I've been a professional recording artist and producer since the 1960s. And, when I switched over to "home" recording, the biggest problem I had was getting my recording (input) levels correct. I finally figured out that I had to record my spoken word audio (for my podcast) at around -12db. I could then boost the "gain" (volume) and add a little compression to reach a final level of about -7db. Listening to the audio on this video indicates to me that you may be having the same problem I had. Hope this info helps. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this further. Regards...
1. Time of day Know where face of house is facing 2. Wide angle lens 3. Basic camera settings F8 iso 100 if possible never go over 800 4. Make sure camera is level 5. Camera height Below chest 6. Turn on all the lights 7. Open blinds 8. Stage it 9. 3 different angles of front of home 10. Show 3 walls 11. Try to center fan in photo 12. Shoot in raw 13. Keep editing consistent 14. Geometry of the shot 15. Fast turnaround Get an editor 16. Easy way to deliver photos 17. Website I kept notes throughout the video in the comments. The notes aren’t perfect but it’s a start
I’ve been doing this professionally since 2003 in North Texas. Camera height, in almost all cases should be right at 66 inches. The reason, especially in the kitchen and bathroom areas is because that is the average height of the eye level of women. This allows, those who normally look for homes in the family to get a really good idea of what they would be looking at every day. Also, if they preview the home in person, what they see will mimic what they saw in the photos. I may add to your list here.
I disagree with this philosophy. I always set my camera height relative to the highest surface in the room, such that the angle of the surface is reasonably consistent. usually a foot to about a foot and a half above the highest functional surface. so, for example, living room shot is 1.5 foot higher then coffee table, kitchen shot if 1 ft higher then island / counter, bedroom shots are 1 ft higher then night stands, laundry room 1.5 ft higher then top of dryer etc. This works because people are subcontionaly primed to feel comfortable lower in the living room because youre sitting on a couch, they are primed to be more comfortable higher in the kitchen because they are usually standing there. The highest surface in the room typically dictates this because it's the most convenience height for it to be functional where it is.
@@homewardboundphotos drinking this in, as well as the advice from the op. I was told about 4-4.5ft. I haven't jumped into yet, but I want to. Brushing up on different techniques
That sounds like an overly thought out reason that customers will never notice or appreciate. General consensus is chest height, and adjust higher for kitchens etc to cut out the bottom of upper cabinets.
Great tips Alex! I’m starting to consider real estate photography as a side hustle (and hopefully full time career down the road) and your channel is a great resource so far. Thank you for sharing!
If you want your candela lights, those bright lights that are usually over the dining tables to have the sparkle, or streams of light rays coming off of them, all you have to do is stop down to f11, or f16, or even f22 if you want them to be really noticable. The reason this works is because as the aperture gets smaller, the light coming in the lens reflects off of the inside edge if the aperture leaves. Reducing the size of the aperture also increases the amount of time that it takes to take the photo. An added benefit to this is that your depth of field is maximized so everything is always crisp and clean with these aperture settings.
True, but usually a lens is sharpest at f8-f11 and begin to lose sharpness over f11 and especially noticable at f22. So everything is probably in focus at f22, but not nececarilly sharp. It's a good idea to check up tests on this at the lenses you use. And also if you need to use long shutter speed at every photo because of f22 it is going to be a pain in the arze. Especially if you are HDR bracketing with one very bright image, and especially in the evening, I guess a balcony shot in the evening with HDR, f22 and 100 ISO would take minutes at those settings :P
I feel like you missed talking about HDR / bracketing different expousures. And also about angles, should you have straight on or diagonal? or both? The answer is both, but not in all rooms :P
When you are actively editing, edit in TIFF. When you are finished and in your final composition, delete the tiff files because they are massive! All of the raw data is contained in them. Tiff files can always be recreated in the future. Keep the jpegs to be able to quickly review what you photographed in the set that way you don’t have to wait for the raw files to pop up. Sorry about blowing up your video Alex. I’m hoping that your subscribers may benefit from this information.
@@grandeurcinematics My first client was back in 1996. I was a custom home builder, and i was already a professional photographer black-and-white film camera. I would photograph the homes we built and process the photos, then run them to Ebby Halliday's real estate office to put the photos in their listing binders. That's the way it used to be done before the internet became a viable resource. That's why people would have to go to a real estate office to see what was available in the community. Eventually, in 2001, I bought a Nikon D1 and then a Nikon D100. I had a friend who owned a helicopter, and for 200 bucks an hour, he would take me up to get photos of homes I had photographed previously. I got into business with a moron out of Austin, Texas in 2001 that turned out to be a terrible decision. Then, a year later, I was so mad at him that I taught myself HTML, ColdFusion, javascript, and SQL server. Within 6 months, I had a fully functional, self maintaining business platform that served me flawlessly until 2018. I was able to focus almost all of my time on photography. The software that I built ran my business automatically. everything from bookkeeping, inserting URLs into realtor.com, infacing into NTREIS and complete order processing. Now, to answer your question, to get my business jumpstarted, I would photograph homes and provide all of the photos for 30 bucks. I didn't make a dime for almost a year. In fact, I ended up getting divorced over it all. The actual month of my divorce in 2006, I hit two grand slams. I had the number 3 and number 5 top real estate agents in the country contract with me to do all of their photography. six months later, the number one agent in America at the time contacted me, but he was under investigation with the FBI for fraud, so I turned him down. Jim Streigel. You cant make this stuff up. Then eventually another agent became the number one realtor in the world, Ben Cabalero requested a meeting. I hired two new people but that deal fell apart after three weeks. I personally bit the bullet and worked for free. I will tell you period, you WILL NOT get rich doing this. PERIOD! You can do pretty good if you teach classes and things like that, but you WILL NOT get rich photographing homes alone. I personally photographed over 11,000 homes from April 1, 2003 to December 31, 2018. Theere were days that I photographed as many as 21 homes in one day, 16-18 homes in one day was not uncommon. I never went to bed. I would be up all night, night after night preparing to deliver the previous days photos by 10am. I usually had them out and delivered by 8am and back on the road again. I had 4 apple MacBook pro laptops running and processing photos non stop. I would never do that again, it almost killed me. Now, I only shoot high end properties and my rates are very profitable. But, now, i am retired. Hope that helps. Again, you wont get rich doing this. If you are able to make a living, you have done well. I would buy a new camera about every 6-9 months because they would wear out that fast. I finally learned how to disassemble my D200 cameras and replace the shutters.
