Thread: Tips on Taking Photos of My House

Searched, but didn't find anything. Let me know if this has been covered somewhere already...

So I'm going to take some photos of the interior and exterior of my house over the weekend. Looking to maggot wisdom for some tricks and tips. I read this from Strobist which was helpful, but I don't have 9 flashes laying around, so much of it is beyond my capabilities: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/04...und-house.html

My current equipment is Nikon crop body, 18-200 zoom and a 50mm prime. I have a speedlight and remote triggers. My feeling is that I may need one more light and a wider lens for this. We have a small-ish bathroom that will be the hardest to shoot with my current lens arrangement, I think.

I'm thinking middle of the day for inside to maximize ambient light, and doing some golden hour stuff for the outside and backyard?

What say ye?

Definitely want to rent a wider fast lens. A tokina 11-16 f/2.8 would be handy.

One thing for sure is to remove as much clutter as possible from the photos. Anything small that might be on tables such as pictures, figurines, etc will detract from the photos.

As far as photo wise an option is to shoot at night with no light coming in and go around and light-paint the room. I have done this with pretty good success with the right room (and with night shots through windows can look real cool).

From my limited experience I think that staging the rooms and taking a photo from an angle that best illustrates the room is more important then having a bunch of perfect lighting. 18mm is not the best but it should get most of the shots. Worst thing you do is experiment and then if you feel you are missing shots then rent equipment when you determine a shot you want is not feasible without it.

Golden hour for inside as well - turn on all the lights too. Golden hour will give you a much warmer light coming in the windows thus being closer to the tungsten/fluorescent light bulbs in your fixtures. This will cut down on the "bright blue blob" effect of the windows in a shot.

You will also get more pleasing shadows/rays of light when the source (sun) is coming in at a lower angle.

I have shot many interiors for my wife's Remodeling business. Never really needed (or wanted) a strobe. You can always place lamps hidden behind pieces of furniture if you are finding that certain areas are too shadowed.

If there's too much light coming in from the windows a down & dirty trick is to hang a thin white sheet across the outside of the window, softening the incoming light. You will lose any shadows/beams present w/o the "silk" however.

Shoot wide (get a W/A lens - you'll need it) That 18mm is a 27mm equivalent in 35mm. I normally shoot at 16mm on a FF camera. Stop down to a5.6 or smaller aperture so you get the maximum Depth of Field you can, and use a Tripod. Shoot at a low ISO (I shoot at 100) to keep noise out of your shadowed areas. You're better off shooting a long exposure at as crisp an ISO as your camera can get, rather than a shorter exposure where your black get muddy from noise.

Thanks for all the info. That all helps a lot. So I think I'll go with a wide angle lens, and natural/existing light.

What are the ethical concerns with photoshopping these photos? Nothing crazy, just maybe cloning out some brown spots on the lawn, etc?

Originally Posted by Phildo_Baggins

What are the ethical concerns with photoshopping these photos? Nothing crazy, just maybe cloning out some brown spots on the lawn, etc?

I don't think that is a big issue. The people will see the lawns condition when they come check out the house. It's not like you are selling it sight unseen and tricking them.

One word: Fisheye

Fisheye? That's a horrible suggestion for photos of a house.... are you trying to say "my house is tiny so I need a distorted lens to make it look bigger"? When I was recently looking to buy a house, I saw one set of pictures taken with a fisheye lens- they were the stupidest looking shots of any I saw. I hope you're kidding.

Just take high quality pictures with an ultra-wide angle lens. Good advice so far.

Originally Posted by shredgnar

One word: Fisheye

Fuck that. Lensbaby.

Originally Posted by smmokan

Fisheye? That's a horrible suggestion for photos of a house.... are you trying to say "my house is tiny so I need a distorted lens to make it look bigger"? When I was recently looking to buy a house, I saw one set of pictures taken with a fisheye lens- they were the stupidest looking shots of any I saw. I hope you're kidding.

Just take high quality pictures with an ultra-wide angle lens. Good advice so far.

Yeah, that was a joke. Jesus! Is everyone's sarcasm meter turned off this week?

I just bought a house and when we were looking, I felt insulted whenever some jackass used a crazy wide angle lens to "enhance" the look of his tiny house.

That said, the pics of the house that we ended up buying were not very flattering at all, but we ended up checking it out on our way to another house. We never even went to the other house after seeing this one.

Think of the things about the house that you really love. (views, small details, garden, interesting features, etc.) Spend some time taking pictures of those things as well as the typical stuff.

Took some shots last night on a whim, but I think I need to go pick up a wide-angle and reshoot a few. Otherwise, I think they do what they need to do.

Took a couple of hours and created a website for the house as well: http://649roosevelt.com. I assume this is standard practice for lots of people, but I haven't seen any for houses like mine.

Maggot rate for anyone who buys this thing

Nice website for the property. My only nits would be try to straighten your vertical lines, can you correct your lens distortion in post? Also i think house photography is a great place to use HDR, especially for the windows. Nice to see thru the windows rather than see a blown out white spot. Good job on nice clean shots!

My 2 cents...

Thanks for the feedback. Agreed on the vertical lines and distortion. When I have a little more time to sit down I'll fix all that in PS. I wanted to get the site up ASAP, so I figured something is better than nothing, and just ran them through Lightroom.

I left the windows blown out, since the views from the house aren't really that great, but I may reshoot the ones looking out the front of the house to show that direction. Can you just run a normal HDR for that? Or would masking out the windows be better?

Here's a great little stand-alone program for Barrel/Pin Distortion and Perspective correction: http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/

If you have PhotoShop here's Rockwell's take: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/corr...distortion.htm

Originally Posted by Phildo_Baggins

I left the windows blown out, since the views from the house aren't really that great, but I may reshoot the ones looking out the front of the house to show that direction. Can you just run a normal HDR for that? Or would masking out the windows be better?

Like I said - just hang a silk or thin white sheet on the outside. It'll cut back on the amount of light coming in and will hide the exterior.

Thanks for the links Tipp

I was going to reshoot some photos tonight, but we listed the house yesterday, and we've had five showings and two offers already.

Guess they were good enough!

Thanks everyone!