It is so easy to create really bad real estate images. With these tips, you are guaranteed to make ugly shots of your properties.
Some real estate professionals consider good pictures of their houses and apartments to be overrated. They cost money, time and space. Or as an agent told me recently, „People should not stare at nice pictures – they should sign a contract!“ Unfortunately, it seems to be essential, even if unneeded, that some photography has to go with any property discription. In order to take bad real estate images cheaply and quickly in the future, I will give you these 10 tips.
1. Re-activate Your Old Mobile Phone!
A picture of a house can be taken with any camera. Even an old Nokia 6230 from the year 2004 produces with its camera 1.3 megapixel photos. That’s enough for the most real estate portals on the interweb. So some old mobile phone can still do good service. All the verbiage concerning sharpness, details in light and dark areas can be neglected. In the Internet, almost mediocre image quality resolves by itself. The main thing is that the prospective customer recognizes a building.
2. Save More Storage!
If your camera has more megapixels, take photos at the smallest file size, set the compression to the highest level and take at maximum 1 photo. This saves valuable storage space. Note: In 2014, the price for 1 gigabyte of disk space (which is just enough for about 400 photos from a recent iPhone 7) rose by 2.3% to horrendous 4.5 ct compared to the year befor.
Okay, current computers have 1000 and more gigabytes of hard disk space. But honestly – who needs so many pictures of this size? Even here, there is always talked about the fact that more resolution and less compression are an important reserve for later processing – but please, not at the expense of your valuable storage space!
3. Turn On The Flash!
Photographers always say: You need light to photograph. Who would have thought that! These wisenheimers!
Good to have your own light. Finally your in-camera flash brightens all objects in a generous radius of about 3 yards. Objects located further away, cannot be recognized by the viewer anyway. Thus it can still remain in the dark. In addition, photos with flash always have such a beautiful authentic effect. The apartment feels like a star amid a flurry of camera flashes. (And you finally feel like a real paparazzo.)
4. Shoot in Automatic Mode Only!
When you set the camera to Full Auto, it will take the pictures by itself. Do not worry about the exposure or the ISO value. The camera computer calculates what it considers to be correct. Perhaps it can be confused by the occasional bright windows or dark corners behind furniture. But who cares? If everyone were to take photographs like this, it would finally be the only standard and there would be no more palaver on under- / over-exposure and image noise.
Do you have a camera where you cannot select neither automatic mode nor any other mode? Happy you! This camera works probably EXCLUSIVELY in auto mode. You are off the hook!
5. Shoot Loose from the Wrist!
Show independence and choose a relaxed standing position for your real estate photos. Feel free like John Wayne or the Marlboro-Man and shoot your images from the hip. Sell light or heavy shake and blurs as your deliberate style. Tripods and remote triggers are for cowards only.
6. The Camera Perspective Does Not Matter!
Be creative and choose a camera perspective that creates as many converging lines as possible in the picture. This way you demonstrate your personality and dynamism. The prospective buyer will bend these lines straight in his brain. And he will also apologize for a crooked picture. It is important that you have as little trouble as possible during the recording session. The choice and correction of the camera perspective would disrupt your entire sales flow because they take large amounts of time.
7. Upload Your Images Immediately!
Your reputation as a fast-paced service provider is important you? Then you have to upload your real estate photos to all the online portals directly after they were taken (and I mean DIRECTLY, e.g. within the first 23.8 seconds) and show the world how well you can take bad photos. Photo selection or even image processing are the time killers No. 1 and 2 in real estate photography. They are almost as annoying as the arrival and departure to the property. If you have a smartphone that can automatically upload the unseen images, you should turn this function on.
If such a photo lands immediately on the net, this is worth much more as if it is investigated for its shortcomings first, and then perhaps also sorted out. Small and big mistakes in the picture are funny and demonstrate your great powers of endurance as a service provider.
8. Prevent any Image Processing!
If you have followed point 7, this tip is unnecessary. For all the inconvicible individuals, the following applies: Bad real estate images cannot be obtained when they get image processing. Okay, you could make them worse in Photoshop, but it costs valuable time. Any uncorrected photo remains authentically unattractive if you have followed tips 1 to 7. If you are asked, tell them that you use „ooc“-technology („out of cam“) for your images.
9. Leave the Property Untouched!
Photograph the reality. Before shooting do not call the declutter command, do not clean up or conduct minor repairs. If the object is not sold with its bad shots, you will be left with the cost for these services! Generate the illusion for any prospective buyer that everything that only glitters may be gold.
It provides the property with a very special charm, when the historical traces of their previous holders remain visible. Then it is time for pure romance. Photograph this patina to open the heart and wallet of prospective buyers.
10. Do not Allow Anyone Else to Photograph!
Some real estate professionals come up with the strange idea and engage a photographer who specializes in real estate images. Then trouble is near: The vast majority of these high-end snapshoooers focus on GOOD images. However, you prefer BAD pictures. This division of labor would be suboptimal.
Others have the absurd desire to take even better photos of their real estate by themselves. These individuals place themselves the hands of professional photographers to learn required basic techniques in seminars or workshops. In the end, however, this again results in better pictures instead of BAD real estate images – this procedure also proves to be unhelpful.
So: Self do, self have. Anyone can do poor photography.
WHY I wrote down THIS TIP LIST for bad real estate images?
Tip-lists have been a blast in every communication at least since the invention of languages. On the web, they are among the most read articles, because they suggest that expert knowledge is bargained away free of charge. However, this list is different:
- This article not about expertise, but mostly about unique slogans from real estate professionals who think to know / can do better.
- These findings are not squandered – most are hard earned results of my customer communication and exactly tailored to a single target group.
Now it is up to you what you will do with this list. Anyway, I’ll go out and take good photos or teach other agents to do so :-).