Lights On or Off for Real Estate Photography?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ค. 2024
- In this video we explore the topic of having the light fixtures on or off when doing real estate photography. We'll compare examples of both options including both HDR and flambient examples.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:37 Why shoot with lights off?
3:27 Shooting the images on site
6:59 Comparing the results
15:27 Final thoughts
17:19 Outro
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I always shoot interior real estate photos with the lights OFF. (If the fixtures are unique, I will take a shot of them ON, for reference.) Shooting with lights off avoids ugly shadow and flares, AND lets the fixture itself be seen. I turn them on in Lightroom... the mask options are amazing, versatile and easy.
Lighting added a lot to both rooms imo. I'd love to see more videos of your editing process, I watch them all.
Always something to learn
After posting my initial comment, I read through the rest of the comments and was surprised by the number of people who indicated they preferred having lights off. Can't quite tell if that's because it's easier to avoid color cast issues that take extra work in post, or if it's because they think the lights-off look makes the photos (and property) more desirable to potential buyers... Again, my reaction to lights on is life, warmth, inviting, and lights off says, nobody's home...feels more empty and dreary.
Yeah, I’m actually surprised how many people have said they shoot with the lights off so far. Nothing wrong with that of course, just seeming to be more popular than I initially thought.
Lights on might say somebody's home...but they're a weird person who keeps their lights on in every room during the day :-D
You’re the man Mike! Thank you for the info!
Thanks for the video. I always shoot lights on as with awesome flambient technique and a basic retouch you will never see the colour cast even at the far end of a long room or even notice the flash for that matter.
Very helpful, thank you.
Flambient lights off for me...except for bathroom as you explain. Thank you for this work.
Lights on for most agents I work with. I’ve tried to tell them in certain scenarios to have the warmer lamps off and sometimes they look at me like are you sure? Lol. if only they knew the extra steps in post for color correction. But I do it to keep them happy and coming back. Great vid!
Great topic! I prefer to have the lights off but… I have learnt it’s better for business to have them on. I have heard many agents and their clients and colleagues complain that photographers forgot to turn the lights on without realising it was a creative choice. To me that means missed business in the future. I can make good looking images with or without the lights off so unless I have expressly discussed it it with the customer, I prefer to have them on and not risk any negative assumptions.
Good point! Thanks for sharing it
@@InsideRealEstatePhotography I agree with Alex's point as well. If the creative choice raises questions about the result in the client's mind, then it's almost a fail by definition.
I think knowing your clients, and maybe even having a conversation about your reasons one way or another can go along way. In the end, it doesn't matter if you don't have clients lol.
Haha thank you for this, I've been wondering about it recently!
Love it Mike! I've started turning lights off if they don't add anything to the room - a lot of the time in houses I've been shooting the lights don't do anything aside from throw orange light everywhere, but I've still been questioning myself on it and this video definitely helped allay my concerns! I would disagree with your statement that this house isn't the best comparison example: there's too many examples out there of shoots on really nice houses that are 1in 100 of the ones people actually shoot in the real world. You gave us a comparison to see the difference on houses that people actually shoot all the time.
Hey hey! Thanks for commenting! Very good point!
If you take a shot exposed for the light bulbs (dark exposure). You can add life back to the light fittings using a lighten mode in ps. The exposure will be way underexposed for the room and you will Only see the lights in the exposure. Give it a try it will eliminate the colourcast
I agree. Lights on looks the most inviting. The warm amber glow is reminiscent of candlelight and gives a welcoming and relaxing vibe. Flambient with lights off had the worst results. It gives rooms a very cold and sterile vibe. To me it looks like houses are lit with office drop ceiling lighting. Very unflattering.
I think this another one of your EXCELLENT videos. The first thing it highlights is the importance for photographers to do experimentation as part of their learning journey. Seeing your experimentation/demonstration provides extremely valuable comparative information.
