Photography For Real Estate

Jack in Florida asks: When I photograph the exterior of a house, I generally like to have the interior lights on especially if there’s impressive chandelier or other lighting features inside. After doing this for over 10 years, I got a complaint from a new agent that she did not like the lights being on […]

?Lee in San Francisco asks: What are the best light diffusers for shooting large rooms? I have an immediate question about which umbrella to buy for my speed lights. I am trying to shoot very large rooms. What do you recommend?

Since the way real estate photographers approach lighting interior spaces is such a key aspect of real estate photography, I thought it would be useful to talk more about the recent lighting poll. Here are some points I think are significant:

A couple of days ago, I ran across Matthew Stallone’s great little tutorial on HDR vs. Multiflash real estate photography. It made me think of how much real estate lighting techniques have changed over the past few years and how it may help someone starting out in this field to get a big picture overview […]

Steven in Jersey says: A few months back, I had a photo shoot in an empty house with wood floors. In post-processing, I noticed what a poor shot it was. Recently, this happened again. The dark/light extremes and exposure are really kicking me in the pants. In post, I can bring the exposure up but […]

?Ray in North Carolina says: I recently viewed a YouTube video where the photographer stated unequivocally that compositing is the now and future for producing great RE photography. I am an avid off-camera lighting shooter and he is right that the process can be cumbersome; not always producing the best possible photo. What are your […]

Last week, there were two questions about gelling flashes. Tom on the Big Island asked: For those who use interior flash, do you always or more often than not, gel the flash? I have been trying to get a better understanding of how to use gels. I have seen videos that gel the flash to […]

Dale asked the following question: I am looking at the Sony A7III coupled with the Sony FE 16-35mm F/2.8 for shooting real estate photographs. Can anyone tell me what common flashes are used with this camera for photographing real estate? I have personally successfully used the YN-560-TX trigger and YN-560-IV with the Sony A6300. The […]

?Bill in California asks: I’m interested in finding out more about which strobes/moonlights RE photographers use. I didn’t find much reference to those in the PFRE equipment poll or in the general blog posts. I shoot listings for only 1 client (my wife) with up to four YN560-III Speedlights remotely controlled by a YN560-TX. I […]

?Logan asked the following: I use a Fuji X-E1 with a Rokinon 12mm lens and a YN560 flash. I also purchased the YN560-TX controller but I can’t seem to get it to work with my camera. I’ve just been using the tiny on-camera flash to trigger my Speedlight in slave mode but it has a […]

Jeff says: I will start off by saying that I shoot in HDR (hoping to get into HDR/flash hybrid shooting eventually) the majority of the time. My question is, why do I still get glare from the windows around the edges? Even if its a cloudy day, I still get that kind of glowing blue-white […]

Recently, I was talking to Malia Campbell who shot the video for Scott Hargis’s now famous real estate photography lighting video series. She reminded me that we are going on 6 years since she and Scott released this fantastic video series. For those of you who are just starting out in real estate photography and […]

Carmen in Spain asks: I want to move from HDR to off-camera flash. With a tight budget and so many options out there, how can I make sure I buy the right gear on the first try? I’m not going to bore you with my lifelong history of gear buying failures but the most epic […]