Light Modifiers for Real Estate?

dmward wrote in post #16982705
Architecture and real estate photography requires attention to detail.

This picture took about 3 hours and includes about 50 separate exposures.

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This one is similar:

And HERE is a link to the rest of the gallery Most of the interior shots were made in two steps, first a three exposure bracket that covered 5 EV. Then an exposure with speedlites, always bounced, to light up the space. Final image is generally the speedlite shot with adjustments. Some, most often those with significant outside area visible through a window are a combination of speedlites and bracketed exposures.

Beautiful work DM.

enginyr wrote in post #16982805
What lens, David? 17-40?

17mm TSE for both.
I think most of the images inside were also 17mm TSE. If not then 24mm TSE.

Since I got the TSE lenses I haven't used my 16-35.

I have done some outside walk about architectural shooting with Fujifilm XT-1, or XE2 and the 10-24.

For the outside shots the exposures range for 1/30 to several seconds.
For interiors my workflow is to shoot a bracket of three exposures that are 2EV apart, then make an exposure with speedlites to accent the room. They are always being bounced. The objective is to open shadows and/or create highlights that blend with the ambient light from fixtures and windows.

When I'm editing the job I combine the three bracketed exposures into a 32 bit floating point tiff file that Lightroom can use. I get one of those four files looking the way I want it, then, if I want additional punch I take that image and the image with speedliting into photoshop and blend them.

I think it took just about as much time to describe the process as it does to accomplish it.

Naturally, the outside shots that have multiple speedlite lit elements take much longer.

dmward wrote in post #16982705
Architecture and real estate photography requires attention to detail.

This picture took about 3 hours and includes about 50 separate exposures.

Nice work David.

I think the biggest problem with davids style of shooting is actually getting paid for THAT amount of work. In Los angeles, where everyone is flip crazy, realtors are pretty stingy with the cash. I could see your work going into architectural magazines though.

enginyr wrote in post #16983793
I think the biggest problem with davids style of shooting is actually getting paid for THAT amount of work. In Los angeles, where everyone is flip crazy, realtors are pretty stingy with the cash. I could see your work going into architectural magazines though.

:goldmedal

Hope the OPs dad has deep pockets.

hes gone wrote in post #16983809
=he's gone;16983809]:goldmed​al

Hope the OPs dad has deep pockets.

Well he is my dad so I'm willing to do the extra work. Plus he's been helping me update my townhome. But he already has a few of his co-workers asking about me and my prices. Granted I don't want to make a 'business of it', but if it takes of, I'm not going to complain.

David does do great work and has a better understanding than I do, so it's something to work towards, but probably can't do it right away. I'm curious of doing HDR now more than flash. So for now I'm probably going to keep my gear the way it is and looking into HDR software, but I don't want to invest too much.

In camera HDR with a 5D3 OR 6D and perspective corrected in Lightroom (whitebalance needs to be corrected for almost every shot). No FLash, Tilt shift lens or image blending in photoshop. Not as good obviously, but a great technique if you are starting out and need to pay the bills. I can typically cover a house in 1 hour and upload the images in 30 minutes. Realtors have been very happy with this style of photography and homes sell quick. 16mm 1/3 is200 F9

The complex composite shooting is more something that architects or high end home owner/realtors want. Its not cheap.

I can do the average house, condo in two hours or less and not that long doing post processing. Its reasonable revenue for the effort.

I rarely do a job for a property that is selling for less than 1.5 million. That's one way to make sure there is enough to pay for the photography.

dmward wrote in post #16984644
The complex composite shooting is more something that architects or high end home owner/realtors want. Its not cheap.

I can do the average house, condo in two hours or less and not that long doing post processing. Its reasonable revenue for the effort.

I rarely do a job for a property that is selling for less than 1.5 million. That's one way to make sure there is enough to pay for the photography.

And that's probably the difference is that I'd be in the $500k-750k range and I'm sure the average realtor doesn't want to spend that much, so of course I wouldn't want to spend that much time on it.

BobDawg wrote in post #16983139
I was looking at the HDR vs Flash argument and I see the points on both sides. Like you sald MalVeauX, I just don't want the pictures to turn into paintings/fake rep of the house. I feel like some people abuse the HDR to make something look like what it really isn't because they can't capture what the house really looks like, and I don't want to be one of those people.

Would Photomatrix Essentials work? or is it better to get the whole thing?

Heya,

For real estate, the Essentials is plenty. The full suite is better for someone shooting complex scenes that involve moving subjects. But for a stationary house, the most movement in your photos might be a branch outside in the wind, or some grass moving in the wind, which normal ghost removal handles easily. For inside, well, there's nothing moving at all. Essentials will cover it. Cheap too. Just take it easy on the saturation and you're good (set your camera's picture style to custom, and drop contrast and saturation as low as possible; process in whatever you use to produce a working TIFF, then HDR it, add saturation from there to taste). If you want to add to this, like DM mentioned, you can do a single exposure with speedlites to get some more highlights and take out some hard shadows. Use that to blend. I wouldn't try to use that particular exposure with the others in HDR though, as the highlights will cause problems. I tend to bracket 2~3 stops between the exposures when doing HDR. But you just try and see what is best for what you're doing. HDR can look natural if you're careful with the glow and saturation stuff.

Very best,