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For Photographers, Original Article, Getting Started, Tips for Beginners Dan Zeeff For Photographers, Original Article, Getting Started, Tips for Beginners Dan Zeeff

Real Estate Photography Techniques for Beginners

If you did what I did when I first got started in real estate photography, you may have taken your first paying job without knowing what you were doing and made a lot of mistakes. For my first real estate photoshoot, I took the photos as single shot JPEG’s on a $20 tripod, using my good old Canon Digital Rebel T1i. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing… I just knew that if you put a camera on a tripod you could take longer exposures than if you hand-hold it, which would be useful indoors. I wrote this article to help others learn a few things that I didn’t know when I first started, and hopefully your first photoshoot will have better results than mine!

Real Estate Photography for Beginners Header Image.jpg
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If you did what I did when I first got started in real estate photography, you may have taken your first paying job without knowing what you were doing and made a lot of mistakes. For my first real estate photoshoot, I took the photos as single shot JPEG’s on a $20 tripod, using my good old Canon Digital Rebel T1i. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing… I just knew that if you put a camera on a tripod you could take longer exposures than if you hand-hold it, which would be useful indoors.

I wrote this article to help others learn a few things that I didn’t know when I first started, and hopefully your first photoshoot will have better results than mine!

I have other articles that talk about lighting gear, tripods, cameras, and lenses. Feel free to check those out as well. This article is going to talk about the following topics as they pertain for the beginner real estate photographer:

  • Shoot RAW!

  • Setting up for a photoshoot

  • Angles, composition, & photo quantity

  • Handling dynamic range without flash

  • Taking the next step to B.Y.O.L (Bring Your Own Lighting)

  • The joy of wireless tethering

Shoot RAW! (Friends Don’t Let Friends Shoot JPEG)

Shoot RAW! You have to go into your camera settings and make sure the image quality is set to RAW. RAW images contain all the information the camera’s sensor has about an image, including shadows and highlights that may not be immediately visible in the image preview. JPEG’s are compressed files that usually have lost shadows, highlights, and details. In high dynamic range scenarios, like indoor photography where you have bright windows and darker interiors, you want to keep all the information you can.

For an example of how much unseen photo information is found in a RAW file, below is a RAW image from my Canon EOS R5. The original photo appears to be completely dark and underexposed, but if I crank the exposure up to +5, it looks like a usable photo! It is a bit noisier than a properly exposed photo, but with RAW files in modern cameras you will be amazed at the dynamic range available for you to work with when you’re editing. Just for fun I used Lightroom to convert the original RAW file to a JPEG and also increased the Exposure to +5 so you can see the difference. This is an extreme example, but it is a good illustration of the advantage of editing RAW files.

I would NOT recommend getting into a situation where you have to crank your exposure to +5 in Lightroom! I just wanted to show the huge difference in quality and information contained within a RAW file vs. a JPEG file. The RAW image is labeled 4E1A4182.CR3 at the top (Canon’s RAW image files have a .CR3 extension with an EOS R5, and a .CR2 with many previous models). You can see that while it’s not a perfectly noise-free image, it is basically a usable image. If you have been using digital cameras for a long time you would probably find the dynamic range advancements amazing compared with cameras from 5 or more years ago. While it’s pretty unusual to be making such extreme exposure adjustments, it means that when you are editing your images you’ll have a lot more leeway to lift shadows or brighten areas.

Now take a look at the above JPEG image, which is labeled 4E1A4182.jpg at the top. The color in the JPEG image is completely incorrect in many areas, there’s lost information in the couch and other dark areas, and the image is basically unusable even for the web. This is because once the camera creates a JPEG or your computer converts the original underexposed RAW file to JPEG, much of the information in the underexposed areas is gone. You can see pink on the floor near the couch on the right and in other dark areas because the JPEG doesn’t have correct information about what color it’s supposed to be. Since the information is gone the JPEG says, “I don’t what color was supposed to be here, so here is the color pink.”

The advantage of shooting RAW instead of JPEG isn’t limited to dynamic range… it’s extremely valuable for fixing white balance as well.

The first image above is the uncorrected RAW file, the second image is the RAW image with corrected white balance, and the third image is the JPEG photo after attempting to fix the white balance. To correct the white balance of the original RAW image I simply used Adobe Lightroom’s “White Balance Selector” and clicked on one of the white towels, and the result was pretty close to the correct colors. When I did the same thing with the JPEG image the result was an extremely pink image with inaccurate colors. I attempted to fix it beyond what the “White Balance Selector” could do, and that’s the image I posted above, but there was no white balance setting that could get close to accurate colors like the RAW file. You can see the end result has too much green by the sink and too much red in other areas.

It is possible to have accurate white balance in your JPEG files, but you would have to make sure the white balance is correct during the photoshoot. The camera usually will do fine with “auto” white balance if you are shooting outside, but when you’re shooting inside there are many times where the warmer interior lights will cause the white balance to be inaccurate. If you’re shooting in RAW you can easily fix the white balance to your liking on the computer during post-processing. It’s also convenient to be able to change the white balance, tint, or hues using Lightroom’s local adjustments like the radial or gradient filters. It’s much easier to get desired results from local adjustments when you are working with RAW files.

JPEG’s are not all bad though! That is the file type you will usually be giving to your clients and uploading to your website once an image has been processed and edited. Once you’ve edited a photo and the final version is ready to be exported, JPEG is usually the filetype to use. You edit RAW and export finished JPEG’s.

Setting Up for a Photoshoot

So you’ve arrived at a house for your first paid photoshoot. You brought a camera, a wide angle zoom lens, memory card, a couple camera batteries, and a tripod… the basic essentials of a beginner’s kit. Whether you have a removable plate or L-Bracket that screws into the bottom of the camera, you probably will want to attach that before you arrive at a job. When you are getting your camera setup on your tripod, you will probably want to start with the height of the camera around four and a half feet. The height of the camera might vary a little depending on what room you’re in. For example, the camera might be a little higher in kitchens than it is in living rooms or bathrooms. In the kitchen, you can find a good height if you position the camera lens on the tripod to be just high enough so that it is level with the bottom of the kitchen cabinets that are over the countertops. This height will allow you to see over the countertops while not seeing the bottom of cabinets. In living rooms you may want the camera to be a foot lower, maybe a little higher than a person’s head if they were sitting on the couch.

Some good general purpose camera settings for beginners WITHOUT lights/flashes or wireless tethering are as follows:

  • ISO 400

  • Av Mode (Aperture Priority)

  • F7.1

  • Exposure Bracketing with at least 3 shots being taken automatically, at -3, 0, +3

  • Drive Mode set to 2 second timer

These settings will produce an underexposed image, a normally exposed image, and an overexposed image. By using exposure bracketing along with the 2 second timer, the camera will automatically fire 3 shots at 3 different exposure values. The 2 second timer also allows you to push the button without shaking the camera.

You will want the camera to focus on points across the room in most cases. Focusing on something too close to the camera will result in everything farther away being out of focus, but focusing on something in the house farther away will allow most of the room or space to be in focus. You won’t find yourself ruining photos by focusing across the room, but you might ruin a photo if you accidentally focus too close.

Angles, Composition, & Photo Quantity

When you get hired for real estate photography, you are getting hired to produce photos (and possible other media) designed to assist a realtor and/or property owner sell a house, building, or land. If you are just getting started, you probably will want to take a high quantity of photos to cover all the required angles, along with a few extra, to make sure it’s enough for your clients. Over time you will get used to what angles your clients like and your eye for composition will hopefully improve, and you won’t be shooting unnecessary angles.

In a standard house realtors will usually want every room photographed, and some rooms and spaces require more than one photo. This is especially true of the main living spaces. Any room that is not isolated by walls probably deserves multiple angles to show how it flows into adjacent spaces. Kitchens and living rooms typically need multiple photos and you may want close up photos of desirable features.

