Natwerk Designs

Ay advice for taking pictures of a house?

Need to take photos of inside features of a few homes in a few days,,, so what are the must do's? any ideas? The house is empty but need to showcase tiles.. kitchens, bathrooms ect.. any certain angles? any help would be more then appreciated!

Public Comments

1. use a tripod, manually set your white balance in each room if your a manual shooter, be aware of colour temperatures from room to room, use bounce flash if the ceilings are white to give an even fill/spread of daylight. take some wide lenses there are some good sites about architecture photography search them out some a
2. Definitely use some wide angle lenses. Some directional lighting may be necessary with the tiles if you you want to show them off. But, that could be tricky because of the glare. I generally like photographing rooms from a low angle so that I don't get too much of the ceiling in the photo.
3. The basics are always the same for indoor shots: Use a tripod and bounce your flash. When showing house features there are some additional items to consider. First, shoot only 1 main view of each room. Pick the least attractive corner, back yourself and tripod in to this corner and shoot with a wide angle lens that is wide enough to capture what you perceive as a good look. Want the room to look bigger, get a little lower down than eye level. Second, take some close-up shots of the highlights (tiles, fixtures, etc.). In Photoshop or the darkroom, combine the highlight photos and the main room photos so your client can see the room and the wall with tiles in the main view and also an inset of the actual tiles. I usually produce the main room alone and then the one with insets. Be careful of mirrors and when shooting rooms with large windows, try bouncing the flash off the wall opposite the large window. If the sun is shining in these windows, turn off the flash and use the available light. Lastly, if possible, use 1/30 or slower for the shutter speed so the lens will close down to increase your depth of field and everything in the rooms will be in focus. Good luck!
4. Empty interior rooms are a challenge. Demonstrating the sense of space - the size of the rooms is especially difficult given that wide angle focal lengths tend to make large room appear smaller and with not having furniture or accessories to give the room scale, it is very difficult to perceive the room properly. If you can have some kind of prop (a person even) in the room to provide some scale - that may help - but be sure to shoot with and without your 'props' in case they don't help. Use natural light if you can. If the room is very dark, of course fill it with flash (bounce) - but if there good natural light use it. You won't need much light with a tripod and slow shutter. Avoid shooting directly at windows with daylight coming through them. If shooting at night, close the drapes or blinds. Definitely take close ups of textures, materials and features.