Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: oschebell on June 12, 2013, 09:37:21 am
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Hi people, was after some advice regarding equipment and the approach to take with my shooting/growing of my business and skill-set.
I shoot mainly real estate work for high-er end houses at twilight and have landed a pretty good gig doing so which means I only generally shoot 1 house per day. I spend between 2-3 hours at each property so I have the time to put in the extra attention to detail. Up until now I've shot exclusively with with my Canon 1ds3 and 24-105 lens. I also have the Fuji x-e1 for timelapse work but have started to wonder about upgrading gear as there have been quite a few times where I've needed a wider lens. I have been very impressed with the quality of images coming from the x-e1 and have been pondering the idea of purchasing the fuji 14mm lens and using it for my real estate work. This would allow me to carry a lot less and be a bit looser/more dynamic with my approach and work a lot faster however on the other hand I am contemplating the notion of buying a 24mm TS-E lens and developing more of an architectural approach to the houses I shoot. It will be a more rigid/accurate approach and a lot slower (including PP) but the images will be more accurate. I have a lot of flexibility with the work I'm currently doing, as long as the images still work towards the end goal of making the house look desirable for purchase.
I'm just after some ideas from the many many professionals on this forum who have been in the game a lot longer than me and know what approaches have the greatest longevity and highest satisfaction and success. Thankyou! Please be gentle.
Some samples of my latest real estate work:
(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/oschebell/6_ss.jpg)
(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/oschebell/IMG_4980.jpg)
(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/oschebell/IMG_2919_done.jpg)
(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/oschebell/IMG_2673.jpg)
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Very good looking work! I much prefer the more natural look to residential sales photography over other approaches I've seen people use, It helps me imagine how I might live in the space,
The biggest piece of advice I can give you is: listen to your clients. Listening is thinking with your ears. Sometimes you have to figure out how to get them talking so they will say what they really mean but mostly, just listen closely.
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Thats a very good point Ellis, thankyou. :)
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The end result (the aesthetics) will be much more important than any technical criteria. Using title/shift lenses will slow you down and so if that cuts into your time of covering the entire property and not really achieving anything more appealing, then is it worth it? For real estate, the criteria are very straight forward--basically appealing small reproductions for buyers. However, if you branch out to architects or architectural magazines, then the technical criteria are going to be higher.
What will be more useful is the control of light--I notice when the light is harsh, you highlights seem to suffer a bit (I like your work, I just notice that in some of your images). Perhaps looking into lighting techniques or playing more with time of day/weather might be more useful. At your scale of reproduction, it is easy to correct for perspective in post processing. But maybe learning to combine a few artificial lights would be useful.
I would start identifying some architectural photography you enjoy and start learning how it was made. Photographers are more than camera operators, which is really the least of the job.
Good luck.
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How about a T/S adapter and some manual lenses with your Fuji?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kipon-Tilt-and-Shift-adapter-for-Nikon-F-mount-lens-to-Fuji-X-Pro1-X-E1-camera-/110993003363?pt=US_Lens_Adapters_Mounts_Tubes&hash=item19d7b2d363
I'm using a Nex version of this with a Leitax'd 18mm Distagon and getting great results