In the photos below, you can see a living area where I chose to take two photos showing the whole room, and one that highlighted the fireplace:

I chose one shot from the top of the stairs and one from the opposite corner by the windows because between the two angles you can see all the important elements in the room including entranceways to other rooms. I wouldn’t really have gained much if I took another shot from the bottom of the stairs or from the front door, and I liked how these positions were able to be frame most elements of the room better than other possible shooting spots. I did the straight on fireplace shot because it’s a popular feature shot. When you’re first starting you might want to take extra shots to make sure you get enough, and make sure you get all the important features that help sell a property.

Bedrooms usually can be taken care of with a single photo:

Sometimes you might need more than one photo of a bedroom if there are special features in more directions than you can capture in one photo. For example, there could be a sliding barn door to the ensuite bath on the opposite wall from windows overlooking a lake. Some clients might want you to photograph the double closets. In these situations you could do the normal bedroom shot, and then grab the sliding barn door or double closet shot before you move on to different areas.

Exteriors can be a little trickier to approach because the layouts of properties vary a lot. Some properties have small yards, some have big yards, some have pole barns, some have trees, some have lakes, etc. Fortunately, when you’re outdoors you can take a lot of pictures with very little effort! Lighting is much easier for your camera to handle outdoors so you can walk around hand-holding your camera, taking as many pictures as you need to cover all the important features and angles. I personally prefer the look of home exteriors when they are shot at 24mm or higher (full-frame equivalent) focal length. This minimizes distortion and makes the shape of the home exterior look more natural. This means that in most cases it is better to stand farther back from the house and zoom in rather than stand close to the house and zoom out.

(For lens recommendations, see my other article about cameras & lenses)

Composition is something that will take time, practice, and maybe even research. If you are not using a tilt-shift lens (most beginners probably shouldn’t be), one trick you can use indoors to reduce the amount of ceiling in your photo is to zoom out or back up as much as possible so there is extra space in your photo on the edges and then tilt the camera down slightly. This will increase the amount of floor in the photo and reduce the ceiling (unless the ceiling is interesting) and you can straighten the verticals in Lightroom. For example, the first photo below is an uncorrected ambient/natural light shot that shows the downward tilt, and the second photo shows the final edited shot with straightened verticals:

In the final straightened photo above you can see that I lost a little bit of space on the right and left, and some on the ceiling, so if you use this trick you have to make sure you capture extra space to keep everything important in the final photo.

For a beginner photographer a good minimum photo quantity for your smallest photo package should probably be at least 20 photos (including a few exteriors) for a small house. A very small condo could be fewer photos if you think you have taken every possible angle the client could want, but if you deliver too few photos your client might be disappointed. It’s a great idea to talk to your client about how many photos they expect! In one case I had to shoot a 20,000 square foot residence in a specific amount of time, so I had the realtor make a specific shot list of about 35 interior photos.

There have been multiple times where I’ve showed up to an average sized house but the entire place was an absolute mess, so I had to contact the client and see if they want to waste their money and my time photographing piles of junk. In more than one of these cases I just took a couple interiors with a normal amount of exteriors and charged a minimum rate. If you spend time and money driving to a location but the work is canceled or reduced, you should still charge an appropriate amount of money to the client who requested you drive there.

Handling Dynamic Range without Flash

After the photoshoot is done and you have all the RAW files on your memory card, it’s time to import & edit your photos.

I have used a variety of software ranging from HDR batch processors, RAW processors, Photoshop competitors, and more. The suite that I use currently is included in Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plan, which includes Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Lightroom is a good way to import your RAW files, organize them, edit photos, and export the final versions to JPEG to deliver to clients. Photoshop is good for when you start getting into more advanced editing and blending techniques.

After importing your RAW files into Lightroom, you may find the photos look a little dull! They will always need at least some adjustments. It’s a great idea to create a Lightroom preset that includes lens & chromatic aberration corrections, a slight bump in shadows, a slight reduction in highlights, and any other common adjustments that will probably be applied to most photos you import.

By looking at the unedited RAW photo below (the first photo in the gallery) we can see why interior photography can be a problem… the outside is very bright and the inside can be very dark or unbalanced. We as photographers have to figure out a way to control the dynamic range and make the rooms we photograph look more appealing.

There are at least few ways to control dynamic range without using flashes & strobes, but the easiest way is to merge your bracketed exposures into an HDR photo, and then edit the image to taste.

Let’s see what we can do with the kitchen photo. The first image below is the original RAW, the second photo is the original RAW with lots of editing, the third photo is 3 exposures merged to an HDR photo in Lightroom, and the fourth photo is multiple natural light (or “ambient”) exposures blended with multiple flash exposures.

Adobe Lightrooms's Merge to HDR Feature.jpg

The single RAW file actually managed to be pretty good after lots of Lightroom adjustments, but if you look at the HDR photo there is more detail in the window and hanging glass pendant light. The HDR photo did require a bit of editing as well, however. I created the HDR photo by selecting the three exposure-bracketed kitchen exposures (-3, 0, +3), right clicking (AKA control clicking or two finger clicking) on one of the photos, and selecting “Photo Merge” > “HDR.” You could also select the three exposures and push Control-Shift-H. This gives me an image titled 4E1A3870-HDR.dng, which contains lots of extra dynamic range merged from the three original exposures. Once you get the HDR .dng file, you can edit the image to your taste with local and/or universal adjustments. The HDR image is high quality enough for a real estate image, especially if you are a beginner.

The final photo above shows how you can change the look of an image if you use your own lighting equipment. You might notice that the glare on the floor to the right of the island is gone, the lighting on the bar stools is more interesting, there is more detail in the windows, and the island glare is minimized.

While HDR is commonly used by real estate photographers and is usually enough to get regular paying clients, what if you want to take it to the next level and get started with flashes & strobes?

Taking the Next Step with Lighting

In the kitchen example in the previous section, the natural light wasn’t too bad. Natural light can vary quite a bit and may be good or bad depending on many factors. You will have challenges with natural light in many situations, including:

  • Sunshine hitting green grass outside causing green color casts on the interior

  • Super dark colors and few windows on the inside making interior lighting unbalanced

  • Houses in the forest

  • Natural light coming from behind the camera making the scene flat

  • Blue daylight conflicting with warm interior lightbulbs

  • Dark interiors with important views out the windows

It is situations like these where off-camera flashes & strobes are very useful for creating your own light direction, improving color, and balancing light how you would prefer.

Check out images from a real estate scene below. In one image, most of the light is being supplied by the interior lightbulbs. In the second image, I turned the interior lights off and captured a longer exposure using only daylight. For the third image, I lit most of the house myself using flashes, and then blended some elements of daylight and interior lightbulbs back in using Photoshop. Look at how different the three images are, even though it was the exact same shot taken at the same time of day:

I prefer the look of the third image, which is why I put the effort into it. But the third image took MUCH longer to produce than the two ambient light shots. I spent less than a minute shooting the interior lightbulbs image and less than a minute editing it, and it’s just a single RAW file. Same with the natural daylight shot… minimal effort, single RAW file, no HDR, no time at all! For the third image, however, it took several minutes onsite and at least several minutes for editing. I used five flashes & strobes placed in different places throughout the scene, created various flash-lit exposures, and spent time carefully blending all the different shots with the natural light shots in Photoshop.

Is all the extra time worth it?

At the time I shot this house I was trying to improve my techniques and increase image quality to be the best photographer I could be, so my personal answer was “yes.” However, if you are just getting started the answer is probably “no.” The extra effort also may not be right for you if you are a “High-Quantity” photographer who takes multiple jobs per day and speed is of the essence.

For more info on the sliding scale of quality vs. quantity, see my other article, Photography Economics 101: Business Models for Real Estate Photographers.

Even though you probably won’t have a super complex lighting setup and workflow as a beginner, there are ways to improve your images using just one off-camera light.

