Photography Question; Help?

[911Rob]

As a real estate marketing expert one of the tools of our trade is of course photography and I've done my best to stay on top of my market in this regard. Recently a new company from Vancouver has moved into my area and they're using a professional photographer that offers outstanding photographs of their properties.

My question is "can anyone tell me how to get these effects" in a photo. Camera, lens, filters, etc. I can see a slight fisheye is involved, and would guess that they've enhanced the shots with some software too. I would love to learn how to improve my photography.

As an example, here are shots from the professional and the previous Realtor (not me), these are both the same locations and I love the professionals photos:

By the Pro:






Same place but by the previous Realtor:





And these pics are some of mine.... better than most but I'd like to improve:











Appreciate any help I can find from the PPOT brain trust, please keep in mind that I process 1,000's of photographs per week, so time is a challenge in processing.

Cheers!

[GH85Carrera]

The only way you will match it is to hire another pro.

You may have a nice “prosumer” camera, but that is not a real professional’s tools. You will need high end gear, expensive tilt & shift lenses, and most important a real understanding of lighting.

In the stone ages back in the days of film we might spend an hour setting up each shot. Now it is a lot faster, but it is not point and shoot.

[RWebb]

Agreed but you can learn and/or buy those things

[berettafan]

bah, easy peasy! it's a non-moving object and there is no pressure!

wide angle lense of good quality (price will likely have 4 digits)

tripod as an option

quality flash ...learn to bounce it's easy and fun.

your last pic with the washed out windows shows that you pointed camera at fireplace for light metering. so you got good detail on the stones and washed out windows. if you were to use a bounce flash or diffuser (careful bouncing on non white surfaces!) you could get the best of both worlds. simple way to start is to meter for windows then force some flash.

[berettafan]

of course i'm kidding a bit on the 'easy peasy'

the more you look at the pro shots the more you see just how good they are. detail and lighting in everything....impressive!

don't forget to play with your white balance. try shots a couple different ways and see how different the effect is.

[Super_Dave_D]

If you have the camera........wide angle.....lots on the web

Keys for Taking Beautiful Real Estate Photographs « Southwest Orange County Real Estate

[Zeke]

Rob, you're obviously better than the "other Realtor." I think a lot of it has to do with post shoot editing these days. You can get a tilt/ shift lens if you want to spend that kind of money.

I'd just get a couple of stobes and experiment. You can take a tungsten lamp or 2 along to backlight from behind a couch or plant and see what it's going to look like ahead of time. You can even use a tungsten with a reflector to compose your shot. Sort of like in your first 2 shots. Those lights threw off a lot of highlight.

Imagine if you could get that effect and not see the source. If you look at the pro's pics, he (she) may have placed a strobe below the island counter. You sure don't see any shadows under the upper cabinets and in the toe kick areas. Now look at the other pics of the same house.

The photographer used the histogram feature on the camera to bring out the warm tones. Or an editor.

[notfarnow]

Great thread, I have the very same questions. I've been trying to be more careful about WHEN I take the pictures, that makes a huge difference. This time of year, I try to start outside at ~730 when the sun is lower and casts a more golden light. I start outside, working my way around the house & yard. Then I go inside and carefully pick rooms with the best light. Mid-day pics almost always end up too bleached out

[notfarnow]

Another thing I've found is that I'll use different sets of pics for different purposes. Sometimes the really good "pro" pics don't compress well for the typical MLS sites

[Joeaksa]

Spend the money and get a pro. We do the same with airplanes and the difference is dramatic.

[Targa Me]

As a pro/am photographer, I'd say the Pro's photos are enhanced with photoshop software.

[masraum]

Well, I bet that the Pro's photos looked like yours and he tweaked them in photoshop. (levels, curves, saturation) You could probably do that with yours, but it can be time consuming, especially at the beginning. I think the "pro" that took those used a bunch of post-processing (PS) because the colors and lighting look unnatural to me. I suspect that if you lightened your photos a bit and cranked up the saturation, that they'd look as good or better than the pro's.

I'm not pro, but these are my ideas.

One of the tools is a wide angle lens (assuming you have an APC sized sensor, probably down to the 10mm or 12mm range) that has a very wide aperture (really small f/# number). The more light you can let in the better. At the beginning, you may want to bracket your photos. Take the photo that the camera says you should take, and then add exposure compensation to 2 subsequent photos to slightly over and under expose what the camera thought was the best setting. After time, you would probably get to know what you needed to adjust the camera to get the best shots.

[berettafan]

Doesn't this get into using RAW format and being able to change white balance after the fact?

Photoshop is daunting software but the 'lightroom' is a bit easier to get your head around. does some nice stuff.

Take baby steps Rob. Don't try to master too much at once, just start incorporating one or two ideas at a time until you get comfortable with them, then add more.

[Zeke]

I would shoot RAW if I didn't know enough and had loads of time. Or if it was for a magazine cover. RAW can always be given to a photo editor.

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by Targa Me

As a pro/am photographer, I'd say the Pro's photos are enhanced with photoshop software.

Yep. Those particular images look like they are using the "HDR" filter in Photoshop.

If you can swing it, you might consider contracting out to be competive with the hotshots from Vancouver. We use TourFactory, who will come out and take decent indoor and sunset/twilight shots. Doesn't make sense on every listing, but you can get a basic package for under $200 ("pro" shots + tour). On your nicer listings, the enhanced/twilight shoots can run $500+.

Here are a few of ours done by local TourFactory "pros" for reference, including a bunch from guys that heavily use the "HDR" effect (not a fan personally). As you will see, some go a bit overboard with it:

Flex-MLS Public-Side Viewer


If you want to keep DIY'ing it, a decent DSLR and a fast wide-angle lens would be a good start. Then pick up a copy of Photoshop, and take a few classes.

[Zeke]

I was just about to ask if anyone had any taste in housing when I came upon this:


Whoa, a fake fridge door to a pantry. All for 2.7 mil. Yikes.

Some things should just not be photographed.

[arcsine]

photoshop helps

[Jagshund]

You can even add a little life with something as simple as MS Photo Ed:

[masraum]

Here's what I managed in about 5-10 minutes, and I'm fairly novice with PS.



I could do more if I had the original photos, and you told me what you wanted done. I think the idea is that as you do it more, you get better and faster. I think some photogs may even setup macros to do the same stuff to a batch of photos rather than doing them manually like I did.

[masraum]

and another