Hints for taking photos:
EXTERIOR
Whether you use a digital camera or a traditional film camera, be aware of how your photos will be used.
On Trend, the photos will be small, so you should fill the frame with the house to make it as big and easy to see as possible.
In print advertising you must leave room for cropping so the editor can fit the photo into a severe horizontal format (The Weichert Home Guide is the best example of this format). This means you leave space around the house – lots of lawn, lots of sky and a little bit on both sides of the house.
Hint: stand way back and zoom-in to fill the frame. Take the trend photo, then zoom out to allow more space on all sides and take the ad photo.
Both Trend and newspapers use horizontal (landscape) shots. Do not take vertical (portrait) shots, even if the subject is vertical. (For fact sheets verticals are acceptable.)
To get the best exposure, shoot on a clear sunny day when the sun is shining on the front of the house. This will give you a nice bright house and a deep blue sky. If the sun is behind the house, you will get a dark house and bright sun shining into the camera lens.
To give the house some depth, don’t shoot directly “head-on” into the house. You will see only the front, and the house will appear “flat.”
Instead, move slightly left or right so you can see some of the side. This adds depth to the house.
Keep the cars out of your shot. Don’t park your car in front of the house. If you can, ask the sellers to move their cars out of the driveway. In an exterior house photo, cars are distracting. You’ll also see more lawn and more house without cars in front or in the driveway.
INTERIOR
Light is the biggest problem with interiors. There is usually not enough or it's shining into your lens.
If you’re shooting on a sunny day, don’t shoot into a window. The camera’s exposure meter will read the bright window and set the exposure for that. The entire room will go very dark.
Treat the window as you would the sun in an exterior shot. Try to keep the bright window behind you and let the sunlight illuminate the rest of the room.
At night, turn on all the room lights and use your camera’s flash. The better your camera, the more it will help you get a better shot at night by balancing the flash and the room light.
If you can control the
exposure on your camera, use a slower shutter speed and a tripod to prevent
camera shake. If you’re using the camera in automatic exposure mode, hold it as still as possible to
avoid blurry photos. Try bracing your elbows on your chest to steady your hands.
The second problem with interiors is the lack of space to step back and get everything in your shot. Unless you have a camera with a wide-angle lens or a big room, you’re not going to get it all in one shot. You will likely be using a digital camera with the widest lens angle equivalent to about 35-40mm, so try to shoot the most interesting part of the room.
Before you shoot a room with a mirror, check to see if you are reflected in the mirror. If so, your camera flash will also be reflected in the mirror and show-up as a big white spot.