likewise, some folks take pictures of rooms ... and then there are those who treat the room/building like a portrait that craft the image, rather than snap a pic. I gather you'll do well as the former with study and observation through your learning curve.

As you progress into RE, you'll find that the alignment of time to output / expectations can be a balancing act. I usually try to shoot about 20% - 30% of the images to be "portrait of a room" style and 50% documentary style to balance those things out and yet still let my RE agents know that I'm worth the extra $$$ beyond the P&S walkthrough shooters.

When I first started, I set out to do 100% of all rooms @ 100% "portraiture" ... about killed me, but killed my timeliness to produce and took too long in the homes. So I learned to pick my battles, and now I don'[t even shoot 100% of the rooms (I mean, if a home has 5 bedrooms, do we really need to see all 4 of the non-master rooms to get their vibe when they are cookie cutter).

For me, I've adopted a philosophy akin to a well dressed woman's attire ... strikingly enough to catch your interest and showcase her beauty ...yet, leave you wanting to go behind closed doors to see the rest. But, that will of course depend a bit on what your RE agents want you to produce for them as well. Some think MORE IS BETTER. Others want a few AWESOME shots and let the carrot dangle for the rest. You kinda have to be able to present either approach.

One thing to bear in mind ... RE agents have timeliness guidelines for MLS listing. Be sensitive to that. A lack of doing so will yield you a rep of unprofessional pretty quick in some circles. As with most things, show your strengths, minimize your weaknesses.

HTH ... GL

BTW ... I'd have no problem presenting this one. PP is part of the puzzle to be embraced along with the field challenges. Do you best (which ain't always perfect, that's fer sure) in the field, then finish it off in post to showcase the best with your best.






Edited on Mar 16, 2014 at 11:23 AM · View previous versions



Mar 16, 2014 at 10:46 AM
ptrautne
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


Thanks for the time you took to explain everything, I did not notice the picture skew till you said something. I will continue to experiment to see what technique works the best. I took pictures for a friend of mine over a year ago when I rented the sigma lens and my realtor expressed interest in having me take pictures for her. I just sold some stuff and purchased the sigma lens so now I am trying to fine tune my picture process before trying to find jobs. Every time I take a picture I learn more and more and critiques like this help a lot to find stuff that I missed or overlooked. Thanks again!


http://ptrautne.smugmug.com/Architecture/MLSBC8063638-51-Overbrook-Rd



Mar 16, 2014 at 11:22 AM
ptrautne
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


Also one more question, what size photos (pixels and mb size limit) do you give the realtor? The pictures I did for my friend took 3 tries to get it right because the realtor did not know the size requirements for the MLS system.


Mar 16, 2014 at 11:27 AM
Bob Jarman
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Real Estate Photo Critiques


In addition to all that has been said, for real estate, space, or the perception of space, sells. The perspective on these gives me a sense of everything in the room being pushed against the far wall and into a corner at the same time. The beds dominate the rooms, making all else look smaller in comparison. Given the apparent small room size in your sample, you've given yourself quite a challenge.

Take advantage of mirrors and lights - notice how mirrors perceptually enlarge a space (mirrors on sliding closet doors in small rooms for example) and that Realtors instruct to have all lights turned on for a showing...in fact they often forget (perhaps intentionally) to turn them off when leaving.

Good luck!

Bob



Mar 16, 2014 at 01:59 PM





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