Such a great video. I’m a little new to real estate photography and have a few good reminders is very useful as I don’t have shoot regularly at the moment 🤓
Hi Alex, this video on RE photography tips is amazing. I have learnt a lot from this video and I hit the subscribe button to see more videos from you in future. Thanks a ton for sharing such useful tips.
I think they are both really good. I started with a Sony a6000 as well. I don’t think switching to the m50 will gain you anything though. I’d personally stick with the a6000 until you’re ready to upgrade and then get a nice full frame camera.
I either go back home to upload if I can or do them all at the end of the day. I’ve tried Starbucks and other places several times but they just don’t have fast enough upload speeds
Unreal how many re photography channels started up the last yr. 10 yrs ago I kept up with every piece of content re photography related on you tube....now I can't even keep up.
Thank you very much for a wonderful footage. I have a request for you. Tell me what presets used to post-production?. On what program do you work?. Where I could see how you edit photos. Thank you very much in advance. Regards Janusz.
Good stuff, Alex. Yepper ... quick turnaround is crucial. Could you suggest a price range to pay a photo editor person and to pay a video editor person? Thanks, Chuck (N. E. Florida) : +) BTW-- the Elementor link and the Ultimate Sky Replacement Pack link are broken.
I personally pay $0.50 for single exposure photos and $1 for multiple exposure. I think anywhere in that range is good. A little more for a great editor is normal too
re: turning all the lights on: I run into issues with clients having multiple lights at different kelvin temperatures. I'm currently editing shots with yellow and blue on different ends of the room and coming together in the middle. I think in this scenario, I would reshoot with lights off. Any ideas for this issue?
Yeah that’s a great question. Those are tough scenarios with lights that are so different. You can definitely edit it and get a good image with the lights on in that situation but it’s more difficult to edit. If the lighting doesn’t effect the overall amount of light in the room then I would probably turn off one of those lights
I duplicate the photo with different color temperatures in post production, layer them both in photo shop, add a hue saturation mask over one of the images and add a yellow/orange hue, then apply a mask over the top one and brush out the mask exposing the adjusted image below. The same can be used for twilight photos to increase the impact.
Just shoot two photos, one with the lights on and one with them off. Layer them in photoshop and change the the one with the lights on to lighten on luminance which ever works better.
I made the mistake of shooting a balconny in the evening with a heat lamp (red light) thinking that the light from the heat lamp would be better than no light because there were so few outside lights. I thought it would be good to show the heat lamp for atmosphere, and more light = more info I thought But the images I got back from the edit team were insane, the balcony was peach-orange and the outside view was pear green. They messed up the hue real bad . I could do a better job myself, but noticed that it was very tricky, I had to open Photoshop and do a lot of color replacement brushing. would probably have been better to turn off that lamp and just use long expousure. This was extreme tho, like 1500 kelvin red light on balcony, inside was 3000 kelvin lightbulbs, and outside who knows 6000 + ? It was late. I think the edit team just did an overall color temp and hue adjustment to cool the red, which made the outside way too green. Would be way better to double or triple layer, mask and reduce each temperature differently. Newer versions of Lightroom lets you mask and auto-mask much easier with AI masking, and lets you customize brushes with temperature and hue and color effects. So probably Lightroom is really good for this. A linear gradient or radial gradient mask for lights and windows is really good. I think the difference between a 3000 lightbulb and a 4000 light bulb is smaller, and easier to balance. Outside is often 5500 and you have to balance that any way. But if you have an extreme warm light bulb, or an extreme cold fluorocent you could probably turn it off to save some editing time. Luckily for me I don't do the editing so I usually leave most on, but definitly be more aware of the heat lamp.
WATCH out for kids! Put your camera somewhere safe if you walk off and leave it! I lost a brand new lens because of a small boy. I set the camera to side where I felt that it was safe and went out back with the agent, when we came inside, it was on the floor. The bonnet and focus ring never worked again, 1200 bucks gone, just like that!
