Photography For Real Estate

Back a couple of weeks ago Vince DeStefano of Melbourne told us about his new UAV. As you can imagine, a $3500 UAV is not something that you want to just throw in the boot without some kind of protection and of course most UAVs don’t come with a nice carrying case.

So Vince built his own custom carrying case out of parts you can buy from penn-elcom.com.

Vince says:

It’s relatively cheap and easy to build a high end road case for your equipment and may be a good alternative to commercial case for guys just starting out. For example, this  case in the photo cost a little under $220 (1 USD=$1.02 AUD=$1.03 CAD=0.77 EUR=.66 GBP) to build.

Penn Elcom is world wide so most people should have an office close to them.

While I mainly use pelican cases for my camera, I have a few sets of large red head lights that I have always wanted cases for, hence I will probably build a few for my lighting.

Building my own case was very rewarding as it saved me a lot and I was able to completely customise it.

Most important thing I learned when building this case was, make a box or cube first with all 6 sides glued together, then cut the lit off that. That way you will have a perfectly fitting lid every time.

Also with this case, while its super strong, I made it out of a ply with an ABS coating. I really should have made it from Aluminium wafer panel because that’s much lighter, and it’s a fairly large case. I will probably keep this case for interstate transport as it will handle any baggage handling departments punishment, but I will make an aluminium version for day to day use.

The ply is very strong, but the aluminium wafer panel that Penn Elcom sells is very light weight.

DYI is not for everyone. Vince is clearly a DIY guy. Over the years he’s shared several his DiY projects (here, here and here). There are some cases where if you don’t do it DIY you have to do without or pay more than necessary.

Today Flickr implemented their new design. The three main things that is different are:

1. The interface has been updated.
2. Everyone gets a free terabyte of storage.
3. It allows you to share in full resolution.
4. Upload once and send to any screen.

If  you want a more detailed look at the new features have a look at Ken Yeung’s review over at thenextweb.com

I like the look of the new design. Larger thumbnails, black backgrounds. Looks much more modern.

I joined flicker in 2007, and this is the first time anything on flickr.com has been changed since 2007. Almost exactly a year ago Matt Honan over at Gizmodo declared flickr dead. Thanks to Marissa Mayer it looks like Yahoo is going try to breathe some life back into flickr. Back in 2007 it was the best photo sharing site on the web.

Last week Andy in Aurora, CO asked me the following:

“I’m looking into buying a new PC. Have you done any research or polls on what system requirements work best for real estate processing applications. I’m thinking about something that would allow me to run Photomatix and Lightroom at the same time, and still do some uploading of images in the background. Recommendations on processor, video/graphics card, and RAM would be helpful. Also, ideas on pricing out such a system.”

Here is my answer:

• Essential: Don’t skimp on the amount of RAM you get. In the overall scheme of things RAM is cheap and generally makes more difference that the speed of your processor. I always get 16 gig of RAM on any machine I buy. Maybe you could get by with 12 gig, I don’t know. But with 16 gig RAM there is NEVER any memory issues. I’ve tried 8 gig, and that’s not enough for Lightroom to perform well all the time.
• Not essential but really makes life easier:
  • SSD drive: My last desktop I got with a 250 gig SSD drive ( 250 gig of RAM that that looks to the OS like a disk). Wow! I’ll never buy another computer without one! Instant booting and instant everything else.
  • Top of the line graphics card: My understanding is that while Photoshop  and Adobe Premier Pro use GPU acceleration Lightroom 4 does not. So a lot depends on specifically which software you use.
  • High Quality 27″ or 30″ monitor: Get two if you can afford it. Lightroom works really nicely with dual monitors. You get what you pay for here. I have a $1,000 monitor sitting along side a $400 monitor and the cheap one looks crappy while the $1000 one knocks my socks off.

I didn’t give Andy any specific recommendations because I don’t focus much on PC hardware and I knew you gentle readers would have plenty of detail advice for Andy. What do you think?

Update 5/21/2013: The question came up below, do Lightroom 4 and Photomatix Pro make use of a graphics card or GPU integrated into the processor? The research I’ve done indicates that Lightroom 4 does not make use of a graphics processor and the HDRsoft.com support people said the following: “Photomatix Pro does not make use of an independent graphics card; for that matter, it doesn’t make use of the main GPU either. If you’re looking to improve the performance in Photomatix Pro, the most efficient way to do so is to add more RAM to the computer. In case you’re concerned about the slowness with the Fusion/Realistic method, you may be interested to know that it will be much faster in the upcoming 5.0 version of Photomatix Pro.”