The second thing someone might want to take away from this video is the comparison of HDR vs Flambient, but since that's not the point of this video, trying to make a conclusory comparison wouldn't be fair. You've done other videos comparing the techniques, and those videos ARE useful for someone wanting to compare HDR vs Flambient... (and in those videos I've tended to favor the HDR results, but that obviously is a bias of mine).
The third thing in this video, and the really important take away for ME is that I much prefer the lights ON look. With the lights off, the home looks vacant and dead...with the lights on the home looks welcoming and inviting. I have occasionally turned lights off in certain instances, but those have typically been when there are burned out bulbs creating an imbalanced look in a room.
Your video, demonstration, and explanations all worked together really nice here for a complete presentation on the topic of lights on or lights off... You ended with another valuable point which tends for favor lights on...and that is that some rooms that have no, or minimal windows desperately need something to light them. And even in the case of the dining room shot, since you can glimpse into the kitchen, with the lights off it looks like a black hole and to me is unappealing.
I'm with you 100% on all points - the value of experimentation, the HDR/flambient comparison, preferring HDR, and preferring the lights ON look. But I do have to admit that, at 13:23, that color cast on the carpet in the HDR shot is pretty bad compared to the flambient shot, and I'm not sure if editing could improve to the level of the flambient image.
Thank you for taking time to share your insights! I definitely try to encourage experimentation on this channel. It’s how we learn and grow in whatever what we are doing.
It really depends on how dark the room is. In a well lit living room shooting flambient lights on is fine. If there is too much yellow on the wall you can always shoot one with lights off and then photoshop just the light shade in leaving the wall or ceiling clean. If you are shooting a bedroom with very little if any available light then I fined its best to shoot with the lamps off and bounce all the light for a natural soft look.
I really appreciate you making this video, not only to show lights on/off comparisons, but also HDR/flambient comparisons! I'm with you, I prefer lights on because it makes the space look more "alive," and I think that is a subtle way of inviting the buyer into the room. But the yellow light needs to be minimal, not casting garish colors all over the room. Editing can usually help with that. I shoot only HDR, and I feel that HDR editing today has come a looong way and can really give flambient a run for its money. That said, in your second room, the "lights on HDR vs lights on flambient" at 13:23, the color cast on the carpeting in the HDR picture is definitely inferior to the flambient shot, in my opinion. I'm sure that editing can improve that somewhat (I'm not talking about using layers brushing, defeating the whole benefit of HDR, but just overall Lightroom edits like white balance and highlights), but it would still look more garish than the flambient shot. So, even today, I have to confess that flambient gives a better image in certain cases where color casting is hard to control with editing.
Agreed!
Great video
As a photographer, I shoot lights on because to the consumer and real estate agent's eyes, that looks more correct. I do take out any color cast as well. I do flambient lighting.
I personally hate the orange/yellow color case of the lights found in most homes so I will typically shoot with the lights off if I can when I run across them.
As a home buyer. I prefer lights on and don’t care much about the photographers choice for perfecting colors in their mind
Lol, best comment so far!
Love your channel and your videos are very thorough and precise to the point! I normally shoot HDR with 5-bracketed shots from a Sony A7iii. I wanted to ask when I shoot a home that has a lot of warm orange color furniture and the home itself has a ton of yellow and orange in the paint and on the floors, how do I fix that? I played around with the color panels for saturation, luminance, and Hue and nothing seems to help. Either my photos will look very colorless, too warm, too blue, or the photo will look very peachy. I also played around with the white balance and that didn't help much either. I also keep the meter at 0.00 and sometimes I will under expose to -0.03. Look forward to your response! Thank you very much!
Thanks! It’s a matter of honing in on certain areas that need adjustment by masking or making selections in photoshop. Specifically white areas that are not looking white as they should be. Hopefully that makes sense but it’s hard to explain in a comment. I have videos covering this though for sure. Search my channel for hdr editing videos.
Another great vid, Mike! Thank you!
Just a question...... did you do a window pull for the 2nd example?