@@mangomariel I straight up tell clients when i'm shooting nobody else on that floor, especially kids and pets. My time is worth way to much to be fucking around with peoples bullshit. And if you slow me down to the point where you're going to make me late for my next shoot sorry its getting shot as it is, and you can deal with it or pay me $100/hr to photoshop fix it (if that's even possible).
Stick with the 6D Mark II. Why go with sony when you already have the best?? I have the 6D Mark II and the 6D as my back up. Awesome cameras. I was going to mention the audio but you already did lol. Great tips.
I use the 17 - 40mm for all my indoor shots. I do have a 14mm but try to use it as little as possible as it creates some distortion that I have to fix post shoot. Too much work.
Thanks for the tips!! I currently have a Nikon D5300 for both photos and videos, but I plan on getting a Canon 6d mark II next month (along with a 17-40mm lens). Would you mind sharing the picture profile you use for your videos? They look great! Thanks in advance :)
You’ll like the camera! I mostly use the “standard” color profile. I know most people will say to use the neutral color profile, and I have before, but I find that the standard produces a good color and I don’t have to tweak it much. Just raise the shadows and adjust color a little.
@@AlexSerrao Thanks! I'm really excited about getting the camera! But since things are so expensive lately because of the dollar value (I live in Brazil), I'm waiting for a good opportunity in a used equipment :) Thanks for sharing your settings!
Isn't the file size very much pain to work with? f you do HDR bracketing? It's a great camera tho, and one of the best image quality, having high megapixel is great for cropping to.
Hi Alex. Should I delivered photo in high quality resolution? Also what ratio should I send to client ( 16:9 or square or vertical ) ? Also do I need CPL filter for RE photography ?
All real estate mls services use the 4:3 photo format. We provide three sets on delivery, set one has been cropped to 4:3 center crop at 1024x768 at 80% jpg in a marked folder called “mls”. Then a second set at 3:2 at 3000x2000 at 90%, then 1 large front photo at 100% for printing. If you only send them 3:2 format images, the mls service “squeezes” the 3:2 format photos to fit a 4:3 display size, thereby destroying your effort to make your photos look great. Also, the mls services dumb down the quality to 60% in order to save space. I don’t see them changing this any time soon.
Hey can you go through how you get the correct colours and white balance for each room, can you do this for both still photos and also video settings pleas??? Love your content , keep rolling 😊
In lightroom you can just use the white balance selector eye drop (W) on a thing you know is white, usually a wall. It is really easy, I always shoot auto WB
If you get a “crap” shoot, literally focus on the bad things that you see. Not all photo shoots are supposed to glamorous. A lot of my jobs came because I am a former building inspector and custom home builder. My clients know my background and several of them ask that I do what we call an “investor” photo shoot. These photo shoots are geared toward exposing what is wrong with a property rather than what is good with it. The reason is to expose the actual things that a potential investor is going to face if they decide to purchase the property. It also allows the agent to present the listing in its true light and can often lead to quicker sales for derelict properties. These are the kind of listings that no realtor wants to hang on to for any longer than is necessary.
One other thing to mention . . . I looked up what Aspect Ratio the photos and videos needed to be for MLS listings. Is it correct that it should both be in 4:3? Thanks! ;-)
All real estate mls services use the 4:3 photo format. We provide three sets on delivery, set one has been cropped to 4:3 center crop at 1024x768 at 80% jpg in a marked folder called “mls”. Then a second set at 3:2 at 3000x2000 at 90%, then 1 large front photo at 100% for printing. If you only send them 3:2 format images, the mls service “squeezes” the 3:2 format photos to fit a 4:3 display size, thereby destroying your effort to make your photos look great. Also, the mls services dumb down the quality to 60% in order to save space. I don’t see them changing this any time soon.
I can add a lot to this list. But! Let me say this, ALWAYS get a signed property release from the owner, not the agent. On my established clients, they add the property releases to their pile of papers when they meet with their client to do the paperwork. Then, they give me the release when I arrive or leave it on location if they are not going to be there. Even though, by law, you own the photographs and video, you only use the photos as editorial photos in the future. This is a fine line legally. Let’s say, as I have done, you use a photo of a home on a public site, such as Facebook, that you photographed without a property release. Then tomorrow, the owner or previous owner sees it and decides to sue you, they will win. If you have a release, then they have surrendered their claims on how your work can be used in the future. This may not sound like much, but you have to think about the fact that after the shoot is done, at some point, you are going to have a massive library of photos that could be making you some passive income. Case in point, I have over 2.6 million photos in my library since 2003, I have published over 1 million of them to agents. Think about if each of those photos generated 1 penny per year from now on. That’s 10,000 / year at an average of 1 penny each. You won’t use all of them in stock photography, but the potential for great photos generating income is profound and could finance new equipment and possibly a retirement for you
you have 2.6 million photographs in your portfolio... so since 2006 you've shot and edited an average almost 400 photos per day, every day, for 20 years... you can't be serious.
Thanks for all the tips and value you provided in this video, it was really helpful! I’ve been a realtor for 3 years and am considering switching to photography real estate as a side hustle. What camera would you recommend to a beginner? I would like to stay in the Sony or Canon line if possible. Keep up the great work!