If you’re going to use a speedlight, I highly recommend getting a 4-8’ Wooster Sherlock pole, pole adapter, and cold shoe mount for the flash. This combination is easily one of the most useful tools I have used over the past several years!

Another option for your go-to single light setup is to go nuclear and get yourself a 600 watt strobe like the Godox AD600 (don’t forget a transmitter). You can’t put it on the end of a stick like a speedlight, but you can hand-hold it and light any large space with ease.

Here are a few ways you can improve certain images with just one light.

Bounce Flash off the Ceiling Behind the Camera to Show Important Views

Below we have a bedroom that has a balcony overlooking Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, the dynamic range difference is too much for the camera to show both the indoor bedroom and the view of the lake. I tried Lightroom’s HDR function (second image below), but the view still wasn’t great even though I had highlights at -100 and shadows +100. Darkening the view to make it more clear and colorful made the bedroom look too dark, and brightening the bedroom led to the view being too bright. Sometimes Lightroom’s HDR can handle similar situations pretty well, but it didn’t do a great job here. In order to show the lake view I resolved the dynamic range issue by firing a 600-watt light into the corner of the room behind the camera (third image), which allowed the interior bedroom to be balanced with the outside brightness.

While the interior and exterior are balanced much better and the colors are more vibrant, the lighting feels unnatural since the flash was behind the camera. My brain tells me that the light should be coming from the windows. How can we resolve this?

None of the above images were edited in Photoshop… they were just quickly adjusted in Lightroom. Once you start editing photos in Photoshop the time spent editing those images will dramatically increase. But for a situation like this, you may want to put some extra time into the editing to highlight the view of the lake as a feature of the bedroom scene (and the rest of the property).

Since I like the direction of light in the natural light photo, but I like how the windows look in the flash-lit photo, I can open both of these images as layers in Photoshop in order to use parts of each image. Just select the two images you want to blend, control-click, and select “Open as Layers in Photoshop.”

Open as Layers in Photoshop.jpg

Once the photos opened up as layers in Photoshop, I made the bottom layer the flash-lit photo, and the top layer the ambient/natural light photo. I then created a black mask for the natural light photo and brushed in white on the mask at 0% hardness to add some natural light back into the photo, being sure to stay away from the window with the view. The white part of the mask means that part of the layer is visible, and the black part of the mask indicates where the layer is not visible.

Blending 2 Layers in Photoshop.jpg

By combining the two images I get a good view out the window while maintaining a fairly natural look for most of the image, which makes it seem like the light is coming in from the windows.

Bedroom with a view - Blend of flash and ambient.jpg

It should be noted that the flash-lit photo mentioned above was produced using a 600 watt strobe. In order to see the view out the window, my camera settings were ISO 200, f8, 1/200th of a second (my camera’s max sync speed at the time). That means if you have a speedlight rather than a 600-watt beast, you might not be able to bounce off the ceiling since that reduces the flash power… you may have to fire the flash directly at the windows. Firing straight at the windows means the shadows produced by the light will be harsher, but it still works in a similar way. You will just have to be careful of flash reflections, and sometimes you might need to take more than one flash shot to get rid of reflections, hot spots, or shadows.

See also: If You’re Shooting Architecture or Real Estate, Omni-Directional Lighting is your Friend

Speedlight Ceiling Bounce plus a Direct Shot at the Windows

If you have a scene where the direction and color of the natural light are pretty decent and just need to control window brightness, you can use a speedlight to supplement the natural light and then fire it at the windows to further recover the blown highlight areas. For the next example, the natural light photo with an exposure of 1/15th of a second was pretty decent except for the window areas. So I cut the natural light in half with an exposure time of 1/30th, and added a speedlight on a stick firing into the center of the ceiling. The windows were more controlled and the lighting was more balanced, but since I wanted the nice tree colors outside I took another shot where I fired the speedlight directly at the windows with an exposure time of 1/125th of a second, as seen below:

The final image allows you to see some color from the trees outside, and the lighting is pretty natural and balanced. The only reason I had to use the natural light image was to cover up the part of the ceiling where the flash was sticking out into the frame. Here are what the layers looked like in Photoshop:

Photoshop Layers for Blending 3 Images.jpg

Take Control of those Bathrooms

Bathrooms can often be a little tricky for a variety of reasons, and my go-to tool for those small & tricky spaces is a speedlight on a painter’s pole (with a pole adapter and a cold shoe mount adapter). With the pole I can stand behind the camera and stick the light forward into the bathroom in the middle of the ceiling with ease to create better lighting. A lot of the time, bathroom lighting isn’t great, so it’s a great option to have.

Lighting the Distant Darkness

You may find yourself with a dark room or area off in the distance. These situations are fairly easy to handle if you take the extra flash frame(s) to light them, and then Photoshop them into the final photo. For example:

As you can see in the first image above, this kitchen shot was just about complete, but there was a dark hallway in the distance. The 2nd and 3rd shots in the above gallery show individual flash shots I captured with exposure at 1/200th. The 4th image in the gallery above shows the final image after adding those individual flash shots in with Photoshop, setting their layers either to “Screen” or “Lighten” mode.

Stop Glaring at Me

Another great reason to carry at least one light in your gear bag is the ability to resolve glaring problems (pun). There are many times where natural light includes distracting glare on shiny surfaces, like countertops and wood floors. If you have at least one light with you (especially if it’s a 600-watt), you can “turn the natural light down” by reducing your exposure time to the max flash sync speed of your camera (which usually is between 1/160th and 1/320th, so check your camera’s specs). Then, fire a flash or strobe at the ceiling above the glare (or directly at the glare from above if you aren’t getting enough light from a ceiling bounce). Doing this will change the lighting in that area so you will have more to work with in post-processing. For example, in the gallery below I had some very harsh direct sunlight coming in and also some larger bright reflections from the windows distracting from the lovely wood color and texture on the floor:

Though more than one lights were used in the flash-lit frame, the concept is still possible with one light. By changing the angle at which the light hits the floor to be from the ceiling instead of from the windows, the light no longer reflects into the camera lens and I can see the color and texture of the wood floor. Direct sunlight on the floor is impossible to completely remove at 1/200th of a second, but by using my own 600-watt strobe it’s a pleasant addition rather than a distracting eyesore.

Fix Color Craziness

Sometimes if it’s sunny outside and direct sunlight is hitting trees or grass right outside a window you can get some pretty crazy color casts. That’s another great time to have a flash, because you can minimize crazy colors by using your own lighting:

Judging from the shadows created by the lamp I may have had 3 lights in this bedroom, but the concept still applies if you only have one light.

Another thing I did while editing is brush in some natural light in “luminosity” mode and reduced the opacity of the natural light layer to 24%. This brought back some of the natural light look by the chair, where there is a window around the corner. Luminosity mode allows you to use the brightness of a layer without the colors.

Natural Light in Luminosity Mode.jpg

The Joys of Wireless Tethering

If you are just starting out and using the camera’s bracketing function to produce natural light HDR photos, you probably don’t need to worry about wireless tethering. But once you start using off-camera lights and adding complexity to your photos you will probably want the freedom to move about the room, change settings, and trigger the camera without touching it.

Most modern cameras have built in WiFi that allow you to connect with the camera from a smartphone or tablet using camera manufacturers’ apps. There are also third-party hardware solutions if you want a different feature set for tethering. Either way, it opens up the door to new possibilities.

I always use an iPad in a case with a neck strap, which allows me to walk around the room hand-holding lights without having to set the light on a stand and walk back to the camera to take the shot. Even if you are just adding a single flash frame into your workflow with bracketed natural light shots, it is best not to touch the camera in between shots to change settings for the flash shot. The more you touch the camera in between shots, the more risk there is of the photos being misaligned for Photoshop blending. Wireless tethering is also beneficial because you can take as many natural light shots as you want at different exposure values, while using a larger screen for image previews. You can even show the image previews to homeowners and clients without making them try to discern the images on your camera’s small built-in LCD.

