Real Estate Photography 5D mkIII

[canon816]

I use HDR for real estate photography and it certainly is a fine line to walk between an appealing HDR rendering and something that looks too artsy. 

The realtors I work really enjoy the dynamic range that HDR captures while at the same time they prefer more natural looking images. 

I own Photomatix, Enfuse, NIK, PS5, EasyHDR and have demo'd several other programs.   Each program has strengths and weaknesses.  I have found that EasyHDR works the best at producing as natural an image as possible while retaining a nice wide dynamic range with nice color tones.  Enfuse is my second choice although it does not produce DR well when shooting in a room with a very bright exterior through the windows.

No matter what HDR program I use the final image requires a fair amount of polishing with Lightroom to finalize.  No program is perfect. 

Here are a few images I have made with EasyHDR for real estate clients.  I can only post 4 it seems so I limited it to interiors and just grabbed a few off my website. If anyone would like to see exteriors I can post a few with EasyHDR as well:

[canon816]

I should mention that I shoot 5 exposures from -4 to +4EV and spaced at 2EV and generally use the "natural bright" setting in EASYHDR.

[candyman]

@!ex
I really like your inhouse HDR photos. They are like art. And great photo where the windowframe is the frame of a painting and the landscape the painting IN the frame!

[joelerskates]

Interesting discussion here - something I've been working through myself - trying to balance my own aesthetic for traditional exposures with client's needs for images that stand out and have a bit of a fantastic quality to them.

I shoot a lot for landscapers & homebuilders and coming from a "single exposure, get it right in-camera" landscape photography aesthetic, I always disliked the HDR look. Lately, I've been doing 5 exposure blends to give the images a little more range, while trying to keep the look as natural as possible. Hopefully, these shots don't suffer from the typical HDR traits, but still have a bit more pop than you'd get from one exposure.

[@!ex]

Very nice images joelerskates.  I actually do quite a bit of blending as well, especially in my fine art work.  The real-estate stuff on other hand often has such a high quantity of shots that hand blending all of them just becomes unreasonable.  I only shoot photography for fun and as a second job on the side (although that second job pays a lot of the bills these days).  I mainly shoot for the University of Colorado athletics and for my own fine art exhibits, but only really shoot real estate for my girlfriend (realtor) and a few high end builders.  Here are some shots I was working on this morning for a house my GF is putting on the market today.  I use 5-7 handheld shots for all these and probably shot the house in about 15 minutes.  The high ISO abilities of the new 5d mk3 make indoor handheld brackets a breeze (amazing, really).  Spent maybe another hour or two this morning tonemapping and blending all of them.  I really think that photomatix is by far the best software, and if used properly (takes a long time to really master it as all the parameters effect each other in different ways) it can yield almost any range of result from extremely natural to flatmapped.  Let me know what you think of these as I was trying to get a very natural image, with pop like joelerskates said.  One of the biggest challenges in this type of shooting is the mixed lighting with can result in difficult to deal with white balancing issues. In real-estate and photography in general you need to have images that stand out and differentiate themselves from the crowd without sparking the consumer to feel they are being deceived.  It is a fine line for sure.

[@!ex]

@!ex
I really like your inhouse HDR photos. They are like art. And great photo where the windowframe is the frame of a painting and the landscape the painting IN the frame!

Thanks

[kirispupis]

Here are a few of my shots in an actual listing - http://www.johnlscott.com/propertydetail.aspx?IS=1&ListingID=301352353

I also use Photomatix and batch my shots for speed, using exposure fusion.  I then edit the photos further in both LR and PS.  For my non-commercial photography I generally prefer to get everything in one shot, but my clients strongly prefer the blended shots and the workflow is so much easier without needing to setup lights.

[joelerskates]

Hey Alex,

Good stuff - It's always tricky getting images that don't look "muddy". You've done a good job, but I think you could push the mid tones lighter - keep the shots as bright and cheerful as you can. One thing you should try is to shoot on a tripod and use the MkIII's great new VF level - it'll keep all your vertical lines straight which is nice for interior shots.

I'll attach a few more shots and include some interiors. I think it's definitely trickier with interiors because of the white balance issue. I think it's key to still have some blown highlights (from lams, ceiling lights, etc) to keep things looking natural. Good looking at your work, Alex!

[Cgdillan]

joelerskates - what are you using to process?

[joelerskates]

@Cgdillan

I use the Photomatix plugin for Aperture.

[briansquibb]

@Cgdillan

I use the Photomatix plugin for Aperture.

I use Nik HDR eFex - simple and gives realistic images out of the box (mine with PSE)

[Cgdillan]

@Cgdillan

I use the Photomatix plugin for Aperture.

do you know if there is a difference in the way it handles images in aperture vs standalone? do you do 3 shot brackets?

[@!ex]

@Cgdillan

I use the Photomatix plugin for Aperture.

do you know if there is a difference in the way it handles images in aperture vs standalone? do you do 3 shot brackets?

It handles them the same either way.

[SandyP]

Interesting discussion here - something I've been working through myself - trying to balance my own aesthetic for traditional exposures with client's needs for images that stand out and have a bit of a fantastic quality to them.

I shoot a lot for landscapers & homebuilders and coming from a "single exposure, get it right in-camera" landscape photography aesthetic, I always disliked the HDR look. Lately, I've been doing 5 exposure blends to give the images a little more range, while trying to keep the look as natural as possible. Hopefully, these shots don't suffer from the typical HDR traits, but still have a bit more pop than you'd get from one exposure.

Finally... something much closer to a realistic look. Well done!

[briansquibb]

I am sure I have posted this before ...