I send reduced size photos to clients attached to my email. I have found that agents have almost zero need for hi res photos. Of the hundreds of houses I shoot each year, maybe 1 will ask for higher res images. Otherwise I'm exporting them out of lightroom with the shortest side set to 768 pixels (which is most ideal for MLS listings). This usually results in images at 1024x768. These are still good enough that if they do print a sales sheet, it still looks decent printed. Also, with images at this resolution, even if you're sending 100 images, it'll attach nicely in an email. No need to use google drive or dropbox or anything. This simplifies it both for you and for the agent.
Get you a pair of shoes that you can slip on and off. If you struggle with taking your shoes off and on then you get really tired of this business. When you enter a home, take your shoes off unless the house nasty, you might catch something. Set your camera in a safe place where children or dogs won’t hit it. Then take your shoes to the back door outside. If it’s raining, bring a bag. When you are ready to photograph the backyard, then you are ready. I will typically check the gate to see it is locked, if it isn’t, then I leave through the gate rather than risk walking back in the house with poop on my shoes. I learned the hard way, that screw up cost me 300 bucks on a 75 dollar shoot back in 2005. I had to pay to have the carpets cleaned, and I lost the client.
There is a reason that camera gear is black. Camera gear is designed to breakup light reflecting off of the surfaces of the gear to minimize reflections. Unless you have shot many homes, you may not have considered something interesting. We all know that mirrors reflect images. But glass reflects things as well. Especially shower and tub glass, windows and sliding glass doors. If you wear any color of clothing than black, it can be difficult to remove your reflection from these scenes. If, however, you wear black clothing and even a black face mask in these scenarios, you will discover that you basically vanish from the reflections, especially if you will bring your aperture down to f22 and be sure that you physically move around during the exposure causing you to literally go undetected in the scene.
It’s easy to get talking to people and get distracted. Don’t do it! Stay focused, otherwise you will be going back. You either missed a room, shot out of focus or left something behind!
@@AlexSerrao love this! If you hadn't posted it because it wasn't perfect, we wouldn't have this super helpful video! Thank you for this wealth of information.
@@AlexSerrao i did my first Airbnb shoot with all the lights off and i cringe when i think about it. Definitely would have looked more "warm and inviting" if I'd left the lights on.
Always shoot Raw! Even though you only delivering mls photos, you will, at some point in your career regret not shooting raw! A typical 14 bit raw image literally has 64 times more data than an 8 bit jpeg. Your camera ALWAYS shoots in 12 or 14 bits, but if you are not saving the raw file, you are throwing away your efforts. Most new image technology is based on raw data, you can be assured that future photo technology will be available to you when these technologies arrive. I have raw files that I shot in bracket way back in 2003. If I had only shot jpeg, those images would not be able to be edited with any degree of quality. Just this morning, I pulled up a shoot that did from 2005 and brought it into camera raw and it look as if shot the home yesterday. Spend the money on a hard drive and keep copies of everything you shoot.
Really not our job to declutter peoples homes. You break something and your liability insurance will go through the roof. Been shooting RE photography since 2008 here and each time a homeowner is available I will communicate the need to declutter to them! That’s their job, we don’t get paid for that!! Tilt/Shift lenses are best. You can also adjust your camera at the tripod head for straight walls. There’s no “new ways” to edit! Unless you’re talking about the new PS tools that are making our lives easier. Outsourcing the editing is now a big issue considering the editor has not seen the house in person! 🤦♀️🤦♀️ The better you shoot the easier the editing will be. I never outsource my editing. That’s like not doing half my job!
P.S. SORRY FOR THE AUDIO! I’m working on fixing it 🙃
I hope when I start in real estate photography you'll review some of my work :)
Just make sure the room you record your audio in is sound treated and you'll be fine.
I think it was probably just turned up too much. Sounds like it was clipping. Easier to record lower levels then crank it up in post!
You're speaking into the side of a cardoid mic. It's designed to reject off-axis sound like that.
I've been a professional recording artist and producer since the 1960s. And, when I switched over to "home" recording, the biggest problem I had was getting my recording (input) levels correct. I finally figured out that I had to record my spoken word audio (for my podcast) at around -12db. I could then boost the "gain" (volume) and add a little compression to reach a final level of about -7db. Listening to the audio on this video indicates to me that you may be having the same problem I had. Hope this info helps. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this further. Regards...
1. Time of day
Know where face of house is facing
2. Wide angle lens
3. Basic camera settings
F8 iso 100 if possible never go over 800
4. Make sure camera is level
5. Camera height
Below chest
6. Turn on all the lights
7. Open blinds
8. Stage it
9. 3 different angles of front of home
10. Show 3 walls
11. Try to center fan in photo
12. Shoot in raw
13. Keep editing consistent
14. Geometry of the shot
15. Fast turnaround
Get an editor
16. Easy way to deliver photos
17. Website
I kept notes throughout the video in the comments. The notes aren’t perfect but it’s a start
Thank you!
I,m a professional real estate photo editor? If u need please contract?
I’ve been doing this professionally since 2003 in North Texas. Camera height, in almost all cases should be right at 66 inches. The reason, especially in the kitchen and bathroom areas is because that is the average height of the eye level of women. This allows, those who normally look for homes in the family to get a really good idea of what they would be looking at every day. Also, if they preview the home in person, what they see will mimic what they saw in the photos. I may add to your list here.
