If you have a growing real estate photography business, you know the importance of images and photographs for selling your clients properties. What you may be less familiar is the techniques and tricks for lighting the home in a quick and professional manner. Here are six tips to help you light up the house and make the sale for your client faster. Once you start using and mastering these tips and techniques, your real estate photography business will surely grow.
Use Natural Light Whenever Possible
Natural light may not always be available, but it is without a doubt the best way to light interiors. Natural light softens the image and leads to images which feel organic and comforting in the minds of the viewer. When using natural light, you’ll want to choose the best hour of day to shoot your interior shot.
For most, this time is about at midday, although it’s possible that your property will receive the most light during another time, such as the morning. You should shoot early in the day to ensure you have the proper amount of light for a satisfactory amount of time and open every blind and entry point into the house to let in the most light possible.
Try Using a Bounced Flash
One of the things you’ll notice right away when using natural light is that it has a tendency to create shadows, which look unsightly or unappealing to those flipping through photographs of homes. To eliminate shadows in a timely manner, you should try using a bounced flash.
This means flashing other parts of the house, such as walls and ceilings, which act as natural bounce boards for your camera. Rather than pointing the flash straight at the desired area, bounce it off another surface first. This action will diffuse the light and keep things looking soft and appealing.
Flashes Can Also Enhance Images
In addition to removing shadows, a flash can be used to imitate natural light. You should do everything in your power as a real estate photographer to make the house and room you’re shooting looking safe and appealing to those who will see the images.
As such, a flat image with dull lighting and little flair can sometimes be as damaging as one with shadowy areas. To clean up your image and make it more appealing, you should use a flash to mimic the natural light of the room. As before, you shouldn’t point the flash directly at your area, as this creates very harsh lighting, but you should point it around the room depending on where you’re shooting.
Turn on the Lights if Necessary
Rooms come with their own natural lighting, although the lighting present in rooms doesn’t always look flattering. However, there are exceptions. Before you begin shooting your room, and especially if there’s simply no way to shoot with natural light, you should turn on the light in the room and use it as a starting point to shoot the room.
If you’re shooting with purely artificial light, you need to make sure to color correct and use other camera settings and post tricks to make it look as appealing as possible. If you’re lucky, a room’s artificial light will actually create a warm mood which inspires others to make the purchase.
Always Keep an Eye on Your High Dynamic Range
High Dynamic Range, or HDR, refers to the range of light and color within your image. It’s important to note that when you’re taking photographs of a room, a balanced HDR can be used to create natural looking images without much hassle. In most digital cameras, you should have a function which lets you to pay attention to your HDR and adjust it using a number of sliders and dials.
When using HDR, and processing images after you take the, make sure to keep things natural and warm. It’s tempting to unleash your inner artist and make the house look inherently false, but this is counterproductive to your mission as a real estate agent – always keep things looking natural.
Capture the Window View
One of the most creative and intriguing shots of any house catalog is the view from the window. This shot can be achieved in a variety of ways, but you always want to make sure such a shot is not intimidating or unnatural in any way. You can keep it natural by using certain exposure settings and bracketing it in such a way that you can use the highlights while keeping the image balance and organic.