Once you’re wirelessly tethering, you probably won’t be using the camera’s timer drive mode or exposure bracketing. Instead, You will probably be using the camera’s manual mode. For the ambient (natural light) exposures, you could start with the exposure that’s bright enough to expose the darkest areas of the photo, then expose your way down by 1 stop at a time until you have a dark enough photo to expose the windows properly. For example, maybe an exposure time of 1 second is bright enough to get all the dark areas. So then you take the following natural light photos:

1 sec, 0.5 sec, 1/4 sec, 1/8 sec, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, and 1/125.

If the view out the window is extremely important, like mountains or lakes, be sure to lower the exposure to whatever makes the view look good. On a sunny day at ISO 400, this might even be something like 1/400 or 1/500. If you have an off-camera flash with you, it would be a good idea to try a few things to make the windows look good (direct flash at the windows, ceiling bounce, etc.) with your camera’s max sync speed in mind. As long as you give yourself a few options you will have something to work with in Photoshop if necessary.

Conclusion - This is Just the Beginning

Hopefully this article will give you some ideas that will jumpstart your real estate photography. This article is intended for beginners, as the techniques I mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg. Once you start shooting and trying things out, you will probably realize “you don’t know what you don’t know.” I personally feel like the learning never stops!

If you found this article helpful, check out my other articles:

My Detailed Look at Tripods
What Camera & Lens Should I Buy for Real Estate Photography?
Megapixels vs. Sensor Size: Can the Mavic Air 2 Beat the Phantom 4 Pro?
Lighting Gear for Real Estate Photography
How to Make a 360 Walk-Through Virtual Tour
Photography Economics 101: Business Models for Real Estate Photographers
Canon EOS R5 vs. Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Most articles have links to products, and if you make a purchase using one of those links, I’ll get a small commission.

Thanks!

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For Photographers, Original Article, Real Estate Photography Dan Zeeff For Photographers, Original Article, Real Estate Photography Dan Zeeff

Photography Economics 101: Business Models for Real Estate Photographers

Over the years I have thought a lot about various business models for real estate media providers, because while I was pursuing one particular business model I regularly observed other photographers (and “photography chain” businesses) who operated under different models. I occasionally thought, “Am I pursuing the right business model? Should I think about changing models in the future? What do I ultimately want to pursue?”

I wrote this article because when I first started I would have benefitted from thinking through my photography business goals. In addition, once my schedule was full of photoshoots I should have reassessed sooner and made major adjustments to my business model.

I got my first real estate photography job in 2012, before I had a registered business or a website. Starting out part-time, I made my business official and launched my website in 2013, which became my full-time career in 2015. It all started when a realtor I knew asked me to try to shoot a house for a very low rate, then I showed those photos to another realtor who had me start doing their photos as well. I got a small portfolio together and made a website, and boom… a career is born! I suspect this is how it begins for many real estate photographers. I am thankful it worked out because before my first photoshoots were handed to me I never would have thought I could make a career out of photography!

Over the years I have thought a lot about various business models for real estate media providers because while I was pursuing one particular business model I regularly observed other photographers (and “photography chain” businesses) who operated under different models. I occasionally thought, “Am I pursuing the right business model? Should I think about changing models in the future? What do I ultimately want to pursue?”

I wrote this article because when I first started I would have benefitted from thinking through my photography business goals. In addition, once my schedule was full of photoshoots I should have reassessed sooner and made major adjustments to my business model.

This page contains links to products, so if you find this site useful and use a link to make a purchase, I’ll get a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!

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Note: When I use the word “photographer” I am including those who provide video, aerial, and 360 tours for simplicity.



In this article, I’ll be discussing the following topics:

  • Getting Started: An individual photographer that is focused on getting their first clients, building a portfolio, and getting comfortable with a basic photoshoot & editing workflow

  • The Quantity Model: The individual photographer who takes multiple photoshoots per day by being simple, quick, & efficient (i.e. more jobs, competitive prices)

  • The Photography Group or Photography Chain Model: The photography business who employs multiple photographers and editors in an effort to create a scalable business (i.e. many jobs, competitive prices, multiple high-quantity photographers)

  • Appeal vs. Awareness

  • The Sliding Scale of Quantity vs. Quality

Let’s get to it! =)

Getting Started as an Individual Photographer

When you are just starting out as a real estate photographer, you will have the weakest portfolio of your career, the least experience of your career, the fewest contacts of your career, and the worst website with the fewest internet views of your career. Everything is new, including your photography business! Since you are just getting started, you should be building a portfolio and trying to figure out how to get your first clients by offering something they don’t currently have. That could something like lower rates, extra services (free aerials!), or a great personal relationship (such as offering to work for a friend or family member who is a realtor).

When I first started, I got my first two clients by offering the following things:

  • I had acceptable professional equipment (simply owning a tripod and a DSLR camera in 2013 made my photos higher quality than realtors shooting houses themselves, and phone cameras were not very good then)

  • The realtors knew me, so trust and a relationship had already been established

  • I offered lower prices than the most popular real estate photography “chain” in my market

  • I showed up to jobs reliably (this is important)

  • Good availability (usually this is easy to offer when you are first starting)

I have heard & read comments from other photographers that DO NOT recommend competing with low prices when you are getting started, but it is important to realize that you will not be able to charge the same prices as someone who has a more established portfolio, website, skillset, and client list than you. Some established photographers are afraid that if new photographers offer lower rates, it will drag everyone’s rates down. I disagree with this notion in most situations and markets. The only way a new person with low rates can drive other established photographers’ prices down is if the new person is offering just as much as an established photographer and somehow manages to convince a high number of potential clients to use them instead, but that will rarely (if ever) be the case! Even if an established photographer’s images are only as good as a brand new photographer (which is hopefully unlikely), the established photographer still should have a bigger & more diverse portfolio, more client contacts, more client relationships, more established trust, and more website visits, which should cause them to offer higher rates than a new photographer.

An established photographer should always be finding ways to increase the appeal of their services over what a new photographer could offer. Otherwise, how could a photographer stay in business if any new photographer that comes along can offer the same products at a lower rate?

Offering lower rates than others in your market is typically only a temporary tool used for people who are just trying to get started. The longer you are a photographer, the more your portfolio, website, skillset, and client list will grow and improve. As a result of becoming established over time, you will find that having prices that are too low will either create too much demand for you to handle, or they might be too low to be profitable enough for your business to be sustainable. In my opinion, trying to compete long-term by offering low quality images and low rates is nearly impossible, unless you are interested in “duking it out” with any other new person that comes along with low rates as they try to break into your market. To become an established photographer with a profitable & enjoyable business, you will have to develop a skill set and offer services that most realtors & new photographers cannot easily replicate. One straightforward advantage you could have is getting your FAA Part 107 certification. Just by having a license to operate a drone commercially means that you have something that most realtors and some photographers do not have, and they have a reason to hire you for aerial real estate photography work.

We will discuss rates again later on. For now, what do you think you could offer a realtor that would get you your first job?

Non-Business Relationships?

Do you have any family members or close friends who are realtors? This could get you your first job.

“Aunt Sally, who do you use for your real estate photography? Oh, a photography chain? I could shoot one of your vacant listings and give you a lower rate than what you’re paying now. What do you think?”

If Aunt Sally says yes, you’ve got your first job and the start of a portfolio!

The Door-to-Door Approach

You could bring flyers advertising your services & rates to large real estate offices, even though they probably have photographers they’ve used before. Whether a realtor uses an individual photographer or a photography chain, there are times when they may have to use an alternate! Other individual photographers might not always have immediate availability, or maybe the realtors want to try someone cheaper than a photography chain. Real estate offices often use multiple photography providers so they can be familiar with the various options at various price points, and have backup plans if someone isn’t available.