You’ve probably noticed that PFRE is running faster. It’s hard to miss. Starting late Friday US West Coast time (Tijuana time) we moved the PFRE blog to a higher performance server.

Things have been slowing down for the last year or so as our traffic has been increasing but the thing that really made our old server’s speed noticeable was when we redesigned the real estate photographers directory. Cristi, our web developer pointed out how bad the performance on the old sever was and help me move to this new server.

There are still performance improvements that we are going to make in the future but by the time you read this all the DNS servers on the planet should be pointing to the new server.

Thanks for putting up with our slowness in the past few months!

We’ve got a bunch of great new property videos this week for your consideration.

The Penthouse – Air Apartments Eastwood: by Michael Stentiford in Adelaide: Michael was concerned about the fact that this video is 6 min. We’ve discussed the idea here before that video tends to be for the more serious lookers, and they will want to watch much longer that the buyer that hasn’t focused on a property yet. I think Michael and his client have done a great job. I was interested to the end! Such a great property! And I love the dramatic time-lapse sequence at the end!

3115 Beach Drive Victoria, BC: By Jacob & Jaimie McNeil, PlatinumHD Propvid Canada: Wow! What a magnificent property! It doesn’t get better than this in Victoria. Jacob and Jaimie have done a stunning job shooting this property. Several times I’ve kidded Jacob and Jaimie in the past that they have narration of Canadian property video by narrators with an Aussie accent. This video has more of a UK sound to the English. Jacob pointed out to me that they actually give the client a choice of AU, UK or North American English.

Mondonedo Cove: by Tom Coplen: Tom says, “This video is a bit of an experiment, trying to make a shorter video with a little faster pace, quicker cuts, no dissolve transitions and no voice-over. A little more upbeat in general”. Interesting effect of speeding up the cuts. What do you think?

15 East Spruce Street, Steamboat Springs, CO by Charlie Dresen: Charlie manages to give the viewer a feel for what for what it would feel like to live in this great ski resort property in central Steamboat Springs.

By now you’ve probably hear or read some rants about the new Adobe Creative Suite Application licensing that Adobe announced last week. If not here is the news in a nutshell (via Forbes.com):

1. In the future Adobe Creative Suite applications like Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro etc. will only be available via Creative Cloud (on a subscription basis).
2. You can subscribe to any one application for $19.99/mo.
3. You can get everything for $49.99/mo.
4. Lightroom 5 will not be a part of this (yet), it will still be available as a standalone application. This is good news for most real estate photographers!

Whether we like it or not this move by Adobe is part of the new digital world. Any company that’s not distributing  software effectively is not viable in the long term. Adobe has been doing a crappy job of electronic software distribution for a long time. Presumably Creative Cloud will fix that. If it doesn’t this will be a disaster.Of course there’s more going on here than distribution. The price is generally higher unless you are using a lot of Creative Suite applications intensively. But if you just use Photoshop and only upgrade every couple of years, this new licensing is more expensive. The thing that has many people worked up about this change is the subscription part. We are generally not used to subscribing to software.

For many businesses that need professional level applications this change won’t have that much impact. However, for very small, emerging businesses this will probably mean they will be more inclined to use Photoshop Elements  or an old copy of Photoshop if they can get by with it.

As of late May 14th here are the entries for the May PFRE photographer of the month contest. The cut off for entries is end-of-day May 15. If you’d like to enter you only have about 24 hours left.

Before submitting an entry take a look at the Contest page that describes all the rules and contest process.

This contest is a juried contest. The list of jurors is on the contest page. The primary purpose of the contest is being recognized by your peers in the real estate photography industry.

The theme for May is “Interior with breath taking view”, and we will be accepting only photos that fit that theme. The winner will be picked by the jury between May 16 and May 23. The contest is anonymous. That is, no one knows who submitted the photos (except me) until the jury has chosen a winner. Once a winner is chosen the names and the number of points awarded each entrant is posted on each photo.

The submitted images are available for viewing in the PFRE Photographer of The Month flickr group. I post them there as they are submitted. Also for people with devices that won’t display Flash the left-sidebar widget displays the submitted images in a non-Flash format. This sidebar display lags the flickr group display by several hours. Or use one of the great new Flickr Apps available on tablets and SmartPhones.

I’d like to encourage everyone to comment on the contestant photos. Make this contest a learning experience for everyone.

Suzanne Feinberg in Scottsdale, AZ announced last week that she was going to do some free SEO coaching/mentoring for three PFRE readers.