I disagree with this philosophy. I always set my camera height relative to the highest surface in the room, such that the angle of the surface is reasonably consistent. usually a foot to about a foot and a half above the highest functional surface. so, for example, living room shot is 1.5 foot higher then coffee table, kitchen shot if 1 ft higher then island / counter, bedroom shots are 1 ft higher then night stands, laundry room 1.5 ft higher then top of dryer etc. This works because people are subcontionaly primed to feel comfortable lower in the living room because youre sitting on a couch, they are primed to be more comfortable higher in the kitchen because they are usually standing there. The highest surface in the room typically dictates this because it's the most convenience height for it to be functional where it is.
@@homewardboundphotos drinking this in, as well as the advice from the op. I was told about 4-4.5ft. I haven't jumped into yet, but I want to. Brushing up on different techniques
That sounds like an overly thought out reason that customers will never notice or appreciate. General consensus is chest height, and adjust higher for kitchens etc to cut out the bottom of upper cabinets.
Appreciate man, valuable info
ALWAYS have booties and USE them!
Great tips Alex! I’m starting to consider real estate photography as a side hustle (and hopefully full time career down the road) and your channel is a great resource so far. Thank you for sharing!
Glad I could help you! Good luck getting your new career going!
If you want your candela lights, those bright lights that are usually over the dining tables to have the sparkle, or streams of light rays coming off of them, all you have to do is stop down to f11, or f16, or even f22 if you want them to be really noticable. The reason this works is because as the aperture gets smaller, the light coming in the lens reflects off of the inside edge if the aperture leaves. Reducing the size of the aperture also increases the amount of time that it takes to take the photo. An added benefit to this is that your depth of field is maximized so everything is always crisp and clean with these aperture settings.
True, but usually a lens is sharpest at f8-f11 and begin to lose sharpness over f11 and especially noticable at f22. So everything is probably in focus at f22, but not nececarilly sharp. It's a good idea to check up tests on this at the lenses you use. And also if you need to use long shutter speed at every photo because of f22 it is going to be a pain in the arze. Especially if you are HDR bracketing with one very bright image, and especially in the evening, I guess a balcony shot in the evening with HDR, f22 and 100 ISO would take minutes at those settings :P
@@mangomariel this is true.
Thanks for sharing pal
This was really helpful, thank you. I was contemplating Dropbox for the photos, but I've never heard of Show and Tour. Checking now!
I feel like you missed talking about HDR / bracketing different expousures. And also about angles, should you have straight on or diagonal? or both? The answer is both, but not in all rooms :P
When you are actively editing, edit in TIFF. When you are finished and in your final composition, delete the tiff files because they are massive! All of the raw data is contained in them. Tiff files can always be recreated in the future. Keep the jpegs to be able to quickly review what you photographed in the set that way you don’t have to wait for the raw files to pop up. Sorry about blowing up your video Alex. I’m hoping that your subscribers may benefit from this information.
How did you get your first client
@@grandeurcinematics My first client was back in 1996. I was a custom home builder, and i was already a professional photographer black-and-white film camera. I would photograph the homes we built and process the photos, then run them to Ebby Halliday's real estate office to put the photos in their listing binders. That's the way it used to be done before the internet became a viable resource. That's why people would have to go to a real estate office to see what was available in the community. Eventually, in 2001, I bought a Nikon D1 and then a Nikon D100. I had a friend who owned a helicopter, and for 200 bucks an hour, he would take me up to get photos of homes I had photographed previously. I got into business with a moron out of Austin, Texas in 2001 that turned out to be a terrible decision. Then, a year later, I was so mad at him that I taught myself HTML, ColdFusion, javascript, and SQL server. Within 6 months, I had a fully functional, self maintaining business platform that served me flawlessly until 2018. I was able to focus almost all of my time on photography. The software that I built ran my business automatically. everything from bookkeeping, inserting URLs into realtor.com, infacing into NTREIS and complete order processing. Now, to answer your question, to get my business jumpstarted, I would photograph homes and provide all of the photos for 30 bucks. I didn't make a dime for almost a year. In fact, I ended up getting divorced over it all. The actual month of my divorce in 2006, I hit two grand slams. I had the number 3 and number 5 top real estate agents in the country contract with me to do all of their photography. six months later, the number one agent in America at the time contacted me, but he was under investigation with the FBI for fraud, so I turned him down. Jim Streigel. You cant make this stuff up. Then eventually another agent became the number one realtor in the world, Ben Cabalero requested a meeting. I hired two new people but that deal fell apart after three weeks. I personally bit the bullet and worked for free. I will tell you period, you WILL NOT get rich doing this. PERIOD! You can do pretty good if you teach classes and things like that, but you WILL NOT get rich photographing homes alone. I personally photographed over 11,000 homes from April 1, 2003 to December 31, 2018. Theere were days that I photographed as many as 21 homes in one day, 16-18 homes in one day was not uncommon. I never went to bed. I would be up all night, night after night preparing to deliver the previous days photos by 10am. I usually had them out and delivered by 8am and back on the road again. I had 4 apple MacBook pro laptops running and processing photos non stop. I would never do that again, it almost killed me. Now, I only shoot high end properties and my rates are very profitable. But, now, i am retired. Hope that helps. Again, you wont get rich doing this. If you are able to make a living, you have done well. I would buy a new camera about every 6-9 months because they would wear out that fast. I finally learned how to disassemble my D200 cameras and replace the shutters.
that's y i gots me a 16TB raid array on a 10gbe network. so all my computers will virtually never run out of data. XD
@@inyhwhwetrustgreat comment!