Social Media Messaging & Announcements

You could announce your intentions of starting a photography career on social media. Maybe one of your social media connections is a realtor and is willing to try a low cost photography option, even if you’re just getting started. You could also direct message realtors that aren’t yet connections and try to offer something they might be interested in, like discounts or the first job free. Hopefully you could get a phone call or in-person meeting to establish a relationship. Offering the first job free might be an option if you are simply trying to get your first portfolio images.

Speaking of social media, did you know you can make free accounts on many different websites? The more websites you create business accounts on, the more people can find you and your business offerings.

You can make free accounts or business pages on:

houzz.com
biz.yelp.com (Warning! - they will probably call and email you frequently to try to get you to pay them for leads)
flickr.com
linkedin.com
facebook.com
google.com/business
instagram.com
pinterest.com
500px.com

Starting Rates for New High-Quantity Oriented Individuals

Probably the easiest and most obvious way to decide what rates to offer as a brand new photography business is to figure out what others are charging in your market. If you are relatively new and trying to get your first portfolio images, you will probably want to set lower rates than your market at first. Since most photography chain businesses and many individual photographers present prices on their website, market rates are pretty easy to figure out! All you have to do is do an internet search for:

< Insert a nearby city here > real estate photography

I am typing this article in January 2021, and I found a number of photography chains and individuals near me in Michigan who display their prices on their websites. You will definitely want to check prices for your own region.

It looks like right now there are multiple photographers and photography groups offering 15-20 photos for around $100-150. The photos offered at those rates are the high-speed, “minimal effort” variety, where the photographer is probably at the house for less than an hour. Aerial photos are around $150-200, and 360 tours and walk-through videos are around $200-300. Most of them have discounts if you bundle multiple services.

So if I was just starting out and saw that these were typical rates in my market, I could charge $80 (temporarily) for 15-20 photos to get some experience and start building a portfolio. Remember… you will not want to be a low priced, low quality photographer for the long haul! Your goal should be to increase the appeal of your photos, website, services, and skillset over time and adjust rates upward as demand for your services increase. You might not even be profitable if you undercut your market… you want to get your portfolio and website built up so you can raise your rates and establish a profitable business.

The High Quantity Business Model

Many individual photographers operate profitable businesses by quickly and efficiently producing images that are better than what most realtors or homeowners could produce. When I think of a photographer who is a “high quantity” real estate photographer, I think of someone who can do multiple photoshoots a day and dozens of photoshoots per month. This model works best when you offer most of or all of the following:

  • Good composition in your real estate images

  • Good choices about what to photograph

  • In-focus, sharp images

  • Controlled dynamic range via multiple ambient (natural light) exposures and possibly a flash-lit exposure

  • Photo quality that is *at least* better than what a realtor or homeowner could produce

  • Competitive pricing

  • Good availability (ability to schedule a photoshoot when realtors and homeowners prefer)

  • Enjoyable interactions with realtors and/or homeowners (homeowners tell the realtor that you are a nice person to have walking around their house taking photos)

  • Reliability (show up to jobs!)

  • Quick photoshoots (you aren’t at the photoshoot location for longer than the clients would prefer)

  • Quick photo turnaround time (send the finished photos to the realtor as quick as they would like)

  • Easy scheduling

  • Easy invoicing

A photography business can become profitable using the “quantity model” fairly quickly, since it only requires a basic setup and less complex technique than a “high effort” photographer. If you have an APS-C or full-frame sensor camera, a wide angle lens, a tripod, and Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop, you have enough tools to produce better images than what most realtors would produce with their phone cameras. Although phone cameras are catching up, you can still produce more compelling images by composing your shots well (which takes practice), providing level images with straight vertical lines, exposure bracketing, and doing a bit of post-processing.

Most photographers who are just starting out will want to work on the aspects of this business model mentioned above as they learn more about their photography workflow. It will take practice to improve in many areas, especially composition and post-processing. This model & workflow is probably the most common starting point for a real estate photography business. Once you get comfortable and fairly efficient you can start deciding if you’d like to stay in this model as an individual, hire additional photographers & editors who use the same processes to scale into the group/chain model, or pursue higher quality images and higher-end work with advanced lighting setups as a “high effort” photographer.

A lot of high quantity individual photographers end up outsourcing their editing once they find their schedules loaded up with photoshoots.

Pros of the High-Quantity Individual Business Model (vs. High-Effort, Low-Quantity)

  • Editing can be quick & simple, or even outsourced to a photo editing company

  • You can handle a high quantity of jobs and say “yes” to lots of clients

  • You can offer competitive pricing and still be profitable

  • You could expand by hiring additional photographers who adhere to the same efficient process and scale your business

  • You can use minimal or no lighting equipment

  • Photoshoots are quick

Cons of the High-Quantity Individual Business Model (vs. High-Effort, Low-Quantity)

  • A high number of other photographers in your area could have a similar style or level of quality, causing you to compete on price

  • Your portfolio won’t be as suited to attract higher-end clients

  • Focusing on speed and quantity doesn’t allow as much time to create your own unique style

  • As phone cameras continue to improve, there will be less of a difference between your images and a realtor’s phone

  • You won’t learn as much about lighting subjects or complex spaces with flash

  • You won’t learn as many advanced Photoshop techniques if you’re focusing on speed

  • You won’t be as easily adaptable to other photography genres if you try to get into portraits or landscapes later on

Maintaining or Adjusting Rates as an Established High-Quantity Photographer

To think about what photography rates a high-quantity photographer should be charging, we have to think about three situations you might find yourself in.

The first situation is where you want more work than you are currently getting. This is most common when you are first starting, but it could also be a result of a decline in housing market activity, increased competition, or a regular seasonal decline like winter. If you are an established photographer, you may notice that business is much slower in the winter, so you could offer “winter rates” that are discounted to increase the number of requests you get. Ultimately, photographer rates/prices are the reality of supply and demand. If you are not getting enough work, you may have to lower rates to get more work. But if you do lower rates, you also have to make sure you will still be profitable with those rates.

There are other ways to increase the amount of work you’re getting without lowering rates. You could increase the number of bundled services (e.g. free aerial photos), increase the quality of your images, increase the quality of your website, and/or increase the number of people aware of your services (more about that later).

The second scenario you might find yourself in is that you are happy with the amount of hours you are working. Things are going well, you’re profitable, and you’re getting plenty of jobs, but not too many jobs. Your business is just right! In this situation, you may want to leave your rates alone. But if your business is getting increased requests and your schedule is almost full, you may want to consider raising rates before you start getting consistently booked up.

The third scenario of getting too many photo requests is where I found myself for about 3 or 4 years straight… and my wife certainly reminded me of it often! From 2016 to 2019, I worked more hours than I should have for the vast majority of those years, because I had just gone full time in 2015 and was excited about making my business succeed. I did raise prices multiple times, but apparently not enough! One of my problems was that from 2013 through most of 2015, I had the mindset and workflow of the “quantity model,” using no lights. Then in 2016 I started using multiple off-camera lights and was trying to take a high number of jobs while also putting a high degree of effort into every photoshoot, and multiple price increases didn’t seem to make the number of photo requests manageable! Switching mentalities from high-quantity to high-effort will require you to reduce the number of clients you have through much higher rates, as scary as that may sound. If you start putting a lot of effort into photoshoots with an advanced lighting setup you will be spending more time on each job. In addition, your website and social media feeds may start to become more appealing with better images, which in turn will create more interest in your services! You have to be prepared to make a definitive mindset switch. Avoid the mistake I made of increasing the time I spent on each job without significantly reducing the number of jobs I was accepting.

You may be thinking, “what if I put high effort into some jobs, and put low effort into others?”

