Real estate photography basics for agents
Plenty of agents shoot their own listings, and there is nothing wrong with that. The results come down to a handful of habits far more than to the price of the camera.
BeforeAfterA modern phone camera is more than enough for a listing photo. What separates a good shot from a poor one is not the sensor but the preparation and the routine around it. Get those right and even a mid-range phone produces photos that hold their own on a portal.
Prepare the room before the camera
The most valuable minutes happen before you shoot. Open every blind, turn on every light, and clear the surfaces: post, dishes, the drying rack, the tangle of chargers. Straighten the cushions, hide the bins, move the car off the drive for exterior shots. A tidy room shot on a phone beats a cluttered room shot on a professional camera every time.
Height and angle
- Hold the camera at chest height, around 1.4 metres, not at eye level.
- Shoot from a corner toward the opposite corner to capture the most space.
- Keep the camera level so walls and door frames stay vertical.
- Avoid pointing up or down, which makes walls lean and rooms shrink.
Work with the light
Even light beats bright light. Shoot on an overcast day or in the softer light of morning and late afternoon, when the sun is not blasting through one window and leaving the opposite corner black. Turn the interior lights on to lift the shadows, and expose for the walls rather than the window. A window can be recovered in editing; a pure black corner cannot.
A room-by-room routine
Work the same way in every room and you stop forgetting things. Stand in the doorway or a corner, level the camera, take the wide shot, then one or two details that sell the room: the fireplace, the view, the fitted kitchen. Shoot every room, plus the hallway and the exterior. More frames cost nothing and give you a choice later.
The example on this page is the editing step that follows a good shoot: a level, well-lit frame corrected for exposure and colour. Get the shot close in the camera and the edit is a light touch, exactly as it should be.