Great video. Very helpful.
Such a great video. I’m a little new to real estate photography and have a few good reminders is very useful as I don’t have shoot regularly at the moment 🤓
Good info. Thanks!
Great suggestions Alex! Thank you!
You didn't touch on bracketing. Do you bracket or use flash?
Hi Alex, this video on RE photography tips is amazing. I have learnt a lot from this video and I hit the subscribe button to see more videos from you in future. Thanks a ton for sharing such useful tips.
Love my Sony. Lol! Thank you for your video!
Great video and very informative information. Thank you 😊
Great vid thanks! Subbed.
I currently use a Sony a6000 but thinking Canon M50. Thoughts? Thanks!
I think they are both really good. I started with a Sony a6000 as well. I don’t think switching to the m50 will gain you anything though. I’d personally stick with the a6000 until you’re ready to upgrade and then get a nice full frame camera.
Sony, Sony, sony
Thank you for these great tips!! How do you send your photos to your editor while you’re still out and about shooting?
I either go back home to upload if I can or do them all at the end of the day. I’ve tried Starbucks and other places several times but they just don’t have fast enough upload speeds
Thanks, great info. I'm just starting :)
Cool! But i think you forgot #18. color temperature ! Anyway i founded couple good tips. Thank you!
Unreal how many re photography channels started up the last yr. 10 yrs ago I kept up with every piece of content re photography related on you tube....now I can't even keep up.
Do you need a tilt shift lens to make sure everything is level?
Your Bitly link to Elementor does not seem to be working Alex - just an FYI . . . unless you are working on it or something ??? ;-)
Thank you very much for a wonderful footage. I have a request for you. Tell me what presets used to post-production?. On what program do you work?. Where I could see how you edit photos. Thank you very much in advance. Regards Janusz.
I use the Adobe suite. Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere. I don’t use any presets or luts. I’ve tried to but always end up adjusting it after anyways
Hi all great points. Thanks a lot
Wish there was 40 tips haha but 17 helps put a lot
Haha I’ll try to get 40 for you next time!
Great video thank you
Good stuff, Alex.
Yepper ... quick turnaround is crucial.
Could you suggest a price range to pay a photo editor person and to pay a video editor person?
Thanks, Chuck (N. E. Florida) : +)
BTW-- the Elementor link and the Ultimate Sky Replacement Pack link are broken.
I personally pay $0.50 for single exposure photos and $1 for multiple exposure. I think anywhere in that range is good. A little more for a great editor is normal too
Can to tell who you use for editing?
re: turning all the lights on: I run into issues with clients having multiple lights at different kelvin temperatures. I'm currently editing shots with yellow and blue on different ends of the room and coming together in the middle. I think in this scenario, I would reshoot with lights off. Any ideas for this issue?
Yeah that’s a great question. Those are tough scenarios with lights that are so different. You can definitely edit it and get a good image with the lights on in that situation but it’s more difficult to edit. If the lighting doesn’t effect the overall amount of light in the room then I would probably turn off one of those lights
I duplicate the photo with different color temperatures in post production, layer them both in photo shop, add a hue saturation mask over one of the images and add a yellow/orange hue, then apply a mask over the top one and brush out the mask exposing the adjusted image below. The same can be used for twilight photos to increase the impact.
Just shoot two photos, one with the lights on and one with them off. Layer them in photoshop and change the the one with the lights on to lighten on luminance which ever works better.
I made the mistake of shooting a balconny in the evening with a heat lamp (red light) thinking that the light from the heat lamp would be better than no light because there were so few outside lights. I thought it would be good to show the heat lamp for atmosphere, and more light = more info I thought
But the images I got back from the edit team were insane, the balcony was peach-orange and the outside view was pear green. They messed up the hue real bad . I could do a better job myself, but noticed that it was very tricky, I had to open Photoshop and do a lot of color replacement brushing. would probably have been better to turn off that lamp and just use long expousure.
This was extreme tho, like 1500 kelvin red light on balcony, inside was 3000 kelvin lightbulbs, and outside who knows 6000 + ? It was late.
I think the edit team just did an overall color temp and hue adjustment to cool the red, which made the outside way too green. Would be way better to double or triple layer, mask and reduce each temperature differently. Newer versions of Lightroom lets you mask and auto-mask much easier with AI masking, and lets you customize brushes with temperature and hue and color effects. So probably Lightroom is really good for this. A linear gradient or radial gradient mask for lights and windows is really good.
I think the difference between a 3000 lightbulb and a 4000 light bulb is smaller, and easier to balance. Outside is often 5500 and you have to balance that any way. But if you have an extreme warm light bulb, or an extreme cold fluorocent you could probably turn it off to save some editing time. Luckily for me I don't do the editing so I usually leave most on, but definitly be more aware of the heat lamp.
WATCH out for kids! Put your camera somewhere safe if you walk off and leave it! I lost a brand new lens because of a small boy. I set the camera to side where I felt that it was safe and went out back with the agent, when we came inside, it was on the floor. The bonnet and focus ring never worked again, 1200 bucks gone, just like that!
