composition..that last picture is too level with the countertop..forms a line splitting the pic in the middle.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the feedback and Supe Dave for the link :)

I've got about $5000 worth of camera equipment and at least 1000 hours of learning on Photoshop over past 10 years. I do all my own ads, websites and brochures now and I have a reputation of being good at what I do.

When I photograph a house it takes me all day, average about 500 pics. I arrive with two camera bags, two ladders, a tripod and I often clean/tidy the homes before I start. I always insist on being at the home alone for the day. I really enjoy this part of my job and I love to bring out the marketing features of my properties.

I'll take your advise and move ahead slowly, but I'm going to have to improve if I want to stay on top.

The other software that I use is Infranview, thanks to Mas here on PPOT and I find it very efficient in handling my files in batch formats. I've also perfected the PS batch revisions when I need to make the same changes to a batch of photos. Its taken me a ton of hours to learn how to be most efficient at this, I'm currently running about $30 Million in inventory and its no simple task to process an outstanding marketing presentation for each unique property.

I really do appreciate your help; keep it coming....

www.BIGRob.ca ;)

Do you ever rearrange client homes for the shots? I'm no RE guru, but after our home hadn't sold (6 years back) I rearranged the space for a more . . . adult . . . feel. Everything had been facing the tv prior to the move. After we took pics and updated the ads, the house sold within a month. Forgot this one, ten seconds with MS Photo Editor:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1279254894.jpg

Improving your photography can be done pretty easily. A couple of tips from someone ahead of you can save you tons of learning time. Find a photo forum like City, Still life & Abstract - FM Forums where you can read the threads and post your own work. You'll get criticism, but it'll mostly be constructive and useful.

For example, the first 3 images you posted (by the pro) don't look that great to me. Perhaps getting compressed to post here took a lot out of them, but they don't look very sharp. The white balance looks off to me and they look to be mostly generated with HDR software, giving them a phony look. Most people wouldn't notice, but would notice the brightness and detail.

Image 6 & 7 that you took also lack sharpness, and I doubt that's the fault of your gear. Looks like an EOS Rebel with an 18mm lens from the EXIF data. I would think you could use a wider angle lens- I'm a big fan of the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. There is software that will correct for wide angle distortion nicely. A tilt-shift is overkill IMHO. Those images also seem to have poor white balance, which is something you can learn to watch. Try "chimping" your images as you take them. See if the image on your LCD matches the color of the live scene. Adjust as necessary. If you shoot with a flash, set the white balance to flash and you'll be amazed how accurate it is. Your best work will come from use of multiple flashes. Start shooting in RAW and try adjusting the white balance in processing. I took your images and tweeked the color & contrast, applied a small distortion adjustment and some sharpening. You'll probably realize how warm your white balance was.

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1607065/60c.jpg

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1607066/786.jpg




I would also suggest getting a little better eye for composition. Read up on the Rule of Thirds and move past centering subjects dead center. Also look at the balance of your subject with the surroundings. IMO the house is too small in #8. I cropped away some of the surroundings, also tilted the house to make the roofline perfectly horizontal and sharpened it some.

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1607067/056.jpg




On your #9 image I set the vertical lines straight, sharpened, etc.

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1607068/ec8.jpg




All this stuff is opinion and suggestion. Hopefully, you find it helpful.

As others suggest, either go pro yourself or hire one. I suggest you do what you do best; sell real estate. Instead, hire vendors that have the expertise to present your product in the best manner. Or hire a photo retoucher to enhance, color-correct and/or otherwise improve the image.

BTW, the "widest aperture" (e.g. f1.4) provides the least depth of field, not the other way around. If you want a large depth of field (foreground and background objects in focus), close down the lens (use higher aperture numbers, e.g. f16).

Letting in light is all and good, but all you need is the correct amount of light to correctly expose the image. You do that with the correct combination of shutter speed and lens aperture - basic photo 101.

Many people think expensive camera gear is the key to good photos. Nope. Equipment is only a part of it.

For many properties, you can get away with basic photo skills, and for many buyers, that's good enough. We've all seen mediocre real estate photos. And let's face it. Not all properties require the Julius Shulman touch. However, if you realize the value in representing the product well and for high end properties, use some of those potential broker fees and hire a pro for needed support.

Sherwood

If you really want to see the difference from a real professional photographer and everyone else, look at food photos. A friend of mine specializes in food photography for print advertisements as TV commercials. It is expensive and time consuming to make it look really good.

The same thing goes for interiors. One of my former customers shot for Architectural Digest and other top level architectural magazines. He would take all night to shoot a house, often over the course of a week. He would go around and replace each bulb to be the correct brightness and color temperature. If a bulb was too dim in an area, he would shut off the other lights and let that one area get more exposure. His average exposure time was several minutes up to 20 minutes. That way you can stop down the lens for more depth of field. About the only time he shot in the daylight was for the rooms with big outdoor views. He often had to use huge sheets of color correcting mylar to keep the outside the proper color temp for the film. He almost never shot daylight film, it was always tungsten balanced 4x5 transparency film. Now days it is just a button push on the camera.

With modern digital cameras the difference between the top professional’s results is something you will see, but the majority of customers will never notice it. It will be “good enough” and a LOT cheaper. Professional photography is a very tough business anymore.

