If you’re noticing that some of your competitors have upped their photography game and their photos are getting more attention for their homes than you’re getting for yours, then you’re probably not wrong.
For the past ten years, the folk at Doctor Photo have been banging on in the Estate Agency press and online, encouraging you and others to up your game with your photography. After all, you’re creating the very first impression for all your buyers looking online and in your print advertising, so your images ought to be top-notch.
But, if you’re struggling and you’re not willing to employ a pro to take your photos for you, or if you just want to save money, then here are five easy tips that will transform your interior photography for ever.
- Don’t use flash
Use ambient light. Ambient light is defined as all the light you didn’t bring with you. Flash can be good if it’s used well but it requires skill and time and, in the case of some hotel photographers, a small army of helpers. Using ambient light will mean that your shadows will go in the right direction and your images will look more natural. But you will need to …
- Use a Tripod
For your interiors, using a sturdy tripod is necessary because you’ll want your photos to be sharp. At least, you should want that. Sharp photos happen when, with your wide-angle lens, you use an aperture of F8. However, when you’re hand-holding the camera and using F8 indoors, your shutter speed will likely be too slow and you’ll get what we call in the industry, ‘blurry photos’. So, if you see a shutter speed that’s slower than 1/30th of a second (wide-angle lens) then using a tripod will get you out of trouble.
- Use a low ISO
I could go into a lot of detail here giving the reasons why, but suffice it to say that the ISO setting affects your image quality. Try to keep your ISO to 400 or lower if possible. If you’re using a tripod, that should work out fine.
- Expose for the highlights
If you want to see outside of a room’s window then you’ll need to adjust your camera’s exposure accordingly. Your interior will probably look dark but your outside should have some detail in it. Wherever there’s white in an image, there’s zero data. In other words, it can’t be darkened. But the dark areas of a photo can be lightened.
- Optimise
Great photos comprise, on average, 70% the right settings and composition and 30% what happens in Photoshop. Given the above method, you’ll want to lighten your interiors but keep the detail that’s outside of the windows. With some nifty skills that can be done in Photoshop, but if you don’t have the time for that, then send them to www.doctor-photo.co.uk.
