Real Estate Photography - Kicked my butt today!!!

[Tailgunner]

...My little lighting operation of 2 speed lights, 3-PW triggers and stands set me back $1,000.

You can do a LOT with two speedlights when you employ them to best advantage!

Yes sir, I'm just some folks may not have the cash flow for a pair of speed lights and triggers. So HDR is a good alternative.

 

[Parker219]

OP- Definitely post some of your work!

 

[MichaelHenson]

I will hopefully later this evening. I only had 30 minutes to reshoot today due to prior obligations. Got to the house and realized the batteries in my flash were dead so I had to expose for the outside windows and pray my on camera flash did the rest. Fortunately, the house is tiny so it wasn't far off. I'll post in a bit...

 

[manaheim]

I'd say the window-licking bunny pretty much nailed it, but I will dispute his recommendation of HDR for backlit windows. Bring enough light into the room that you can create the proper exposure in one frame instead! It really is about the little things - I recently did a consult for an RE shoot for a BIG (>$1.5 million) sale and when I suggested that the couple remove the blue blind and the dusty pink blind right beside each other in the formal living room and replace them both with matching white ones, they looked like I was reading the Ten Commandments!

Hm, you know I never really considered that, but I only have two flashes. I've seen some folks do setups with 6-8 per room. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I decided the setup time would probably be more than the time it took me to rip off 5-6 exposures and HDR them... but that's partly because I'm not that good at off-camera lighting. Translation: I took the lazy way out.

Shooting multiple exposures is great...or if you have the dynamic range of the D5300 or better, then you can take 1 RAW photo, decrease the highlights, and increase the shadows, to get something like this...

Bayshore-Condo-13 by linktheworld219, on Flickr

Well, you've got my attention... you ripped that off with a single HDR shot from a D5300? Seriously? This is in-camera HDR?

Also, thanks manaheim for the tips and examples. Those shots look great! I see that a decent chunk of the corner the camera is set up in is cut off but the house is large enough that it doesn't seem to be a problem. That's what leads me to think that the smaller the room the more I should consider a lower angle?

And therein lies the trick. That room is not NEARLY as big as it looks. Get way in the corner and shoot deep into the room... and if you have a second room beyond it, all the better. It will make the rooms look huge, which is a big draw for house hunters. I once shot a house for a friend during a down market. The RE agent said that she had more people show up that day than any listing in months, and by a factor of 3x. She said a good 1/2 of them said the pictures were what brought them there.

This was also the same RE agent who balked when I said I'd charge $400 for the service, which gets me back to my point about making sure you charge enough. $400 is COMPLETELY reasonable for the amount of work involved... and ... in fact... it's cheap. I should be charging closer to $600 or even 800, depending on the size of the home. But RE agents are used to snapping shots with their cell phones, or paying some yahoo $50 to do it. $50? I mean, gas money alone for most places is going to cost $10 minimum.

Insanity.

 

[MichaelHenson]

Alright, here we go! Disclaimer: I know that these are completely amateur and probably more horrible than I even realize. With that in mind, I know that there's no way for me to get better without facing the music and getting some critique and tips from you guys.

That being said, here are my shots. These are a combination of those that turned out "okay" from yesterday and those that were "okay" from today. I didn't take the time to do and HDR shots in-camera and haven't tackled HDR in Photoshop/Photomatix. (Sorry if it's a photo overload...any thoughts/insights are GREATLY appreciated.)

1035 Sherman-26 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-20 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-18 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-17 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-14 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-12 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-9 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-5 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

1035 Sherman-7 by mhenson1104, on Flickr

 

[MichaelHenson]

And therein lies the trick. That room is not NEARLY as big as it looks. Get way in the corner and shoot deep into the room... and if you have a second room beyond it, all the better. It will make the rooms look huge, which is a big draw for house hunters. I once shot a house for a friend during a down market. The RE agent said that she had more people show up that day than any listing in months, and by a factor of 3x. She said a good 1/2 of them said the pictures were what brought them there.

This was also the same RE agent who balked when I said I'd charge $400 for the service, which gets me back to my point about making sure you charge enough. $400 is COMPLETELY reasonable for the amount of work involved... and ... in fact... it's cheap. I should be charging closer to $600 or even 800, depending on the size of the home. But RE agents are used to snapping shots with their cell phones, or paying some yahoo $50 to do it. $50? I mean, gas money alone for most places is going to cost $10 minimum.

Insanity.

The shots I just posted are pretty mashed into the corner...and at near head height it cuts off the bulk of the room (again, this house's rooms are tiny). Regarding cost, that's part of the reason I'm examining all my options, HDR, RAW w. adjustments, etc. The research I've done shows several real estate photographers in the area starting pricing at $125 for small homes and incrementally increasing (and their photos look AMAZING). I'm not sure I'm going to be able to compete on quality for a while (just being realistic, not pessimistic), so charging what the recommendations I've seen kicked around here doesn't seem to be possible at the moment anyway. My goal is to use some of the contacts I have and work my way into staying busy at lower prices and then work on increasing my offerings and prices once I'm established. Therein lies the beauty of in-camera HDR for me, or utilizing a minimal off-camera flash setup, to minimize my shooting/processing time because I'm not going to be able to charge a premium.

 

[Parker219]

OP- What equipment are you using?

 

[MichaelHenson]

OP- What equipment are you using?

D5200 kit 18-55mm lens on all these. Some were shot with the on-camera flash, some were shot with a Yonguo 560ii before the batteries died.

 

[480sparky38 37]

Nikon D5200 and 18-55mm kit lens.

18mm on a DX body really isn't that wide.

 

[Parker219]

C&C per request...