That is a classic example of the "good enough" photo. It is not bad, really. It is a basic point and shoot. The windows are totally blown out and have no detail at all. The highlights on the furniture are just glaringly bright just like the reflection on the floor. The dark furniture is just a black blob with virtually no detail. The ceiling and fireplace are way off color. The rock on the fireplace close to the window on the right is probably close to the proper color, the front of the fireplace and the ceiling is very yellow-green. It is a nice photo of a very nice room and it cost almost nothing to shoot. A professional would charge a lot, but the results would be the difference from good enough to WOW.

Some good suggestions here. It's going to take some experimentation. Your images look a lot better than the other realtor's that's for sure!
I would set the camera to shutter priority and stop it down as far as it goes, put it on a tripod, use a remote shutter release, and use a fill flash. Set the flash to slow sync. Experiment with bouncing, or if you have cables move the flash around, bouncing it off of various surfaces. The windows are always going to be a problem during the day. Try shooting in the morning or evening or just watch the light during the day. Be aware you will have to adjust the color temp to keep the shots from being too warm (yellow).

I've never experimented with it, but going that route, you could then walk through the scene setting off the flash at various spots essentially painting the scene with light. It'd probably be difficult to get consistent results, and would probably end up being more of an experiment than anything else.

Forget the flash, use tungsten lights. You can accurately and easily meter them. You can easily modulate them to a ¼ f stop. The other trick is changing the wattage of bulbs in the room. If an area is too bright in the photo put in lower wattage bulbs. It is not point & shoot.

We could start a class in architectural photography in this thread. Photo retouching too. For better than "good-enough" photos, it's not as cut an dried as some would suggest. Recording an image only takes mere fractions of a second to properly expose, sometimes a few minutes. The real work is prep and setting up the shot. Most shutterbugs concentrate on the former and not the latter.

Sherwood

One thing I do if I have an interior scene with windows is shoot in a raw format. That allows me to take the one image, do two 'exposures' of the scene and put them back together in PS. Saves having the blown out windows and black furniture in the above picture as the camera desperately tries for a good exposure and only really gets the floors and walls.

i would recommend you find a copy of the book: Julius Shulman: Architecture and its Photography
Julius Shulman Book Review

looks like its out of print now but the library may have it. you wont learn anything about using a camera to get marketing photos but youll get alot of ideas about composition

without a large format camera it can be tough to get pro looking shots. i wouldnt worry too much about it. your photos look fine. the kitchen shot looks very good. with a tripod and proper metering, you should be able to get nice shots and ultimately the home should sell itself if you have presented it's features clearly

+1
I shoot a lot of cars and trucks and I often merge exposures. You don't really have to shoot in raw. Photoshop will merge tiffs to HDR. Just make sure you take enough (5) exposures. RAW captures more dynamic range, allowing you to "bracket" in the office, but I get better results by bracketing in the field.

I mentioned tungsten lights in post #7. Easy to use and cheap. I think only photogs call then tungstens, though.

Take a damn light bulb and clamp on socket. :D

Lots of examples on this page:
Up Lights Clip Lights | LampsPlus.com

I was helping my niece with a portraits photo class and we did just that. We went out at night and I stood in front of the camera. She opened the shutter and "painted" me with a flashlight for one minute. She turned the flashlight off and I took one step back and to the left, crossed my arms, and looked slightly to my right. She turned the light back on and "painted" me for another minute. She got a cool shot of me looking rather disapprovingly at myself. Got an "A"

Great stuff, thanks again!!

Yes, I do move clients furniture around, all the time. Usually I declutter and remove everything that I can from my shots. I did once hire some cleaners for a house, the seller was away and their teenage daughter was 'caring' for the home. I cut the grass and raked, cleaned up the yard too. (cleaners were wife and 2 kids).

I'm using the Canon EOS Rebel, I have two of them and I've been using the 18-55mm lens as I dont care for the 15mm fisheye I have, but I do use it once in awhile. I also use a 75-300mm telephoto lens when I can get far enough away. This works great for the lakefront homes as it shrinks the depth.

I haven't played with lighting much, but if anyone knows this camera and can explain (in layman termonology) how to play with the settings, I'm in. I try my best not to use the flash as it washes out the colors too much, but I take several photos from each location and then pick my best one when I'm at the PC. Most Realtors in my region put up about 8 pics, some even less and the better ones about 20. My listings offer typically 100 and upto 300 for a big spread. Also have detailed maps, lot plans, disclosure statements, details, etc for every listing.

I'll try your trick Milt, thanks; I like easy.

As for timing, etc., its very time consuming to process a new listing and when you run 2 to 3 new listings in a week there simply is no time to waste. I use to process the info for 5 Realtors when I ran a team, so I did learn alot of shortcuts; some thanks to PPOT. If I like the property I tend to put more 'heart' into it.

Thanks again, I'm sure my next photoshoot will be much better ;)
www.BIGRob.ca

Eric beat me to it. (HDR - High dynamic range) ...cameras and displays 'clip' the really bright, and/or the really dark, whereas the human eye will process those real ranges. HDR just pulls the darks up, and pushes the brights down, such that the display produces a more natural looking image.
That's some very good advice there, in Eric's post; IMO.