On Thursday I receive a call from Nelya at work. She had finally received permission from the bank to list the house! “Great”, I replied. “We can photograph it this weekend”.
Of course, we didn’t have until the weekend. The property had to be listed that day. The real estate world does not wait for photographers, so I managed to beg a 40D off of one of my friends (I am still waiting for the 5D Mark II) and I went to the house that night to photograph.
It was that night that I learned how not to photograph a house.
Continue Reading…
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago at 2:15 pm. Add a comment
Recently I have started playing around with multiple off camera lights with my real estate photography. I use a Canon 580EX and 580EX II triggered with three Pocketwizard MultiMAX units.
By the way, my wife wanted me to mention that this home has already sold, but if you would like to discuss selling or buying a home with her you can contact her from her web site.
The first light is rather easy to place. Typically I attach it to a silver umbrella, then sometimes bounce it off a wall or aim it straight at the room but reduce the power. Sometimes this is enough to light a room. For example, in this room I wound up using just this one light – which was to the left of the camera.
The tricky part comes with what to do with the second light. First, I have come to realize that the second light isn’t always necessary. For many pictures, it is best left turned off and to the side. However, there are times when having the second light really helps.
Continue Reading…
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago at 1:17 pm. Add a comment
While I’m without camera and waiting for my 5D Mark II to arrive, I thought I would share some of my ideas on how to take advantage of the video feature in it.
First of all, I have never really bothered with video that much. I tend to not enjoy watching videos of weddings, events, and vacations that others greatly enjoy. I do enjoy videos of my kids, so we purchased a Canon HF10 some time ago. This is a very nice video camera, though we still do not have a good decoder for the AVCHD format.
However, the Mark II offers some new perspectives on video previously unavailable to me. For one, the quality is considerably better than the HF10. While it is certainly missing features present in top video cameras, the raw quality of the video is on par with the best video cameras. Therefore, I plan to use it for the following purposes.
- Video of kids. I’m not sure how much we’ll take with the HF10 and how much we’ll take with the Mark II. My guess is the HF10 will still take the lion’s share of the video. However, when I feel that the video is very important, I will likely use the Mark II.
- Macro video. In particular I hope to take macro stock video. I am still working out a number of the details on how I plan to go about this, as lighting and stability are significant issues that I have not yet fully addressed. Once I do start creating these videos, I will obviously post them here along with my technique.
- Real estate videos. I have gone back and forth about the need and use of video in real estate. The truth is I have yet to see a real estate video that does a good job. However, I have some ideas on how this may work and I plan to do use an upcoming listing of Nelya’s to test my theory out.
So, yes, the HD video feature of the Mark II is useful in my opinion. It is not a replacement for a full video camera, but I suspect if you understand it’s limitations it makes a great tool for those of us unable or unwilling to spend tens of thousands on a professional video camera.
Posted 3 years, 4 months ago at 2:16 pm. Add a comment
OK, I wouldn’t exactly call this technique “new” because I suspect a large number of real estate photographers already use it, but for me it is new. Before I get into explanations about the workflow, here is one of the shots.
First the basics. This is not an HDR shot and was taken in a single frame. I used a single flash with this shot, although very soon I will move to using multiple flashes triggered by Pocketwizards. The agents that have seen this so far really like it, though I suspect some photographers may not like the effect. Continue reading for the workflow I used.
Continue Reading…
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 4:15 am. Add a comment
Recently I had the chance to take some shots of one of my wife’s properties. I am still working on my real estate photography, and I am not yet at the stage where I really want to be. I currently take all of the shots with my 16-35 2.8 II on a tripod. Although people seem to like the shots, I more and more feel that I should move towards the strobist approach. Mainly I feel that the lights are blown out, as well as the windows with views. I tried creating HDR pictures from some of my shots but the results looked fake so I didn’t use them. The following is a panorama I took that wound up on the top of the flyer.
In the ultimate comment to my shots though, was the fact that several agents commented about the pictures and the property sold after being on the market for less than a week. While the Seattle market isn’t nearly as depressed as elsewhere in the country, that is still pretty impressive given the current state of things.
Continue Reading…
Posted 3 years, 11 months ago at 5:15 am. 4 comments
