How to Start Real Estate Photography
If you are a new photographer and want to start taking real estate photos, there are several steps you can take to get started. These tips will help you make the most of your real estate photography experience and set you up for success.
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First, you should learn how to use your camera effectively. Getting the hang of the basics, such as shutter speed and aperture, will help you take more creative, professional-looking shots.
Another great way to become more familiar with your camera is to practice shooting different angles of a property. This will help you understand how to frame each shot and capture the house’s best features.
It is also a good idea to spend time at the property before you take pictures to check out the room’s layout and see what other things you might need to bring to the shoot. This will save you a lot of time in post-production and ensure that your real estate photos are the best they can be.
When you’re working with clients, it is important to have an agreement in place before the shoot. This will help ensure that you are paid on time and there are no misunderstandings after the shoot has been completed.
In addition, you should always have a signed contract for every job you do. This will help ensure that you can get paid quickly and easily after the shoot, and it will ensure that your client will be satisfied with your work.
Once you have a portfolio of real estate photos, it is a good idea to start showcasing them online. This can be done on your own website, or you can hire a web designer to build a custom portfolio site for you.
Having an excellent website will not only show potential clients that you are a professional photographer, but it will also help you get more real estate photo shoots. This is especially helpful if you’re just starting out, as it can be hard to find the right clients without a professional portfolio.
As a real estate photographer, you’re likely to have many homes to photograph in the course of your career. For this reason, it’s a good idea to invest in a quality full-sensor DSLR camera, such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.
This camera allows you to focus on the details of each scene, and it will give you a good starting point when it comes to post-processing your photos. It will also allow you to do exposure bracketing, which is a key technique for producing HDR or High Dynamic Range images.
In addition, it will allow you to take more control of the image’s lighting. For example, you can easily change the color of the light and the ambiance of the room by adjusting the white balance in post-production.
You should also learn how to remove lens distortion and vignetting from your real estate photographs, as these can be jarring and distracting to the eye. You can do this in Lightroom by enabling profile correction and applying a manual lens profile to the image.