Thanks! Yes, I did do a window window shot. I didn’t include it in the video in order to speed things along.
This is a topic that am deliberating over. In the example of the dining room, the lights-on emphasis the outdated light fixture with crooked and bent shades. Some people have a hard time seeing past outdated decor.
For me personally, I think the decisions is it depends. If the walls are tan or yellow that produce an ugly color cast, you are already fighting undesirable color cast from the start. I think it may benefit the seller to leave them off. Or at least some of them. Dingy light makes the room look dingy. If the light creates warm light on the wall but draws your attention through the room, most people expect lamps to produce this color. Our eyes are drawn towards light and if it draws us to a least attractive part of the room the photograph is less effective in piquing interest. If the fixtures are beautiful, then they should go on to let them shine so to speak. I am leaning on leaving some on and some off, but it has to make visual sense.
Great thoughts and points! Thanks for sharing!
I shoot with lights on. I have done both my version of flambient or HDR. I only do HDR now since it is all about overall speed of the shoot and edit. I find it faster to edit the interior enemies of real estate photographers: yellow, orange and blue than to shoot flambient then edit. For the most part HDR can be fixed in LRC. With flambient (at least the way I did it) all pictures have to be blended in PS as well as LRC and takes waay more time to both shoot and edit.
Since time is money and RE agents are either tapping their toes, walking through my shots or desperately trying to get clutter out of the way before I get to a room, lol, HDR suits me. To me the idea of flambient is to use lights but don't get caught using lights. This means no shadows from the wrong direction off of chandliers, chairs and tables, no flash burns on the furniture closest to you, no ceilings brighter nearest to you when the main light source is across the room and so forth. To use flambient properly you really have to master hand blending in PS. Now if someone wanted the perfect image and was willing to pay for it, I could and would light everything and spend the time editing and so forth. So far, AD has not called me...
How long does it take you to merge all the images together to make one? It takes me about 15 minutes but I don't have a flash so
i spend even more time if i have to do alot of windows in one shot
Good
Defo lights on for me
Without a flash, use lights off as the base image, then blend in light-on over just the fixtures?
Hey Mike … If you were gonna buy a new gimble right now .. what would you go with ? DJI RS3 PRO?
Yup! Just bought one myself not long ago
Lights on looks better with flambient but I like lights off hdr the most
Great video as usual. I've heard it said that agents generally prefer lights on. Is that what you've found?
Yeah for sure. People usually assume that’s the way to go.
Hey Mike is this 16-35 g master let me know the lens plz
Yes it is!
I always shot flambient, so lights on are typically not an issue. I find many ceiling lights do not contribute anything good to the pictures. On the other hand, in my opinion, lamps usually add a nice touch. Unless the ceiling lights have a dimmer switch, i often leave them off, with lamps on. So far, I've had no complaints from my customers.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hey, what HDR software do you use for that great results?
Hand blending in photoshop and finishing in Lightroom
Flambient wins always if you know how to use flashlight 👍
Lights off, flash on!
Definitely lights off HDR looks the best (to me).
What software do you prefer for the HDR merging of your images? Do you keep it in Photoshop or go to a third party like Photomatix? Also, while every shoot is different. Do you stick to a certain process for ease of flow purposes?
I typically hand blend my brackets in photoshop. Yeah, I stick to a process more or less.
Our eyes see color cast, so removing it can look unnatural and sterile. Shadow cast is the bigger issue in “lights on” shooting, IMO.
hot spot on the ceiling from the flash is way to distracting.... HDR properly edited is so much better than flambient
Lights off doesn’t look good. If I was still a Realtor you’d be coming back out to reshoot the house. If you don’t want the color cast do a bracket with the lights on then off and combine them. Honestly 99.9% of people don’t notice color casts.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
flambient looks so fake imo. Lights off for me. I would considerer using flambient for some shadows but just not with all that power and I wouldnt leave the "ball of light" on the ceiling. BUUUT, not every house is the same, the color of the walls is important to consider and the style as well.
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