True, I always stress out when there is a kid in the house while I am taking pictures. Some parents are not very present.
@@mangomariel I straight up tell clients when i'm shooting nobody else on that floor, especially kids and pets. My time is worth way to much to be fucking around with peoples bullshit. And if you slow me down to the point where you're going to make me late for my next shoot sorry its getting shot as it is, and you can deal with it or pay me $100/hr to photoshop fix it (if that's even possible).
Thanks for this video. One point you didn't address was your recommended fee. Thanks.
Stick with the 6D Mark II. Why go with sony when you already have the best?? I have the 6D Mark II and the 6D as my back up. Awesome cameras.
I was going to mention the audio but you already did lol. Great tips.
I use the 17 - 40mm for all my indoor shots. I do have a 14mm but try to use it as little as possible as it creates some distortion that I have to fix post shoot. Too much work.
Thanks for the tips!! I currently have a Nikon D5300 for both photos and videos, but I plan on getting a Canon 6d mark II next month (along with a 17-40mm lens). Would you mind sharing the picture profile you use for your videos? They look great! Thanks in advance :)
You’ll like the camera! I mostly use the “standard” color profile. I know most people will say to use the neutral color profile, and I have before, but I find that the standard produces a good color and I don’t have to tweak it much. Just raise the shadows and adjust color a little.
@@AlexSerrao Thanks! I'm really excited about getting the camera! But since things are so expensive lately because of the dollar value (I live in Brazil), I'm waiting for a good opportunity in a used equipment :) Thanks for sharing your settings!
Will a 18 to 45 mm lens work?
Great tips, how did you find your editor? Keep up the good work.
Thanks! It was someone that reached out to me. I have editors reach out to me all the time and I’ve tried a few of them
Great tips, Alex, thanks so much for sharing! I highly recommend Sony a7rIII, still going strong after 3 yrs :)
Isn't the file size very much pain to work with? f you do HDR bracketing?
It's a great camera tho, and one of the best image quality, having high megapixel is great for cropping to.
Awesome tips!
What do you use to send pix to your editor? Google ??
Dropbox is what we use right now. It's not my favorite but it works
Hi Alex. Should I delivered photo in high quality resolution? Also what ratio should I send to client ( 16:9 or square or vertical ) ? Also do I need CPL filter for RE photography ?
I deliver in a 3x2 ratio. I think that’s typical suggested mls ratio. But check your local mls on that.
All real estate mls services use the 4:3 photo format. We provide three sets on delivery, set one has been cropped to 4:3 center crop at 1024x768 at 80% jpg in a marked folder called “mls”. Then a second set at 3:2 at 3000x2000 at 90%, then 1 large front photo at 100% for printing. If you only send them 3:2 format images, the mls service “squeezes” the 3:2 format photos to fit a 4:3 display size, thereby destroying your effort to make your photos look great. Also, the mls services dumb down the quality to 60% in order to save space. I don’t see them changing this any time soon.
Hey can you go through how you get the correct colours and white balance for each room, can you do this for both still photos and also video settings pleas??? Love your content , keep rolling 😊
Thanks! I'll keep it in mind!
In lightroom you can just use the white balance selector eye drop (W) on a thing you know is white, usually a wall. It is really easy, I always shoot auto WB
If you get a “crap” shoot, literally focus on the bad things that you see. Not all photo shoots are supposed to glamorous. A lot of my jobs came because I am a former building inspector and custom home builder. My clients know my background and several of them ask that I do what we call an “investor” photo shoot. These photo shoots are geared toward exposing what is wrong with a property rather than what is good with it. The reason is to expose the actual things that a potential investor is going to face if they decide to purchase the property. It also allows the agent to present the listing in its true light and can often lead to quicker sales for derelict properties. These are the kind of listings that no realtor wants to hang on to for any longer than is necessary.
It also allows you the rare opportunity to show what you can with a bad situation!
One other thing to mention . . . I looked up what Aspect Ratio the photos and videos needed to be for MLS listings. Is it correct that it should both be in 4:3? Thanks! ;-)
My MLS is 3x2. I would check your local association and see
All real estate mls services use the 4:3 photo format. We provide three sets on delivery, set one has been cropped to 4:3 center crop at 1024x768 at 80% jpg in a marked folder called “mls”. Then a second set at 3:2 at 3000x2000 at 90%, then 1 large front photo at 100% for printing. If you only send them 3:2 format images, the mls service “squeezes” the 3:2 format photos to fit a 4:3 display size, thereby destroying your effort to make your photos look great. Also, the mls services dumb down the quality to 60% in order to save space. I don’t see them changing this any time soon.
What's a good wide angle lens for a canon 80d crop frame
I can add a lot to this list. But! Let me say this, ALWAYS get a signed property release from the owner, not the agent. On my established clients, they add the property releases to their pile of papers when they meet with their client to do the paperwork. Then, they give me the release when I arrive or leave it on location if they are not going to be there. Even though, by law, you own the photographs and video, you only use the photos as editorial photos in the future. This is a fine line legally. Let’s say, as I have done, you use a photo of a home on a public site, such as Facebook, that you photographed without a property release. Then tomorrow, the owner or previous owner sees it and decides to sue you, they will win. If you have a release, then they have surrendered their claims on how your work can be used in the future. This may not sound like much, but you have to think about the fact that after the shoot is done, at some point, you are going to have a massive library of photos that could be making you some passive income. Case in point, I have over 2.6 million photos in my library since 2003, I have published over 1 million of them to agents. Think about if each of those photos generated 1 penny per year from now on. That’s 10,000 / year at an average of 1 penny each. You won’t use all of them in stock photography, but the potential for great photos generating income is profound and could finance new equipment and possibly a retirement for you
you have 2.6 million photographs in your portfolio... so since 2006 you've shot and edited an average almost 400 photos per day, every day, for 20 years... you can't be serious.
