High-quality real estate photography is key for attracting potential buyers and enhancing the appeal of property listings. Clear, well-composed images are created to stop potential buyers, whether it’s in your office window, on social media or listing sites. Good photos significantly influence a buyer’s decision-making process by showcasing the best features of a property in a compelling and visually engaging manner.
While we equip real estate agents with the right technology for the job, you still need the essential skills needed to avoid common photography mistakes that can undermine the quality of your listings.
By focusing on practical tips and straightforward solutions, we’re here to ensure that every shot you take not only highlights each property’s strengths but also resonates with potential buyers, making your listings impossible to overlook.
Recognising common photography mistakes
Several common issues often detract from the effectiveness of property images. Addressing these can dramatically improve the appeal of your listings.
Poor lighting
Poor lighting can dramatically reduce the quality of your property photos, making even the most beautifully decorated spaces look dull and uninviting.
Natural light tends to bring out the best in home interiors by highlighting colours and textures authentically. However, reliance solely on natural light can lead to underexposed images, especially in areas not well-served by large windows or on overcast days.
Cluttered spaces
Clutter can significantly detract from the aesthetic appeal of a property photo, making spaces appear cramped and smaller than they are.
The goal is to create a clean, inviting space that potential buyers can imagine themselves living in.
Lack of detail
A common oversight in real estate photography is failing to capture the details that make a property unique and desirable.
Ensuring your photos capture these details can help convey the true value of the property and allow potential buyers to appreciate the finer aspects of the home.
Correcting common photography mistakes
Viewing your property through a buyer’s eyes can provide invaluable insights into how best to present each space. This perspective helps you appreciate what attracts buyers and what may turn them away.
Understanding the visual impact of each room and how it contributes to the overall appeal of the house will guide you in capturing photos that not only highlight the property’s strengths but also resonate deeply with prospective buyers.
Here’s how you can correct typical photography errors by maximising lighting, decluttering spaces, and choosing the right angles to make each listing shine.
Make the most of lighting
Good lighting is essential for showcasing property features effectively, as it can dramatically enhance the appearance of interiors, making them more welcoming and visually appealing. The good news is, you can achieve optimal lighting without the need for a professional setup.
Pull in natural light
Whenever possible, take advantage of natural light, which provides the most flattering illumination.
Open curtains and blinds and try to schedule photo shoots for times when the sunlight is spread across the room yet bright, typically early mornings or late afternoons.
Use overhead lighting
Relying on sunshine every day can be unrealistic (depending on where you live!), so make the most of internal lights too. Giraffe360’s one-tap HDR photo feature ensures that every shot captures details perfectly in both brightly lit and shadowy areas, maintaining balance and clarity throughout the space.
Declutter spaces
Clutter can significantly detract from the property’s appeal, making spaces seem smaller and less inviting. Presenting a clean, uncluttered space is key to making a positive impression through your photos.
Stage the home
The aim is to highlight the space itself rather than the belongings in it. Ask the seller in advance to make sure any clutter is removed, or can be moved easily during the shoot.
By clearing away distractions, you can direct potential buyers’ attention to the property’s key selling points, such as spacious countertops in the kitchen or a large fireplace in the living room.
Choosing the right angles
Choosing the right angles is crucial for producing a positive visual impact. The angle from which a photo is taken can greatly affect how spacious and inviting a room appears – and you don’t need technical expertise to frame a shot.
Play around with framing
Experiment with different angles to find the ones that make each space look its largest and most inviting. Avoid shooting directly into corners or towards closed doors unless doing so adds value to the shot.
Try out different settings
The Giraffe360 Go Cam provides several wide-angle settings, allowing real estate agents to capture more of each room without advanced camera knowledge.
Selecting the right field of view can help emphasise the spaciousness and unique layout of a property, making it more attractive to potential buyers.
The Go Cam, like most modern cameras, is equipped with grid lines that can be activated during shooting. These grids help you align the horizontal and vertical lines in your frame, such as the edges of walls and furniture, ensuring that each photo is level and straight and key features are in line with the rule of thirds.
When photographing interiors, adjusting the vertical pitch of your camera ensures that vertical lines remain straight and true. This adjustment is particularly important when using wide-angle lenses, as they can cause vertical lines at the edge of a photo to bow outward or inward.
Don’t forget post-processing
Even with careful preparation, and processing some photos might still need slight adjustments to align with your personal preference. While Giraffe360 processes all photos in line with best practice, there may be some tweaks you’d like to make.
Software, such as the Giraffe360 dashboard, allows you to fine-tune photos captured at the property to optimise the quality.
Optimising photo quality with easy edits
Once you have captured your property photos, simple edits can greatly enhance their quality, ensuring they look their best in your listings. However, it’s vital that each photo reflects a true-to-life version of the property, and you show it in its best light.
Even minor adjustments to exposure, saturation, and sharpness can transform an average photo into a standout piece that captures potential buyers’ attention.
Adjusting exposure
Proper exposure is crucial for showing off the true characteristics of a space. If your photos appear too dark or too bright, adjusting the exposure can help balance the light in the image, ensuring that details are not washed out or lost in shadow while maintaining a natural look.
Enhancing saturation
Saturation affects the intensity of colorus in your photos. A slight increase can make your images pop, highlighting vibrant features such as painted walls or decorative accents.
However, it’s important to avoid over-saturation as it can make photos look unnatural. A subtle enhancement is often all that’s needed to bring your photos to life.
Improving sharpness
Sharpness increases the clarity of your images, making them appear crisper and more detailed.
Adjusting sharpness can be particularly beneficial for highlighting the textures and fine details of your property’s interior finishes, such as wood grain, stonework, or intricate tile patterns.
Editing photos with Giraffe360
The Giraffe360 dashboard provides an intuitive platform for making these edits quickly and effectively. Real estate agents can choose from company or custom presets that are specifically tailored to their brand’s style and preferences.
These presets can be applied to all your photos with just a few clicks, ensuring consistency across your listings. For more specific adjustments, the dashboard also allows for manual edits, giving you the flexibility to adjust exposure, saturation, sharpness, temperature, contrast, highlights, and shadows as needed.
Using Giraffe360’s core customisation tools, agents can ensure that each photo not only meets but exceeds listing standards, with a polished and professional look that appeals directly to potential buyers.
Tools like Giraffe360 offer a robust platform to further elevate your photography efforts. With features like one-tap HDR photography, various wide-angle options, and an intuitive editing dashboard, Giraffe360 empowers real estate agents to capture and present properties in the best possible light. These capabilities not only streamline the photography process but also ensure that each image meets high standards of quality and consistency.
We encourage all real estate professionals to embrace these tips and leverage the advanced features of tools like Giraffe360. By doing so, you can produce stunning, compelling property photos that capture the attention of potential buyers and set your listings apart from the competition.
To discover more about how Giraffe360 can enhance your real estate photography and help you avoid common pitfalls, book a demo today.