I personally wouldn’t want to do that, because I don’t find enjoyment in putting a half-hearted effort into anything. I would rather push my own limits, learn things, and do the best I can in anything I do. But for business purposes, you might find two levels of service appealing, and I’m aware of other photographers doing that as well. You would just have to make it clear on your website that there are two different “levels” of service with different rates, so potential clients don’t see your high-effort architectural images and think you’re going to do that for a high-speed real estate photoshoot. Some people might even make two websites in that scenario to more strongly differentiate the two types of services.

There are at least three things you can do if you find yourself getting too busy:

  • Consider raising rates a little bit at a time, carefully, until your availability and photoshoot demand are balanced

  • Outsource your photo editing so you can sleep at night

  • Hire additional photographers and/or editors to start scaling your business into a group or chain

You have to be careful raising rates, but if you find business in a trajectory where you are getting more and more requests you may want to raise your rates before your schedule is completely full. If you wait too long you may start disappointing customers by telling them you’re booked out too far. It’s probably better to lose clients because your rates have gone up than lose clients because you have no availability!

If you want to focus on photoshoots and not spend any time on editing, outsourcing your photo editing can be a time saver once you find a company that is reliable and provides good results. Be careful though… you may be tempted to be a little sloppy or lazy during the photoshoot because you know you won’t have to edit the photos! This is one reason why you probably won’t want to outsource your editing at the beginning of your career. You should spend time learning everything about the entire workflow from photoshoot to post-processing to understand what creates the best results. This will give you an idea of what to do during the photoshoots to pave the way for successful and efficient post-processing.

Something that was recommended to me over and over during the years when I found myself to be getting way too many photo requests is to hire more people and train them to start taking photos using a similar process. People were essentially recommending that I expand my business into a group or real estate photography chain. But is that the best option for everyone?

The Photography Group / Photography Chain Model

At one point early in my career, I had a fairly quick process for photoshoots, and a fairly quick process for editing. I was doing multiple photoshoots per day, and my schedule was getting more and more overloaded despite raising rates a few times. My images weren’t the best out there, but they were good enough to get lots of real estate photo requests. At that time, my rates were similar to real estate photography chains. This would have been the perfect time for me to start a photography group if that was my goal! I ultimately decided to pursue higher quality images with complex lighting setups and didn’t really desire to be managing & teaching other photographers, so I chose not to build & scale a real estate photography group. But depending on your goals, it might be a great option!

Reasons to Build & Manage a Real Estate Photography Group/Chain:

  • You want to build a higher volume business than one person could do alone

  • You like the idea of hiring & managing other photographers & editors

  • You want to have other photographers to rely on when you take a vacation

  • You have a quick and efficient workflow that you can easily teach to others

  • You are personally overloaded but don’t want to start saying “no” to clients

  • You want to do less on-site photography and move into a more managerial position as you hire more and more photographers

  • You would prefer to handle increased demand by adding personnel rather than raising rates

Reasons NOT to Build & Manage a Real Estate Photography Group/Chain:

  • You don’t want to teach your process to others who could simply leave and become competitors

  • You are not quite busy enough to split revenue with additional photographers & editors

  • You don’t want to worry about managing other people

  • You are still trying to figure out an efficient workflow

  • You would prefer to spend time improving your own skills instead of training others

  • You want clients to hire you for your unique photo style as you continue to improve and refine your techniques

  • You would prefer to pursue higher-end work as you raise rates

  • You want to develop your own complex techniques that would be useful in other genres of photography

Photography groups/chains have to establish an easy scheduling and invoicing system that offers a one stop shop for a variety of services. A successful photography chain will offer 360 tours, aerials, photos, videos, floor plans, and any other common real estate marketing media. If you are managing a photography group with multiple photographers, you will have to take responsibility for how they behave in other people’s houses and how they take photos. You will not only have to train them in your photo & media workflows, but also make sure they interact with clients & homeowners in a professional way that reflects well on your company’s brand! When you start operating a group, you will end up being a manager, teacher, customer service supervisor, delegator, and more.

Appeal vs. Awareness

Let’s imagine that lots of real estate photographers in your area have similar workflows. For each image they produce, they take a few ambient shots at different shutter speeds and a flash-lit shot. Then they send the images to an image editing company, and some of the photographers even use the same image editors. Then they send the final images to the realtor. As a result, they all have a similar photo style, quality, and turnaround time. Or, let’s imagine that multiple photo companies in the area provide Matterport tours with an Insta360 One X. They are all going to essentially be providing the exact same product. How can they differentiate? Do they even need to differentiate?

The Natural Tendency to Differentiate, i.e. Increase Appeal

The short answer is: “Yes, a photographer needs to be constantly working to differentiate, i.e. increase appeal, because their competitors probably will be!”

The natural tendency of business owners, including photographers, is to attempt to improve their business by increasing the number of people who find their services appealing, even if they don’t think of it in those words. Most of your competitors are going to try to differentiate, even if you do not! In a market with multiple real estate media providers, you can safely assume that at least some of them are going to try to make their business more appealing to new and current clients. If lots of people have the same workflow and technique, maybe some businesses will make their website more flashy to grab the attention of new clients. Some might bundle services to create package “deals,” like lumping aerials, 360 tours, and photos together for a lower price than they would typically be á la carte. Some photographers might try to be enjoyable for homeowners and realtors to work with so they simply prefer them, despite the end products being the same as everyone else’s. Some might lower rates. Some might offer 4K video when everyone else is offering 1080p because it looks better listed on their website. Some might even realize that everyone is offering similar quality photos, and try to find a way to increase the appeal of their photos, which is still the bread & butter of most marketing material. Whatever methods we consider, people are always trying to increase the appeal of their business if their heart and mind are fully invested in their work!

The Natural Tendency to Increase Awareness

For most photographers, the desire to increase awareness is probably most noticeable when you first start. You are constantly thinking about how to get more people aware of your services! I used to think my desire to increase awareness would go away after I got a full schedule, but unbeknownst to me, it really didn’t. Whenever I worked on social media presence, handed out business cards, or enthusiastically told people what I do for a living, I was increasing awareness of my business. When companies advertise, they increase the number of people who think about their business, or remind people to think about them. There is typically an appeal factor to advertising, but it is also introduction or a reminder of something. If you see multiple billboards along the highway for a restaurant that is serving lunch, it is because they feel it’s worth spending money to increase the number of people aware that they serve lunch. Likewise, real estate media providers try to make new contacts, give flyers to offices, get better website search results, and so on. People who are intent on having their business succeed will always be trying to increase the number of people aware of their services.

Increasing Awareness vs. Increasing Appeal - Economic Considerations

Let’s say that you are an established photographer. In your area, 10% of realtors who are aware of your services (and services offered by other photographers they are aware of) want to use you for real estate photos, and there are 200 realtors aware of your business. That gives you 20 regular realtor clients.

  • 200 realtors aware of your services

  • 10% find your services most appealing vs. other options

  • 10% of 200 = 20 clients

Now let’s say you manage to increase the appeal of your services vs. the other photography options in your area by creating new service bundles. This might bump the percentage of realtors who want to hire you up to 12%, which would give you 24 regular realtor clients.

  • 200 realtors aware of your services

  • 12% find your services most appealing vs. other options

  • 12% of 200 = 24 clients

Alternatively, if you did not increase the appeal of your business but merely increased the number of people aware of your business to 240 realtors by dropping off flyers at some real estate offices, you would also have 24 regular realtor clients.

  • 240 realtors now aware of your services

  • 10% find your services most appealing vs. other options

  • 10% of 240 = 24 clients

On the flip side, let’s say that an established photographer moves into your region from another location and starts marketing their company to increase awareness, but you do not make any attempt at expanding awareness of your own business. As a result, some of your potential clients become aware of additional photography options. This could result in a drop in the percentage of realtors who want to hire you, simply because they became aware of more options. In that case, even if the number of realtors aware of your services remains constant, the percentage that you appeal to could decline, and you would have a reduction of work as a result.

