Real Estate Photography: How to get started?

You may be a photographer or a newbie in photography. You want to involve in real estate photography but you don’t know how to get started. Here are some general guidelines to start you on the right path.

Real estate photograph

Market Analysis

When doing market research, there are three important factors you need to keep in mind: the target market, the number of potential customers, and the competitors. Real estate photography includes many small segments such as drone photography/video, interior photography, or other relevant services like photo editing, virtual tour… You can take a look and determine which one is your target market. When deciding your target market, you will define your potential customers who are in need of your services. The last thing you should keep in mind is your competitors. It is not difficult to find out who are your competitors in your local.  You can search Stilio.com to see if there are any other registered photographers in your area. Do some research about their business and figure out their strength and weaknesses. From that you will know what your advantages are when you join the competition.

Skill requirements

                                

For any kinds of photography, good eyes are very important. With the same property, different angles will show different looks. Therefore photographers with artistic eyes who can figure out flattering angles will make the house look totally unique.  

Technical expertise is an indispensable factor in photography, especially in real estate photography which requires many techniques about controlling light, camera, flash and software. Without knowledge about how to shoot real estate photograph, it would be very difficult to succeed in this field.

Besides that, working in real estate photography, you may encounter with busy shooting schedules and a huge amount of images which need to edit. You must be able to work under the pressure of deadlines.

Equipment

To get started with real estate photography, a camera, lens, and tripod, are all that is required. You don’t need to invest too much money in buying the latest and greatest cameras to get solid shots. Just need to make sure your camera can allow you to add a cable release, a flash, different lenses, and wireless triggers. If you already own a modern digital SLR, make use of it and invest your money in other items.

Lens is another essential equipment. It is said that a wide angle or ultra wide angle lens is key to real estate photography success. The perspective provided by wide-angle lenses allows the viewer to see the depth and the width of the house, which makes them feel as if they are actually in the home. Many professional real estate photographers suggested that for cropped sensor cameras a lens around 10-22mm or 12-24mm is perfect, and for full frame sensor cameras, a lens around 16-35 mm will do the job.

A tripod will be your savior in many cases when you need to shoot low ISO images for top quality, plus reduced aperture for greater sharpness and increased depth of field.

Chase Thibodeaux – the CEO of Xposure Real Estate Photography- states that "For anyone looking to explore real estate photography the biggest thing to focus on would be your gear. It doesn't have to be extravagant gear to get excellent photos but a DSLR and ultra wide angle lens is a must. Add in a tripod and you are set to go!"

To get started in any fields, it is always a hard road at the first time. However, if you stick to it and make your best effort, you will receive sweet fruit soon. Hope this article can be useful for those who are going to get into this field.