When it comes to selling or renting a property, first impressions are everything. Professional property photos can make all the difference in attracting potential buyers or tenants. Here are some essential tips and techniques to elevate your property photography game, backed by industry research.
1. Prep the Property
Before you even think about taking photos, make sure the property is in tip-top shape, especially if you're dealing with luxury property:
Clean and Declutter: A tidy space looks more inviting. Remove personal items and excess furniture to create a sense of space. A clean and decluttered environment makes rooms appear larger and more appealing. Speaking from personal experience, Images that sell are images that highlight space. Your role as the photographer is to highlight that space in whatever way possible.
Stage the Rooms: Arrange furniture and decor to highlight the property’s best features. Fresh flowers and tasteful decor can add a welcoming touch. Staging can help potential buyers envision themselves in the space, increasing the likelihood of a sale. Selling property is all about creating emotional connections with the buyer, clean rooms and fresh flowers can go a long way to making it feel 'homely' from the start.
2. Perfect Your Lighting
Lighting is key to great photography:
Natural Light: Shoot during the day when natural light is abundant. Open curtains and blinds to let in as much light as possible. Houzz suggests avoiding harsh overhead lights and using natural light to create a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Artificial Light: Supplement natural light with lamps or light fixtures to brighten darker areas. Avoid using a camera flash - It'll just create harsh shadows and that's not natural.
3. Use the Right Equipment
Investing in good equipment can significantly improve your photos:
Camera: A DSLR or mirrorless camera with a wide-angle lens is ideal for capturing entire rooms. You want to use a wide-angle lens (14-24mm for full-frame or 10-20mm for APS-C) is perfect for real estate photography. Using wide-angle lenses are key to making rooms look bigger, however if you go too wide you'll start to distort the image creating that horrible fisheye effect - so be careful!
Tripod: A sturdy tripod helps keep your camera steady, ensuring sharp images even in low light. Without a tripod, you'll struggle to capture sharp images and going lower than 1/60 can result in images appearing to be not quite in focus.
4. Master the Angles
The right angles can make rooms appear larger and more inviting:
Wide Shots: Capture as much of the room as possible. Position yourself in the corner and shoot diagonally across the room.
Eye-Level Shots: Keep your camera at eye level for a natural perspective. Avoid overly high or low angles.
Lifestyle Shots: Typically you want to capture these on a tighter lens, 50mm+ and be sure to use low aperture to ensure you get that nice blurry background.
5. Bracketing
What's Bracketing? Bracketing is where you simple take the same image, but at different exposures. 1 Over exposed, 1 under exposed and one perfectly exposed. Then once you're home you edit them all together in Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop or your editing software of choice. Viola! Gone are those horribly over exposed windows and you now have perfectly exposed photos.
6. Edit Like a Pro
Post-processing can enhance your images and make them stand out:
Brightness and Contrast: Adjust brightness and contrast to make your photos pop.
Color Correction: Ensure colors are true to life. Correct any color casts caused by artificial lighting.
Straighten Images: Ideally you've already done this in camera, but always readjust the image if required to ensure those lines are perfectly straight.
7. Secret Sauce
You've made it to the end so this is the most important thing to make your images look professional. Make sure when photographing the room, that the corner of the wall nearest to the camera is perfectly straight and aligned.
Fun Fact: The Golden Hour
The golden hour, shortly after sunrise or before sunset, provides a warm, soft light that’s perfect for exterior shots. It’s an ideal time to capture the property’s exterior in the most flattering light.
Conclusion
Professional Property Photography requires a blend of preparation, technique, and a keen eye for detail. By following these tips, you can create stunning images that showcase properties at their best, attracting more interest and ultimately leading to quicker sales or rentals.
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