  • 200 realtors aware of your services

  • Only 8% find your services most appealing because they became aware of additional options

  • 8% of 200 = 16 clients

Similarly, if a number of other photographers in your area manage to increase the appeal of their business and you do not, even if the number of realtors aware of everyone’s services remained the same, you could also see a decline in the percentage of realtors who want to hire you.

  • 200 realtors aware of your services

  • Only 8% now find your services most appealing because someone else started doing free winter aerial photos

  • 8% of 200 = 16 clients

To continue operating as a profitable real estate photography business, you will always have to be maximizing the appeal and awareness of your business in a variety of ways. Fortunately, the longer you are around, the number of potential clients aware of your services tends to go up, and your skillset and photo quality probably will improve, which should increase your appeal! =)

While both appeal and awareness are important for building a profitable business, there are different scenarios where you might find one more important than the other. For instance, when you are first starting out you will be heavily focusing on awareness. The number of realtors aware of your services when you first start can probably be counted on one hand! You have to make that number skyrocket as quickly as you can.

In another scenario, you might find yourself taking steps to raise your photos to the next level in order to differentiate yourself from your competitors in an increasingly saturated market. If the steps do not require additional time during the photoshoot or post-processing, then you should go for it! But since many technique advancements take extra time for each job you accept, you have to figure out if the extra time spent is worth it for your business model.

The Sliding Scale of Quality vs. Quantity - How Much Time & Effort is Right for Your Business?

For those of us who like to improve photo quality as a way to increase the appeal of our business and differentiate ourselves from the competition, what does that look like?

Depending on what your current photoshoot & post-processing workflow looks like, it could be one or more of the following:

  • Start using an off-camera flash

  • Start using multiple off-camera flashes & strobes

  • Start manually combining ambient images with flash images in Adobe Photoshop

  • Study composition in paintings & photography

  • Start using tilt-shift lenses

  • Use scrims & flags to block or modify natural light

  • Work with an interior designer & stager

Ultimately, the sky’s the limit. You could spend as much or as little time as you want on each of your images! The question you have to answer is, how much time and effort is right for your business? The more time you spend on each image, the fewer jobs you will be able to take. The fewer jobs you take, the higher your prices will have to be in order to make the same amount of money. It may be the case that there isn’t a market in your area for you to be spending more time per image and charging more money per job. Or, it may be the case that your market/region is already saturated with photographers who are NOT putting extra time and effort into photography, and you being a high QUALITY photographer to differentiate yourself is the only way your business will survive. You have to figure out what your goals are and what your market can support.


Buy Me A Coffee

You have to figure out where you want to be on the sliding scale of quality vs quantity. If you are one of those people thinking, “I am a great photographer AND I’m quick!” you must realize that there are always time-consuming things you could do to improve the appeal of your images. This is especially true if you are not using any flashes/strobes but are simply relying on natural/ambient light. Whether or not spending more time to increase photo quality is worth doing is up to you and your potential client market.

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Camera Gear, For Photographers, Original Article Dan Zeeff Camera Gear, For Photographers, Original Article Dan Zeeff

What Camera & Lens Should I Buy for Real Estate Photography?

I sometimes get asked by people who are getting started in real estate photography what camera and lens they should buy. Do you need an expensive camera for real estate? Do you need an expensive lens? Is it better to spend more money on the lens than the camera? What focal lengths are typically used? This article will hopefully give readers an idea of what cameras are currently available, the pros and cons of various cameras, and some info about lenses. This information can be applied to really any genre of photography, and I will also talk a little bit about the state of the industry.

 
What Camera and Lens Should I Use for Real Estate.jpg
 

See also: My extensive article/rant about tripods
See also: Real Estate Photography Techniques for Beginners
See also: DJI Air 2S Reviewed vs. Phantom 4 Pro

I sometimes get asked by people who are getting started in real estate photography what camera and lens they should buy. Do you need an expensive camera for real estate? Do you need an expensive lens? Is it better to spend more money on the lens than the camera? What focal lengths are typically used?

This article will hopefully give readers an idea of what cameras are currently available, the pros and cons of various cameras, and some info about lenses. This information can be applied to really any genre of photography, and I will also talk a little bit about the state of the industry.

Let’s get to it!

This page contains links to products, so if you find this site useful and use a link to make a purchase, I’ll get a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!

Buy Me A Coffee

Mirrorless vs. DSLR

It’s 2020, and essentially all major camera manufacturers are moving to mirrorless. Sony was the mirrorless pioneer, but now Canon and Nikon are putting most of their efforts into mirrorless. I highly recommend getting a mirrorless camera, which will allow you to use the vast majority of new lenses released by camera manufacturers in the future. If you get a mirrorless camera body with a Canon R mount, Nikon Z Mount, or Sony E Mount, you will also be able to use all of the manufacturers’ older DSLR lenses by purchasing one of their adapters. Camera manufacturers’ newest camera bodies and lenses are going to be mostly mirrorless going forward. (See also: my article about how Canon’s recent mirrorless cameras blow away their previous DSLR’s in shadow recovery)

The best choice: Mirrorless

Full-Frame vs. APS-C

Cameras referred to as “full-frame” have larger sensors than cameras referred to as “APS-C” or “crop sensor” cameras, and so they tend to produce images with better detail and more dynamic range. Full-frame cameras have sensors that are 36x24mm wide, and APS-C camera sensors are around 23x15mm but vary slightly by brand.

In the past, camera manufacturers have released a wide variety of APS-C camera & lenses alongside a wide variety of full-frame cameras & lenses. The two camera sensor sizes and their lenses lived side by side in vibrant and profitable markets, bringing home the Benjamins to the camera manufacturers. Think of how popular and well known Canon’s Digital Rebel series was (APS-C camera)! However, I think that is changing. In my opinion, camera companies are going to be putting significantly less effort into APS-C than they have in the past, and focus most of their R&D efforts on full-frame.

The improvement in smartphone camera quality continues to reduce the market for low end camera bodies, and point-and-shoot camera have plummeted. As smartphone camera quality continues to improve, people will use dedicated low-end cameras in fewer situations. At the high end of photography we have full-frame or medium format. Phone photography can’t touch the high end. In the middle, we have APS-C cameras. Canon has already released a sub-$1,000 full-frame mirrorless camera, which essentially begins to place a psychological cost ceiling for APS-C camera bodies at $1,000. Why would you buy a crop sensor for more than $1,000 when you can get a full-frame sensor for less than $1,000? Sony and Nikon haven’t released a sub-$1,000 full-frame camera yet, but they probably are already working on it. This means we have smartphones replacing more of the low end, and full-frame cameras starting to occupy price ranges previously reserved for the mid-range. APS-C cameras are still cheaper and there are lenses available for a variety of purposes, but I think there will be fewer APS-C lenses released in the future as that market shrinks.

All that is to say, full-frame cameras not only produce higher quality images, but they are probably more likely to be future-proof. If you buy an APS-C camera body and some lenses for it now, you may end up having to sell all your APS-C lenses if you upgrade to a full-frame camera body later, and start over with a bunch of full-frame lens purchases. If you start with full-frame now, you can start building a lens collection that will probably be compatible with your future camera body purchases. People tend to keep lenses longer than camera bodies, because lens technology advances slower than camera body technology.

The best choice if your budget can swing it: Full-Frame

Canon EOS R5
Canon EOS R6
Canon EOS R
Canon EOS RP

Nikon Z5
Nikon Z6
Nikon Z7

Sony a7R IV
Sony a7R III
Sony a7R II

The real estate photography cameras for a limited budget: APS-C

Canon EOS M50

Nikon Z50

Sony a6100

Camera Brands

Canon, Nikon, and Sony have been the primary three camera manufacturers in recent years. In 2019 Canon had about 45% of the overall camera market, Sony had about 20%, and Nikon had about 18%. Sony has been doing extremely well with full frame and mirrorless sales, however. Sony has been in the full-frame mirrorless game since 2013, with Canon and Nikon entering in 2018. Canon’s first full-frame mirrorless offerings were not good enough to match Sony, but now that they’ve released their flagship EOS R5 and EOS R6 in 2020, their mirrorless cameras are among the best.

