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First go at real estate photography

Maximus96

Maximus96

Diamond Member
Went to shoot a listing for my wife’s friend yesterday. Its my first attempt at real estate photography.

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The rest can be seen here,

http://www.sammylophotos.com/RealEstate/Real-Estate/16201923_az8Xu#1216954252_iDUG8
 
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Same here - looks really good.

Check your 'shop of the lampshade in the second shot. Lampshade doesn't line up with the lamp, unless it's real and just a weird optical illusion?
 
rivan said:
Same here - looks really good.

Check your 'shop of the lampshade in the second shot. Lampshade doesn't line up with the lamp, unless it's real and just a weird optical illusion?
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it was a wacky lamp with those offset bulb/shade that you can position. wish i adjusted it right then and there. lesson learned.

i'll try to photoshop it back place tonight...
 
Maximus96 said:
it was a wacky lamp with those offset bulb/shade that you can position. wish i adjusted it right then and there. lesson learned.

i'll try to photoshop it back place tonight...
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Ah! Haha, well, I think it's something 95% of people wouldn't notice, but it might have unjustly landed you on photoshop disasters.

Good looking HDR, not overdone, the only one I fine weird at all is the kitchen - conflicting shadows around the countertop.
 
AkumaX said:
nice! all HDR?
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thanks!

the second shot above was the first one i shot. that one was done in a single exposure with 2 flashes. then i tried to get a view from the other side and thats when things started going downhill. i just couldn't get it right, it was either too dark here or too bright there and the picture frames were bouncing back huge reflections from my umbrellas. i decided to do the rest with 7-shot bracketed exposures and blended them after in lightroom.
 
Maximus96 said:
thanks!

the second shot above was the first one i shot. that one was done in a single exposure with 2 flashes. then i tried to get a view from the other side and thats when things started going downhill. i just couldn't get it right, it was either too dark here or too bright there and the picture frames were bouncing back huge reflections from my umbrellas. i decided to do the rest with 7-shot bracketed exposures and blended them after in lightroom.
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How does one go about doing exposure blending in lightroom?
 
Not bad for HDR, but many of those could have been even better by lighting the interiors (by flashes or hotlights).

Also 7-shot brackets is too many. No way you have more than 3 worth of DR in any of those scenes. Chances are two would work - expose windows, click, expose interior, click. Done. More shots just means more midtones, and more mud.
 
I did bring 4 flashes and two stands with umbrellas with me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to it looking right so I went with the brackets. I didn't have time to experiment right there. Thinking back now I wish I did.

I will try to enfuse two shots later and see how much difference there is.
 
Maximus96 said:
thanks!

the second shot above was the first one i shot. that one was done in a single exposure with 2 flashes. then i tried to get a view from the other side and thats when things started going downhill. i just couldn't get it right, it was either too dark here or too bright there and the picture frames were bouncing back huge reflections from my umbrellas. i decided to do the rest with 7-shot bracketed exposures and blended them after in lightroom.
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Amazing lighting and post processing. Your photos really shine. :awe:
 
They look great to me, especially for your first try. The bedroom pic is maybe a hair underexposed with a slightly "cool" color temperature on my monitor, and the windows are generally blown out (tough to avoid this, of course), but overall I'd be very happy with them as a seller/agent.
When I sold my house last year my agent had a photographer come in and your photos look much better than hers did.

I'm sure you're already thinking about this but an ultra wide angle lens would certainly be a good investment if you plan to do this a lot.
 
BigSmooth said:
They look great to me, especially for your first try. The bedroom pic is maybe a hair underexposed with a slightly "cool" color temperature on my monitor, and the windows are generally blown out (tough to avoid this, of course), but overall I'd be very happy with them as a seller/agent.
When I sold my house last year my agent had a photographer come in and your photos look much better than hers did.

I'm sure you're already thinking about this but an ultra wide angle lens would certainly be a good investment if you plan to do this a lot.
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Thanks!

Well i could have avoided blowing the windows but they were left that way because there were no views to speak of. I could have blended them in from the -1 exposures but that will just make the neighbor's ugly walls nicely exposed, or make that ugly red car across the street even more distracting. when i make it big to where the big boys play and shoot the $1M+ homes, i'll pull in the window views like there's no tomorrow.

i shot all of these these with the 17-40mm on the 5D. most were shot around 20-22mm. i could go wider on most or all of the shots, but too wide and it'll start looking weird with too much ceiling and slanted floors. worst is when it creates a shoebox effect. i don't want to go ultra-wide at 17mm unless i really have to.
 
Ah, that makes sense on the windows.

On your second point I don't disagree, but I think when it comes to real estate photography you sometimes have to have an UWA to get the shot.
For example, our old house had a guest bathroom that was fairly small and our photographer just couldn't frame the room with her normal zoom lens.
She ended up taking a picture that included a large portion of the mirror over the sink in order to try and show the tub/shower on the other side of the room. It was a pretty inelegant solution, and the picture arguably made the room look even smaller than it was in reality. I think I would have rather had a somewhat distorted picture if it had at least shown the room in its entirety.
 
They look great! Very sharp and appealing.

On the web, the exterior shot does look somewhat "fake."

What body and glass did you use?
 
timswim78 said:
They look great! Very sharp and appealing.

On the web, the exterior shot does look somewhat "fake."

What body and glass did you use?
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thanks! the exterior shot probably needs some more messaging. it was raining at the time when i took it.

all shot my with canon 5D and 17-40mm
 
Very nice! The only suggestion I could honestly make would be to lose a few of the pillows in the last picture or only use a few that compliment the room colors.
 
nicely done. I'd wanna live there!
only thing I can say is that your first kitchen shot makes it look like a narrow galley kitchen, but i know its not because the shot before it shows that it is not. Maybe you can back up a little bit in the kitchen shot to show that it is not a galley kitchen?
 
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Aharami said:
nicely done. I'd wanna live there!
only thing I can say is that your first kitchen shot makes it look like a narrow galley kitchen, but i know its not because the shot before it shows that it is not. Maybe you can back up a little bit in the kitchen shot to show that it is not a galley kitchen?
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i see what you mean. i had to google "galley kitchen". i should have taken that from a different angle. the one i originally took showed more "view" thru that window by the sink but the view was of the neighbor's security door or windows, the kind with iron bars...
 
Maximus96 said:
I just created a slideshow using these pictures,here

what do you think?

how does it load for you?
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You did a very nice job. The slideshow plays fine (OSX86/Chrome) but I wish it would grow/shrink to my browser. I don't like how the thumbnails are at the bottom and hidden, and I have to scroll to find them.
 
Agree about the slide sizes . . . same problem in IE. The crazy lamp shade was a nice fix, but . . . always put the toilet seat doen in the bathroom. 🙂

And if you need a bit wider view, why not stitch a two shot panoramic?
 
I like the slideshow. But I think the transition between pictures is too slow. That's just my personal preference though. If it works for you and your client, keep it.
 
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