Anatomy of A Real Estate Photograph

The time has hit where the quality of a listings real estate photography is so important. Once you prepare your home properly and price your home to market, there is nothing more important than the quality of the real estate photos you use to market a home.

I won't go into great detail, but there was an ocular study done tracking home buyers eye movement over a online real estate listing by a university professor. The conclusion was photographs are so important to selling a home.

"Without an eye-catching photo, the battle is lost before it begins," Prof. Seiler says. "You have to grab people's attention within two seconds. Do it the way a billboard does."

Who is this article for?

1. Real Estate Agents- Now is the time to decide are your going to hone your photography skills to provide better real estate photography for your listing clients, or start hiring a professional photographer.
2. Home Sellers- There is obviously nothing more important than than the quality of your real estate photographs when marketing your home. You need to hire an agent that delivers great photographs on their own or hires a professional. If not your house won't compete online with other listings.

The Break Down of A Real Estate Photograph

The reason I am breaking down this photo is to show you what it takes to get great real estate photography. This is what you should be striving for with your real estate photography whether you are an agent listing a home or a seller looking for an agent that provides great photography.

This is one of my clients listings and as the listing agent I take extra time for my clients to get great photography results.

The digital camera has made it possible to quickly move through a listing in a short period. I can take 20-30 shots with a digital camera in 1.5 to 2 hours.

The example is a Methuen Massachusetts Home for Sale. A small cape that was slightly above the median house price in Methuen.

This was a fairly difficult shot as the room was just shy of 11 feet wide requiring an ultra wide lens. Cell phones and most (not all) point and shoots do not have the focal length suitable for real estate photography. Also the narrowness of the room made it extremely difficult to use off camera flash to light the room.

What I am showing here is one of my more advanced techniques that I use for my "money shots"

The money shots are the shots that really sell the home, so I put some extra time into them. Usually a kitchen, living room dining room and/or family room. Most of my photographs are done with an off camera flash or 2 bounced behind me.

When I photograph a home I want to try and create a naturally lit scene. I want detail coming in through the windows in varying degrees (depending on how important or bad the outside scene is) The room needs to be well lit so a potential home buyer can get a sense of the space.

Remember you are photographing the room not the furniture. So focus on showing features and details of a room. Windows, fireplaces, how the furniture lays out, etc...

For this shot I wanted to have the photo look as if the scene was lit primarily by the window.

I took a total of 4 photographs they were all blended in Adobe Photoshop.

1. Available light shot with the overall scene properly exposed. This left the curtains and the widows severely blown out (no detail)
2. One shot with the window properly exposed with flash 1 and 2 on. This allowed the scene to have the window and curtain exposure where I wanted them and adequately fill the rest of the room with fill flash. Bounced off the wall behind me and to camera right. Rather than shooting the flash into the room I bounce the light behind me to give a soft wrap around light rather than
3. Because the room was long and narrow the far end of the room lost some punch from the flash. So I walked into the scene and flashed (Flash 3) the fireplace, back wall and left corner separately. This area is blended in Photoshop so only the area I lit shows and of course you can't see me in the scene.
4. I did the same with the right hand corner, back wall and right wall while I was down there.

Ok, I could have stopped at step two and captured good real estate photography, but the extra few minutes just took it that much farther.

Lighting Diaghram

Other Photographs from the Same Listing

Once I finished the kitchen and living room which I may have used up to four flashes the rest of the photos were one available light photo and one photo with the flash bounced behind me.

Photo 1- 4 flashes, used one camera right, one camera left, one on the floor behind the island and on down the hall way lighting the hall.

Photo 2- Didn't change a thing except my camera angle. I left the 4 flashes exactly where they were.

Photo 3- 2 flashes one lighting the hall and on bounced straight up behind me.

Photo 4- One flash bounced behind and to the left of me.

Photo 5- One flash bounced and the seam in the wall where it meets the ceiling.

Here is a video of a different listing showing the exact same steps. While the video is long, when I am not trying to explain what I am doing it literally takes me minutes to shoot and process.

Minimum Real Estate Photography Equipment Needed

While I just showed you one of my more advanced techniques, it doesn't need to be that complicated. A camera with the right lens, a tripod and one off camera flash will go a long way. Work on getting your verticals straight, your horizontals straight, images in focus and your scene well lit. No one wants a creepy house.

1. A camera with interchangeable lenses that can be set manually. It doesn't matter the format. You just need to be able to adjust the shutter speed and be able to put on an ultra wide lens. Most kit lenses will never be quite wide enough for real estate photography. It can be a full frame or cropped sensor it makes no difference.
2. Ultra Wide Lens. The equivalent of a minimum of 20 mm on a full frame 35mm DSLR. I use a Tamron 15-30. Most of my interior shots are spent in the 21-24mm focal length.
3. A tripod is a must. 30-50% of my interior shots for real estate are not possible to get handheld, because of lower shutter speeds. Plus if I do Photoshop blending, the camera should not move at all. A tripod will also allow you to get good verticals and horizontals as well as improve your composition.
4. Minimum of one but better off with at least two handheld flashes that you can use off camera to bounce light behind you into the scene. You can buy cheap manual flashes for about $60-100 for real estate photography. The important thing is do not use it on your camera and point it directly into the scene.
5. Minimum of Photoshop Elements. There is so much you can do to your photographs with Photoshop it is just unbelievable. Photoshop Elements is a watered down version of Adobe Photoshop and costs less than a $100 dollars. If you are taking your own real estate photographs even if they suck!!! you should be using Photoshop Elements.

Same House Two Different Agents

Here is a quick example of an exterior photograph, taken by two different agents with the exact same camera! The first I let a fellow agent borrow my camera and they were disappointed with the results. I went back and retook exteriors for the home. Mine is the second one.

Going back to Professor Seiler's study..... "20 Seconds for love at first sight". Yep, that's about it. Most agents and home buyers have come to expect that you lead with the exterior of the home and that is the photo where major decisions are made on the internet... do I like it do I want to see more? or move on.

If you haven't captured the buyers attention, you have lost them too another competing listing that caught their attention.

Final Thoughts

Today's home buyers are so image driven, facebook, youtube videos and digital imaging has come such a long way, there is a certain expectation of quality. While as whole agents have come along way in 15 years with their real estate photography realize it is evolving. Dark, out of focus and crooked are no longer acceptable.

Realize your many of your competing listing agents are starting to hire professional real estate photographers. I am sure it will become more and more prevalent for listing agents to do so.

As an agent, you need to decide are you going to step up your real estate photography game or hire a professional.

Home sellers need to realize that the real estate photography of their home is where most of their homes marketing begins and stops! Here is an excellent article from Karen Highland with quotes from Bill Gassett a top listing agent in Hopkinton MA. She says Expect more from your real estate photography that is provided by your listing agent.

Great real estate photography sells homes!!