How much do you charge per shoot?
Starts at $225. Our average shoot is over $500 with add-ons
Great video,
Thank you!
No bracketing?
The afternoon/mid day sun gives the worst shadows when the sun is out.
¿Alguien sabe cuánto empezar a cobrar sin dañar el mercado?, agradezco esta información
Thanks for all the tips and value you provided in this video, it was really helpful! I’ve been a realtor for 3 years and am considering switching to photography real estate as a side hustle. What camera would you recommend to a beginner? I would like to stay in the Sony or Canon line if possible. Keep up the great work!
If u a professional real estate photo editor
Please contract me?
Great
Many people can run the marathon, but few finish it because they never prepared for the sand in their shoes!
I send reduced size photos to clients attached to my email. I have found that agents have almost zero need for hi res photos. Of the hundreds of houses I shoot each year, maybe 1 will ask for higher res images. Otherwise I'm exporting them out of lightroom with the shortest side set to 768 pixels (which is most ideal for MLS listings). This usually results in images at 1024x768. These are still good enough that if they do print a sales sheet, it still looks decent printed. Also, with images at this resolution, even if you're sending 100 images, it'll attach nicely in an email. No need to use google drive or dropbox or anything. This simplifies it both for you and for the agent.
Get you a pair of shoes that you can slip on and off. If you struggle with taking your shoes off and on then you get really tired of this business. When you enter a home, take your shoes off unless the house nasty, you might catch something. Set your camera in a safe place where children or dogs won’t hit it. Then take your shoes to the back door outside. If it’s raining, bring a bag. When you are ready to photograph the backyard, then you are ready. I will typically check the gate to see it is locked, if it isn’t, then I leave through the gate rather than risk walking back in the house with poop on my shoes. I learned the hard way, that screw up cost me 300 bucks on a 75 dollar shoot back in 2005. I had to pay to have the carpets cleaned, and I lost the client.
There is a reason that camera gear is black. Camera gear is designed to breakup light reflecting off of the surfaces of the gear to minimize reflections. Unless you have shot many homes, you may not have considered something interesting. We all know that mirrors reflect images. But glass reflects things as well. Especially shower and tub glass, windows and sliding glass doors. If you wear any color of clothing than black, it can be difficult to remove your reflection from these scenes. If, however, you wear black clothing and even a black face mask in these scenarios, you will discover that you basically vanish from the reflections, especially if you will bring your aperture down to f22 and be sure that you physically move around during the exposure causing you to literally go undetected in the scene.
It’s easy to get talking to people and get distracted. Don’t do it! Stay focused, otherwise you will be going back. You either missed a room, shot out of focus or left something behind!
Trueeeee, the sellers are often stressed out and ask too many questions, that stress can infect you.
I would reshoot this ..
Done is better than perfect my friend. Had some audio issues that day
You're not going to die because of a scratchy audio track on one video, maybe grow up a little bit?
@@AlexSerrao love this! If you hadn't posted it because it wasn't perfect, we wouldn't have this super helpful video! Thank you for this wealth of information.
my tip turn off all the lights... natural light is 100% more important
If only I could. Realtors hate that though from my experience
@@AlexSerrao i did my first Airbnb shoot with all the lights off and i cringe when i think about it. Definitely would have looked more "warm and inviting" if I'd left the lights on.
Always shoot Raw! Even though you only delivering mls photos, you will, at some point in your career regret not shooting raw! A typical 14 bit raw image literally has 64 times more data than an 8 bit jpeg. Your camera ALWAYS shoots in 12 or 14 bits, but if you are not saving the raw file, you are throwing away your efforts. Most new image technology is based on raw data, you can be assured that future photo technology will be available to you when these technologies arrive. I have raw files that I shot in bracket way back in 2003. If I had only shot jpeg, those images would not be able to be edited with any degree of quality. Just this morning, I pulled up a shoot that did from 2005 and brought it into camera raw and it look as if shot the home yesterday. Spend the money on a hard drive and keep copies of everything you shoot.
Really not our job to declutter peoples homes. You break something and your liability insurance will go through the roof. Been shooting RE photography since 2008 here and each time a homeowner is available I will communicate the need to declutter to them! That’s their job, we don’t get paid for that!!
Tilt/Shift lenses are best. You can also adjust your camera at the tripod head for straight walls.
There’s no “new ways” to edit! Unless you’re talking about the new PS tools that are making our lives easier. Outsourcing the editing is now a big issue considering the editor has not seen the house in person! 🤦♀️🤦♀️
The better you shoot the easier the editing will be. I never outsource my editing. That’s like not doing half my job!
What happens if you are doing on average 6-10 jobs a day 😂
You’ll need help!
@@AlexSerrao i dont and i can easily do this on my own