HDR-Enfuse to Speed Lights Transistion Question

Greetings All!

I've been doing real estate pictures for about 2 years now, and what started as just shooting for my father has turned into a little side gig. And I currently bracket 3-5 pictures with SNS and the results were 'okay' for my dad, but now since I'm doing work for other people, I would like to get a little better results, so I thought I'd go to speed lights and maybe full frame.

Currently I'm using a 60D w/ 10-22mm, manfrotto standard tripod, 3 axis bubble level, wireless remote, etc... aka all the basic gear for real estate. So I got myself the Yongnuo flashes w/ remote, but I was wondering if a few other options would help, such as...

1.) Going to a full frame, something as simple as a 5Dc with a 17-40mm?

2.) Regardless of Crop or Full Frame, going to a prime? (14mm on crop, 24mm on FF)

3.) Using a grey/color card?

4.) Other suggestions?

Some of the other reasons I'm looking into this is I've had comments of that the pictures make the room bigger than what it really is, sometimes my pictures don't have much dimension, etc... kind of the usual response do to UWA and HDR.

Cheers and Thanks in Advance!

You gotta get into real estate mode if you're going to shoot it. For example, just forget full frame. We're talking about clients who may not notice the difference between a lit and unlit photo, so the intricacies of going dx to fix that most pro photographers won't even be able to see (at the file sizes we provide) are going to go completely, 100% unadulteratedly unnoticed.

Same with the prime lenses. The difference in quality between a nice Tokina wide angle zoom and a prime are again going to be hard for a professional to tease out. Of much greater importance are lighting and composition. Just forget primes, they are going to make your life hell and you aren't going to get a single thing out of them.

The grey card isn't worth the time. I'd honestly rather just throw hold my lens cap out in front in a shot if I'm at all concerned. Flash in general is really going to be your best ally when it comes to color. In general the more flash you use the better your colors will be.

The photos on my website I honestly create most of them onsite in less than two minutes. Same amount of time per photo in post with some good use of compositing and ps actions. The best advice is to use flash the right way, get out of the home quick to keep everyone happy, yet supply a result that is high quality.

PECE Photo wrote in post #18192003
You gotta get into real estate mode if you're going to shoot it. For example, just forget full frame. We're talking about clients who may not notice the difference between a lit and unlit photo, so the intricacies of going dx to fix that most pro photographers won't even be able to see (at the file sizes we provide) are going to go completely, 100% unadulteratedly unnoticed.

Same with the prime lenses. The difference in quality between a nice Tokina wide angle zoom and a prime are again going to be hard for a professional to tease out. Of much greater importance are lighting and composition. Just forget primes, they are going to make your life hell and you aren't going to get a single thing out of them.

The grey card isn't worth the time. I'd honestly rather just throw hold my lens cap out in front in a shot if I'm at all concerned. Flash in general is really going to be your best ally when it comes to color. In general the more flash you use the better your colors will be.

The photos on my website I honestly create most of them onsite in less than two minutes. Same amount of time per photo in post with some good use of compositing and ps actions. The best advice is to use flash the right way, get out of the home quick to keep everyone happy, yet supply a result that is high quality.

Thanks for the gut check, that's kind of what I was thinking, but after doing some research, those are the things I noticed people were doing differently and appeared to have good results, but seemed kinda 'iffy' to me. Do you use any light modifiers with your speedlights?

I personally just bounce my lights in about 95 percent of my photos. Occasionally I can't really bounce due to some insane orange ceilings and walls or something, and I will almost always shoot a direct flash into the scene in those situations. Every once in a while I break out an umbrella but it's not often at all.

As Andrew pointed out, you have the right gear now to meet your clients needs. With the limited budgets of real estate shoots, you have to have an efficient photography workflow to deliver quick service at a reasonable hourly rate. There are many other investments you can make in your software, workflow, marketing, and communication system to build your business.

Without reviewing your website or portfolio its impossible to provide solid advice. Generally, most photo businesses need more help in workflow, marketing, and service than camera skills or image quality.

For most sets in a house I shoot one flash with the flash bounced from a wall behind the camera (using a rove light when a big pop is needed) followed by a 5 shot 2 stop automated bracket. Then I will blend the flash shot with the base ambient (as layers in PS) to add some modeling to the light from the flash and to make sure secondary rooms/area are lit. The flash is the basic exposure but the ambient provides control and shape. This is much faster and more reliable than using multiple flashes on site. If, for some reason, the blended flash/ambient is not getting the job done, I will blend the full 5 shot bracket in LR-Enfuse. If I have a shot with no light sources or windows in it, I might just take one ambient shot and polish it a bit in LR. The whole process is fast and reliable.

The first shot is LR-Enfuse. The second is flash/ambient.