Suzanne got a bunch of interested readers for her offer. She says:

There were so many compelling stories from PFRE blog readers that it was a very hard choice. As a result, I changed the rules midstream – rather than having 3 winners, I decided on 7 winners. That’s right, call me crazy for creating so much extra work for myself, but I have a strong desire to give back to this community. The following is what I will be providing:

• A half hour one-on-one session using GoToMeeting to determine where everyone’s SEO currently stands.
• A half hour one-on-one session using GoToMeeting to go over specific recommendations.
• Two one hour group sessions to teach SEO basics and give homework assignments
• A Followup after three months with everyone as a group to go over results.

I will be contacting the winners individually beginning on June 1st.

Here are the winners:

1. Liz Lopez  – Atlanta, GA
2. Dan Ryan - Stirling, NJ
3. Charlotte Rosato – MA
4. Ethan Tweedie - Big Island, HI
5. Sinead Hastings – Truckee, CA
6. John McBay - Southern NJ
7. Katherine Gooding - Seattle

Thanks Suzanne for your enthusiasm and generosity in undertaking this coaching/mentoring!

Now that the new directory is up and running I wanted to point out some of the cool new features of the new directory:

• Three types of entries: Just as it’s been for years, there are three types of entries. Standard, Winner (Photographer of the Month winners) and Premium.  Premium entries show up at the top of all directory searches.
• Shortcuts: The four links West Coast, Middle States, East Coast and Outside US correspond to the four different pages of the old directory.  There are also shortcuts for some states and cities down in the footer.
• Detailed search: For a more detailed search use the country and state drop downs plus the Name/Website/City search box. People are likely to search by city name just because that’s the area they are likely to find a photographer they need. So you should use your simple city name when you register.
• More information: This new directory let’s you supply and update your information. It has a free form description area where you can put any text you want about your business. It’s free form so you can put phone numbers email addresses or what ever you want in there. Also, each directory entry has an email form for people to contract you.
• Comments: Right now comments are allowed on directory entries but after a couple of days operation I think this feature was a bad idea. We are going to be turning off comments.
• New PFRE Directory Access for old directory subscribers: I know that old directory subscribers would like to get their login account and password for their directory entry so they can update and change their entry like new subscribers. This coming week (week of 5/13), I’ll be emailing out accounts and passwords to all the old subscribers that I have email addresses for. So be patient, we’ll get everyone taken care of.
• Click through Stats: Each directory entry shows how many visitors have clicked on your directory entry (left hand number labeled “views”) and how many have clicked the link to your website (right hand number that is labeled “sent out”).
• Get Listed Now: Anyone who is not logged in to the directory will see the orange “Get Listed Now” button which allows you to sign-up and put yourself in the directory as soon as your payment is authorized.
• Directory subscriptions: Standard directory entries are $30/year and a Premium directory entry is $40/year. All the feedback I get from the almost 500 photographers currently in the directory indicates that you get business from this directory.
• Directory Traffic: The directory is currently averaging around 2500 Pageviews a month and with the new directory you’ll be able to see how many of those your directory entry gets and how many viewer click-through to your site.

I’m glad to get the PFRE Directory updated so it is no longer limited. I believe this is a much better directory for half the price it’s been.

Cleanup: There are still a few old invalid entries in the directory which I’m working on cleaning up.

Performance: Yes, during peak periods the PFRE blog is at times slower than it should be. My next step is to get the blog moved to a higher performance server to remedy this. I can’t promise when, but it will be as soon as possible.

Update 5/13: All the little startup problems we had are now fixed.

Thanks to my bro down in Perth (Dave Williamson)  for getting me going on this week in real estate video TWIRV. I was preoccupied this week with getting the new Real Estate Photographers Directory running so I didn’t have a subject for this week’s TWIRV until Dave sent me this little ditty by Raphael Alberto Perez (his initials are RAP).

Raphael’s video got coverage in HuffPo. Raphael did this whole video with his iPhone and a greenscreen. Turns out Raphael isn’t the only Realtor to be RAP’n. Here are some others:

• Makin’ Money – TheAgent.tv
• Real Estate Rap: Houses Gettin’ Sold!
• Real Estate Rap

Interestingly Raphael’s YouTube has already been remixed by DGMUSICisGOOD. This may be a first; a remixed property video.

This all goes to show you that if you are willing to get out there and do something wild and crazy on camera you can get a lot of  attention. After all marketing is all about getting attention. “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.” – P.T. Barnum