General Principles

Obligations to be honest to accurately represent the property. If connected the house leave it in, cracks should be left in. If taking out then get agent to sign off on it.

Less is more, every major room, not all bedrooms, not attics, not garages

Every shoot quality, no matter the end of the market, to be high quality to attract tomorrow’s higher end clients

Even consider using models in the shoot.
Go wide angle, bright and happy.

Use directional light so it pops off the screen. Needs to look good as thumbnails as well full size.

Ensure that for each shot the camera is dead level, use spirit levels.

Try to minimise the requirement for post editing.

Avoid brights on the edge of the picture, particularly blow outs as they will appear as a cut out on printed white.

Slightly overexpose with intent to bring them down in post. This reduces noise. Use Histogram on camera to ensure not clipping the highlights.

Joined Rooms

Shoot each separately and then together.

When joined create a visual path through without anything pinching the route. Consider increasing height and moving back so looking down. May need to crop out if needing to shoot wider.

Exterior

May well be the most important.

One Point/Two Point Shots

One Point

Shooting perpendicular to the facing wall. All horizontal lines will be exactly horizontal. Needs to be nailed at 90 degrees. If missed it will look awkward.

Two Point Composition

Shooting at an angle to walls. Horizontal lines slope away to infinity.

Windows

Overexpose window if wanting to hide outside view. Use shutter speed to control window exposure.

If wanting outside detail, then overexpose window by 0.5 to 1 stop & under expose room then fill with flash.

Can always darken window in post.
Once outside horizon is blown out then it’s blown out so can’t get worse so outside detail will not get any worse.

When interior is primarily being lit by flash. The exposure is the sum of the ambient and flash. Shutter speed does not affect flash so adjust shutter speed to change exposure of window, which is pure ambient, depending on outside detail required. If interior gets too bright/dark change aperture by a stop rather than adjusting each flash but will need to add it into the shutter to maintain window exposure.

Law: Shutter speed has no effect on flash. Flash is always far faster than a shutter can open and close. Aperture will change ambient and flash. So changing aperture will need shutter changing to get back to original ambient light requirement.

Consider dual shot.

Lights & Lamps

Consider having on but consider WB effects. (Fluorescent is a no go). Lights on make it seem warm and inviting.

If too powerful they may well blow out the shot