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Congratulations Scott Prokop, June 2025 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Formal Dining Room".Scott Prokop - Entry 1078 Paul-Dan Dragoman - Entry 1077 Trace Tague - Entry 1079
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In this article, we're giving you real estate photography lighting tips so that you can capture high-level interior and exterior photos to get potential clients to buy your clients' properties.
Rhett asked the following question: Can you tell me what the most popular settings for shooting interiors are? Also, how would you set your flash and would you use a Gary Fong Light sphere? Shooting interiors I usually shoot at f5.6 and white balance in Auto. then set my SB-700 to TTL. What do you think is […]
Dan in California, writes: "I'd like to hear how most of you deal with wood. Wood on the ceilings, wood on the walls, wood on the floors. Many homes I shoot, and some commercial buildings have cedar or knotty pine ceilings, including more and more of the $1 million+ homes I work on. I also […]
Sometimes when you try shooting with the interior lights off, you may notice that the rooms look a bit less inviting. If you shoot with the lights on, you may get some less impressive features forcing you to Photoshop the lights off. So do you shoot with interior lights on or off? Do You Shoot […]
?David in Alabama asked the following: I've recently been reading about the Sekonic C-700 color and light meter. It seems like an amazing tool with great potential for PFRE users but how would you best use a device like this to sort the perennial problems of WB and color accuracy in rooms with multiple light […]
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 […]
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 I am 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 want […]
Darren in Northern California says: Is there a particular technique or tactic to reducing glare and reflections on interior windows during twilight photo shoots? I capture a few exposures (ambient and flash fill) and then brush them together in editing. Often times, the views beyond the window are obstructed by interior reflections. Window glares and […]
Earlier this week a reader asked: Does anyone use LED lights so that you can see how everything looks before shooting (aka not relying on flash lighting)? I don't have any direct experience using LED lighting but I would speculate that in general, continuous LED lighting wouldn't be that much of an advantage for real estate […]
in Iowa asked: I have been asked to photograph the interior of a commercial property. I went there in advance to see how I would set up my lighting, but honestly I'm having a hard time coming up with a plan. It is a gym with huge open spaces and very high ceilings. I thought […]
Ron in Northern California says: I love your resource here. I have a Canon 5D MKIII with 600EX-RT speedlite and ST-E3-RT trigger. I've been shooting for a couple of months using brackets and Lightroom HDR. I had some color consistency issues and after reading some your posts on using a manual flash I added flash […]
in South Carolina asked: Shot a higher end house the other day and encountered a tough scenario: black walls, dark wood, lots of windows. Any tips or tricks for shooting black walls? Flashes were doing very little at full power. Also in the same house, high gloss red paint! I left the flashes in the bag […]
recently asked the following: I would love to know via a poll how many real estate photographers do a Lightroom to Photoshop composite process vs. lighting the way Scott Hargis does where you spend much less time post processing. I see so many tutorials on YouTube for compositing, and it seems like it's a very big […]
Vida in Kranj, Slovenia asks: What is your preferred way of lighting rooms without windows? Having elaborate lighting to mimic windows is often impossible due to small spaces and also misleading. Rooms with one strong light overhead are lighted terribly with ugly shadows and colors. Using bounced flash is often flat and just not soft […]
John wants to know: How others fix white balance issues on white ceilings. Color casting from adjacent walls, interior lights of varied temperatures and some sunlight all make for a challenging fix. I have been adjusting by using local adjustments brush on the ceilings and using WB tool, a little desaturation and increasing brightness. Wondering […]
Today Kelly asked me: How do most real estate photographers handle window blinds? Do they raise them all the way up to let in more light and show the view? Open them at an angle? Open them completely but not raise them? I think It's impossible to make any blanket statement about what to do with […]
In the last year or so I've had several readers tell me how much they liked the Graslon Prodigy Dome Diffuser for real estate photography. I must admit that I'm not a big user of diffusers that attach to your flashes. Probably because I learned everything I know about small flashes from Scott Hargis so […]
First of all I need to point out that this is Scott Hargis's post. Like many of you I've been admiring the way Scott uses a hand full of strobes to light a room to look like an Architectural Digest shoot and still keep the time to shoot a hole home within a few hours. […]