1. This image quality is pretty bad. It looks like a cell phone pic more than it looks like a pic with a D5200. You had a bad sky to begin with, but you either over exposed it at the time of shooting it, or you processed it pretty badly. The grass looks really off. If a shot looks dark, you cant just up the exposure, its more than likely the shadows and highlights that need to be adjusted. If you post the RAW or even the original file and allow editing, I might be able to show you better than explaining it.


2. Not bad. I'd say this is the most successful out of the bunch.

3. This isn't bad either, but it really is not wide enough. Unless you are using at least 2 pics of the kitchen, 1 that is wider, and 1 like this just to show the cabinets/ flat top.

4. You REALLY don't want to use any shots that you can see your reflection in. You need to find another angle for this, or clone yourself out in post processing. NOT a photo worth charging money for.

5. This shot looks too warm and photo looks too cold. I would go somewhere in between.

6. Um...I guess if you HAD to show this small bathroom, then not much you can do.

7. Your lens is not wide enough to show the room size.

8. Not horrible.

9. Horrible. Not sure what happened with this one. Was this a cell phone pic?


I understand that your subject was not much to work with. This is obviously a low end house. However, if you are working your way up, you need to treat every house like a million dollar house, so you can master your technique. That way, when you do get a nicer house, you will be ready.

Keep at it.


By the way, can you afford the Nikon 10-24 DX lens?

 

[MichaelHenson]

C&C per request...

1. This image quality is pretty bad. It looks like a cell phone pic more than it looks like a pic with a D5200. You had a bad sky to begin with, but you either over exposed it at the time of shooting it, or you processed it pretty badly. The grass looks really off. If a shot looks dark, you cant just up the exposure, its more than likely the shadows and highlights that need to be adjusted. If you post the RAW or even the original file and allow editing, I might be able to show you better than explaining it.


2. Not bad. I'd say this is the most successful out of the bunch.

3. This isn't bad either, but it really is not wide enough. Unless you are using at least 2 pics of the kitchen, 1 that is wider, and 1 like this just to show the cabinets/ flat top.

4. You REALLY don't want to use any shots that you can see your reflection in. You need to find another angle for this, or clone yourself out in post processing. NOT a photo worth charging money for.

5. This shot looks too warm and photo looks too cold. I would go somewhere in between.

6. Um...I guess if you HAD to show this small bathroom, then not much you can do.

7. Your lens is not wide enough to show the room size.

8. Not horrible.

9. Horrible. Not sure what happened with this one. Was this a cell phone pic?


I understand that your subject was not much to work with. This is obviously a low end house. However, if you are working your way up, you need to treat every house like a million dollar house, so you can master your technique. That way, when you do get a nicer house, you will be ready.

Keep at it.


By the way, can you afford the Nikon 10-24 DX lens?

1. I'm totally okay with you editing it! Not quite sure how to upload the original file here? It's 26MB in Lightroom. If I had to guess, I'd say my processing killed it...I think I did more with exposure than I did with shadows/highlights. I'll play with it some more and see what I can come up with.

6. That's the "master bathroom" and the other one is worse...

7. Yeah, therein lies some of my struggle. If I understand my 3 minutes of crop sensor research I'm actually at 27mm with my 18mm, right? Regarding your suggestion of the 10-24 lens, would I run into distortion that would need to be correct in processing? On my crop sensor, I'm looking at 15mm at the widest, right?

Yeah, the subject isn't great but the guy offered to give me access to practice in. I'm not charging for this (didn't even think about it!) and treating it like a million dollar house was the goal...thus this thread. I really appreciate your help! And I'll be looking into trying to afford the 10-24mm...

 

[Scatterbrained]

......................................

Well, you've got my attention... you ripped that off with a single HDR shot from a D5300? Seriously? This is in-camera HDR?
................................

Insanity.

Somewhat off topic, but I would recommend you get your hands on a raw file from one of the newer exmor sensor equipped Nikon cameras. What you can pull out of the shadows cleanly with them is amazing (and this is coming from a Canon shooter).

Here are a pair of Lightroom screengrabs I did from D800 files to show the amazing amount of latitude those sensors have:

​

This one was pushed 5 stops and then the highlights were pulled down as far as Lr would allow. The final image is as clean as you'd like.

This is the same thing, the exposure was for the light outside, then the image was pushed 5 stops with highlights pulled all the way down.

​

 

[MichaelHenson]

1035 Sherman - FrontNewEdit by mhenson1104, on Flickr

Started over, left exposure alone...Reduced shadows/highlights a bit and adjust the tone curve a bit.

 

[480sparky38 37]

Regarding your suggestion of the 10-24 lens, would I run into distortion that would need to be correct in processing? On my crop sensor, I'm looking at 15mm at the widest, right?............

If you're referring to keystoning, depends on how level you hold the camera towards the scene. The more you aim up or down, the more you need to correct.

Other lens options are the Tokina 11-16, Tamron 10-24 and Sigma 10-20.

 

[MichaelHenson]

......................................

Well, you've got my attention... you ripped that off with a single HDR shot from a D5300? Seriously? This is in-camera HDR?
................................

Insanity.

Somewhat off topic, but I would recommend you get your hands on a raw file from one of the newer exmor sensor equipped Nikon cameras. What you can pull out of the shadows cleanly with them is amazing (and this is coming from a Canon shooter).

Here are a pair of Lightroom screengrabs I did from D800 files to show the amazing amount of latitude those sensors have:

​

This one was pushed 5 stops and then the highlights were pulled down as far as Lr would allow. The final image is as clean as you'd like.

This is the same thing, the exposure was for the light outside, then the image was pushed 5 stops with highlights pulled all the way down.

​

That's what went wrong with the noisy last pic. I'd love a D800...and maybe someday I'll have one. Those screenshots are pretty convincing!