Nikon has not released a new “flagship” full-frame mirrorless camera since 2018. They recently released the Nikon Z5, which is simply their cheapest full-frame mirrorless camera. But as I am writing this article, Nikon has an event scheduled where they will release information about their new Z6 II and Z7 II full-frame mirrorless. Hopefully they will continue to remain competitive with Canon and Sony, because competition makes cameras better for photographers!

As I mentioned earlier, Canon is currently the only brand making a sub-$1,000 full-frame mirrorless with the Canon EOS RP. Even though it’s the cheapest full-frame mirrorless you can get, any Canon RF lenses you buy to use with the RP will work with Canon’s future high-end camera bodies when you want to upgrade. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Sony and Nikon to follow Canon in breaking the $1,000 price point. Keep in mind that if you get a more expensive full-frame mirrorless than the $999 Canon EOS RP to you can get more features, better dynamic range, more megapixels, more photos per second, etc. But you don’t need any of those things for real estate photography! The camera’s dynamic range is not as important as in many other photography genres because your subject doesn’t move, and you can exposure bracket your scenes. You can put your camera on a tripod and take several photos that are 1 stop apart, then manually blend them in Adobe Photoshop or quickly merge them to HDR in Adobe Lightroom. You don’t need fantastic autofocus because you aren’t photographing birds in the Amazon. Buying the cheapest full-frame mirrorless available to get started in real estate is not a bad idea, especially with a limited budget. If you are going to be using the camera in multiple genres, like weddings or night photography, you might start to run into a cheaper camera’s limitations more quickly than a high-end model.

Camera Body Price Point Winner: Canon

One of the reasons people go with one camera brand or another is available lenses. I’m not going to jump into the world of 3rd party lenses right now (Sigma, Tamron, Rokinon, Zeiss, Samyang), but here are some lenses that will be able to get you through any real estate photoshoot, whether interior or exterior. All of these lenses can be used on the corresponding camera brand’s mirrorless camera bodies without an adapter, and are (in my opinion) the focal length sweet spot for your first real estate photography lens purchase. Keep in mind you can’t use a lens made by one brand with another brand of camera body (e.g. you can’t use a mirrorless Sony lens with a mirrorless Canon body or vice versa).

Full-Frame Mirrorless Lenses

Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8 L IS USM

Sony 16-35mm Vario-Tessar T FE F4 ZA OSS

Nikon NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S

Canon’s lens is faster (f/2.8 vs f/4) than the Sony or Nikon lenses I selected above and has the biggest zoom range. As a result it’s about $1,000 more expensive. Canon does not currently have a cheaper full-frame mirrorless (RF mount) do-it-all real estate lens. They do have an older EF-mount lens (for their previous DSLR’s) that you could use with an adapter for a similar price point (below), but since Sony and Nikon have cheaper mirrorless mount real estate lenses I’ll give them the price point win.

Canon EF 16-35 f/4 IS USM
Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R - the adapter required to use a Canon EF lens with one of their mirrorless camera bodies

Full-Frame Mirrorless Do-It-All Real Estate Lens Price Point Winners: Sony & Nikon

APS-C Mirrorless Lenses

If you end up going with an APS-C mirrorless camera body, then here are the lenses you could use. Notice the focal lengths all seem shorter than the full-frame lenses. That’s because APS-C (crop sensor) cameras have a 1.5x or 1.6x crop factor, so in order to be as wide as a full-frame camera you have to have wider focal ranges in the lenses.

Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 STM

Sony E 10–18 mm F4 OSS

Since Nikon’s mirrorless APS-C real estate lens doesn’t exist, I’ll give the win to Canon and Sony. You can still use the Z50 for real estate but you’d have to use an older lens with an adapter.

Nikon Mount Adapter FTZ
Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR

APS-C Mirrorless Do-It-All Real Estate Lens Winners: Canon & Sony

Understanding Focal Lengths in Real Estate Photography

The reason I chose specific lenses for this real estate specific article is their focal length ranges. Most real estate work can be done from around 16-17mm up to around 30-35mm (when dealing with full-frame focal lengths). When you are trying to capture an entire bedroom or the expanse of the main living areas, you may find yourself wanting to be below 20mm. When you are photographing the details, the kitchen, or exteriors of a home, I tend to like to be at a longer focal length, like 24-35mm. Having a single zoom lens that allows you to handle any of these focal length ranges will allow you to move quickly through a photoshoot without changing lenses. If you get to a point in your career where you get to spend more time during photoshoots you could start using specialized lenses like tilt shift lenses or longer focal lengths, but for anyone who is just getting started it is extremely valuable to have your workhorse lens that can handle the entirety of any job.

Wider focal lengths tend to exaggerate the size of whatever objects are close to the camera, and longer focal lengths tend to make everything in the frame a more appropriate size. If you can fit everything you want in a shot at a longer focal length the composition will probably be more pleasing, but in many cases a realtor will want you to show the whole room or make rooms look big. If you look at real estate photos on Zillow or your local MLS the interior photos tend to be fairly wide in general. If you are just starting you should probably provide wide photos that show the whole room to the realtors that hire you and use longer focal lengths on the exterior. As you practice composition you might start finding ways to capture rooms using longer focal lengths in ways that the realtors appreciate, but you will probably start out with lots of clients that want wide interior photos for selling houses.

Summary

Hopefully this article gives you enough information to get started. You really could get started with any brand of camera and lens, but I would definitely go with a full-frame mirrorless if you can make it work. Not only will full-frame cameras produce better images, but they are cheaper than ever before and full-frame lenses can be used on your next few camera bodies as well. I will try to update this article as new products come out in the future, but for now here is a summary of the products mentioned in this article. If you found it helpful and use one of these links, I’ll get a small commission. Thanks!

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Products Mentioned in this Article

Canon Cameras

Canon EOS R5
Canon’s Best Full-Frame Mirrorless

Canon EOS R6
Canon’s Mid-Range Full-Frame Mirrorless

Canon EOS RP
Canon’s Cheapest Full-Frame Mirrorless

Canon EOS M50
A Canon Mirrorless APS-C (Lower Cost than Full-Frame, but compatible lenses are probably less future-proof)

Canon Lenses

Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM
A very fast, expensive, sharp full-frame mirrorless lens that can handle everything from real estate to astrophotography.

Canon EF 16-35 f/4 IS USM
An older, cheaper canon lens that you can use on a full-frame mirrorless with an adapter.

Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM
A Canon APS-C lens that is only compatible with the M50

Sony Cameras

Sony a7R IV
Sony’s Highest Megapixel Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera

Sony a7R III
A mid-range Sony Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera

Sony a7R II
A lower-cost Sony Full-Frame Mirrorless

Sony a6100
A Sony Mirrorless APS-C (Lower Cost than Full-Frame, but compatible lenses are less future-proof)

Sony Lenses

Sony 16-35mm Vario-Tessar T FE F4 ZA OSS
A reasonably priced lens for your full-frame mirrorless Sony camera that can handle any real estate job

Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS
An APS-C lens for your Sony a6100 with an ideal real estate focal range

Nikon Cameras

Nikon Z7
Nikon’s Best Full-Frame Mirrorless

Nikon Z6
Nikon’s Mid-Range Full-Frame Mirrorless

Nikon Z5
Nikon’s Cheapest Full-Frame Mirrorless

Nikon Z50
Nikon’s Mirrorless APS-C (Lower Cost than Full-Frame, but using a compatible real estate photography lens requires an adapter)

Nikon Lenses

Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S
A lens for Nikon full-frame mirrorless with a good real estate focal range

Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR
An APS-C lens to use with the Nikon Z50, but it requires an adapter

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