The landscape of real estate photography has gone a long way since the turn of the century. Real estate photography involves both residential interiors and exteriors that are taken at different angles. It is known that clients may have different tastes in terms of property characteristics and a perfect shoot may all spell the difference.
Time is gold in this advocacy as you also need to consider the time you spend with those you are working with and for those who own the property as well. And when we ponder on what time is the best for photo shooting, not all hours of the day are the same. The so-called golden hours for photo shooting are the hours before sunrise and the hours before sunset.
Efficient shooting and perfect processing workflow are the ones a real estate photographer must consider most. The reproduction of space in a realistic manner will help you sell the properties because of the photos you shoot. This is what clients really appreciate and accept. As we all know, houses and similar real estate properties contain challenging things when photography is concerned.
HDR Photography: How is it Defined?
HDR or High Dynamic Range Photography is a trick in photography wherein a photographer can reproduce an efficient range of luminosity. This technique is better than what a standard photography can offer. Taking photographs of the same area but in different exposures then blending them altogether is the main concept of HDR Photography.
In the case of real estates, HDR makes the work of the photographer easier. When he shoots photos from the inside, all the details of the room are obviously visible. What is remarkable is that the view outside the window does not look overexposed. HDR pictures give a great impact in Real Estate Photography. To attain an HDR photo might be difficult with bare point and shoot or Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras. But with the help of photo-enhancing software like Photoshop, this could be possible.
The use of light is the primary idea when it comes to photography. Yet many of the photographers nowadays are making use of HDR as a solution and emerging alternate to flash guns and the use of multiple lights. In using HDR Photography, the delivery of a fresh and great looking image is exemplary but has a natural feel to it.
Things Needed for a Good HDR Photography
An HDR Real Estate Photography has positive impact in the photography industry. It can enhance the texture of the picture through manual contrast. And because editing in software is user-friendly, the quality of the photo becomes better in the end. Hence, a variety of details are added to create total makeover of the photo. With the use of HDR, it either brings down the brightness of the photo or blast the inside part to be balanced with the brightness of the outside.
Notably, there are some expectations in using Photoshop to create HDR photos: (1) the tone mapping is done after achieving a final product file; (2) it deals real estate HDR images for fine tuning and perfect adjustment; (3) focus on timing and composition becomes relevant, and; (4) the final output relies not only in the software but in the skills of the retouching editor.
The procedure in using HDR to real estate photography can be as follows:
1. Measurement of the Dynamic Range
After considering the space for your picture, it is a basic idea to first set the camera to Manual mode. This allows you to adjust the white balance before you use the camera further. It also permits you to change the shutter speed. Afterwards, you need to set the aperture to either f/8 or f/11 but these are optional settings. It is required to measure the brightest bright and the darkest dark of the area. Everything still depends on what aperture setting the photographer personally likes.
2. Use of HDR Bracketing
Some practices that are included in HDR bracketing involve overlapping photos during the blending procedure. It is advisable to preserve the focus during the entire process. This is done in order to get the same image results. Bracketed exposures may involve interior shots like balance difficulty, and single frame standard range.
3. Presets used as Starting Points
There are assortments of presets involving the key areas of color blending. These are the white balance and color fidelity. Based on HDR bracketing, colors that are often found when the bright rays of the sun comes through the window are totally imbalanced. Once extreme highlighting is done, the tonal range and white balance blend each other.
Using the 5 Stop Natural and 5 Stop Mixed Light presets, balancing of sunlight and warmer fluorescent illumination are made easily. The Single Exposure preset of the HDR technique requires several exposures to blend with the dynamic range. This trick can process several files down to single file only. The procedure mentioned can be several approaches of integrating HDR processing to real estate photography.