I wanted to run through what I did for photgraphy on a recent shoot of a loft I listed. You can see all the shots at 35 Riverwalk Way Lowell MA.
I am finding I am using HDR or I should say the exposure fusion feature of Photomatix more and more. Its very quick once you get a system down and can give excellent results for real estate photography. This particular unit was about 40 feet long and 23 feet wide with 5 massive windows and very low light levels for the interior.
Here is the best interior shot from one single frame I could get some window detail but the interior goes dark and gets muddy.
On this particular shot I did nine exposure all 1 stop apart. 4 shots under exposed, 4 shot overexposed. You can see the 9 photos. To get window detail you lose the interior and to get the interior exposed properly the windows blow out and flare.
With a run through the Photomatix program using exposure fusion I combined the above exposures into one. This is the final result after a quick run through Photoshop Elements.
Photomatix is relatively inexpensie and you can use any camera that you can control exposure, but you need a tripod!! This is pretty much what I do for most of my listing when a homeowner takes the time to stage and prepare their home for the real estate market. You can see how the imaging is used on my lisitings by visiting your Home Marketing- Your Homes Online Image
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p>This post was provided by Kevin Vitali of EXIT Group One Real Estate In Tewksbury MA. You can contact Kevin by email at kevin@kevinvitali.com or call 978-360-0422.
I pride myself in the quality of my work while helpingbuyers and sellers make dreams come true.
Real Estate Services in the northeast Massachusetts, around the Merrimack Valley, Southern New Hampshire including the towns of Andover, Billerica, Boxford, Chelmsford, Dracut, Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Merrimac, North Andover, Newbury, Newburyport, North Reading, Rowley, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro, Westford, Wilmington, West Newbury
I love photography and your insight certainly helped to create a great pictures. That final picture is wonderful! Thanks for sharing.
Though I think HDR is well suited for real estate photography, I'm just not a fan of the look. The problem is that the alternatives are photos which are both too dark and too bright or using flash. I'm just now learning how to use multiple flash units and it's quite time consuming and difficult to get right.
Mutliple flash is great I have 6 SB80s but like you said extremely time consuming and you still dont get rid of the post processing. Im finding exposure fusion with 5-9 shots to be pretty effective.
Kevin - Thank you for this great tip! I've been using Photomatix and blending the results via Photoshop Elements with non-HDR shots to get the gray out of ceilings and make the shots look more natural, however, I hadn't considered bracketing 1 F stop apart. It doesn't look like you use a flash for any of your shots. I usually include 1 flash at 0 F stop, but I'll try reprocessing and leaving that one out to see the difference.