Best Camera Settings for Real Estate Photography Interiors
- Best Lenses for Real Estate Photography
- Professional Real Estate Photography Kit: What's in the Camera Bag?
- Exposure Mode - Aperture Priority
- Aperture - f/8
- ISO - 400
- Shutter Speed - Determined by Camera
- Focus Mode - Single-Shot Autofocus
- Metering Mode - Matrix
- Exposure Mode - Aperture Priority
- Aperture - f/8
- ISO - 400
- Shutter Speed - Determined by Camera
- Focus Mode - Single-Shot Autofocus
- Metering Mode - Spot
- What You Need to Do Before Taking a Single Real Estate Photo
- Real Estate Photography Tips for Consistently Great Photos
Photo by jodiejohnson via iStock
One of the most critical components of taking high-quality real estate photos is understanding basic camera settings.
That is, rather than taking photos in full auto mode, it's suggested that you exert control over what the camera does in terms of its exposure settings.
This does not mean that you must take all your photos in full manual mode. Far from it.
In fact, as I discuss in this real estate photography tutorial, there are other options you can use to have more control over the exposure without having to be in charge of all exposure controls.
Understanding Exposure Controls
If you're new to photography or are old-hat and just need a quick refresher, the video above by Tek Syndicate offers an excellent overview of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, and how these settings are used to manipulate the exposure of an image.
Additionally, you can consult this tutorial on real estate photography, which outlines exposure settings, the Exposure Triangle, aperture priority mode, and other essential camera settings for photographing real estate.
As that tutorial notes, aperture priority mode, which gives you control over the aperture and the ISO setting while the camera determines a shutter speed to match, enables you to have an added level of control over the exposure without having to be responsible for all three settings.
Photo by eROMAZe via iStock
This isn't to say that you shouldn't shoot interior photos in manual mode, but in many situations, aperture priority mode works perfectly fine.
An advantage of using aperture priority mode is that you can select the aperture at which your lens is sharpest (called the sweet spot) to ensure your property photos are maximally sharp.
While the sweet spot of a lens is different from one lens to the next, generally speaking, it's often in the f/8 range.
Quick Tip: It's strongly advised to utilize a tripod and a remote shutter release when photographing interiors. Depending on the lighting in the room, the shutter speed the camera selects could be quite slow. If the camera is not perfectly still, slow shutter speeds will result in blurry images. As a rule of thumb, if you're using shutter speeds slower than about 1/50 seconds, you need a tripod.
When to Change the Aperture
Photo by Pinkybird via iStock
Though leaving the aperture alone at around f/8 will work fine for many interior photos, there will be occasions when you need to widen or narrow the aperture.
Remember, widening the aperture means selecting a smaller f-number. So, an aperture of f/2 is much larger than f/8 while an aperture of f/16 is much smaller than f/8.
Likewise, recall that the aperture influences the depth of field, where small f-numbers like f/2 minimize the depth of field and large f-numbers like f/16 maximize the depth of field.
Say, for example, that you want to highlight a particular feature in a room, like the hardware on a cabinet drawer or the detail of a fireplace mantel.
To do so, using a small f-number like f/2 will help you blur the background of the shot, thus making the detail you wish to highlight more visible.
Photo by hikesterson via iStock
On the other hand, if the room you're photographing has a lot of detail from foreground to background, using a larger f-number like f/16 might be prudent as this deepens the depth of field.
This is especially important if there are elements in the shot very near the camera in the foreground.
For example, if you're photographing the dining room and the table extends well into the foreground (as shown above), shooting at f/16 might help you keep the nearest edge of the table as well as the more distant elements in the room all sharply in focus.
Learn More:
Overcoming Challenging Lighting in Real Estate Interiors
Photo by Bulgac via iStock
When photographing interior spaces, you will encounter a wide variety of lighting conditions.
On the one hand, you might have some rooms that are flooded with natural light. These spaces are often the easiest to photograph because the room has plenty of light for the photo. Not only do you not need artificial lighting, but you also don't have to worry about having a dark interior space with bright windows.
Photo by Bulgac via iStock
On the other hand, you will find that some rooms are quite dark due to a lack of windows, a lack of artificial lighting in the room, dark decor, or a combination thereof.
While dark rooms aren't as easy as light-filled rooms to photograph, getting a good exposure can sometimes be possible by turning on all available lights, dialing in a smaller f-number (i.e., moving from f/8 to f/3.5) or increasing the ISO (i.e., moving from ISO 200 to ISO 400) while shooting in aperture priority mode.
Photo by asbe via iStock
By far the biggest challenge you'll face when photographing real estate interiors is the wide dynamic range that results from photographing a dark room with very bright windows.
Even the most expensive cameras on the market today have their limits when it comes to how much dynamic range (the range of light and dark light values) they can handle.
What you'll find is that if you expose the image for the dark interior, the scenery in the windows becomes wildly overexposed. But if you expose for the brightness of the windows, the opposite occurs - the room becomes extremely underexposed.
The key to managing this wide dynamic range is to bracket your exposures.
This image shows how a dark interior with bright windows presents a challenge for getting a well-exposed photo.
Bracketing exposures means taking several photos of the room, each at a different exposure level.
For example, if you were photographing the room shown above, you would focus the camera on an area that's not too dark or too bright (i.e., the tabletop area).
Then, look at the shutter speed that the camera has chosen (you should be in aperture priority mode at this point, that way the camera selects an appropriate shutter speed).
Next, note the shutter speed, and switch your camera from aperture priority to manual mode. Again, check that the shutter speed has remained the same. If not, switch it back to what you noted a moment ago.
This image shows how bracketing multiple exposures and blending them together can help you get interior shots that are well-exposed throughout.
At this point, set your camera to Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB). If you aren't sure how to do this, consult your camera's owner's manual for instructions.
While in the AEB setup menu, set the exposure increment to +/- 2 EV. If your camera doesn't support a value that high, choose the highest one available.
Then switch your camera to continuous shooting mode, frame the shot as you'd like, ensure that the image is focused properly, and depress the shutter button.
You'll hear multiple shutter clicks which indicates that the bracketed images have been taken.
Now instead of having one image that's either well-exposed for the darker areas or well-exposed for the brighter areas in the room, you have multiple images you can blend together to get one well-exposed image throughout.
For a tutorial on merging bracketed exposures, see the video above.
Quick Tip: Bracketing exposures and merging them together not only gets you the best results, but it's also much less time-consuming than setting up artificial lighting.
Choosing Camera Settings for Real Estate Interiors
Photo by Nikada via iStock
For Rooms That are Not Dark
As noted earlier, your best bet will often be to shoot interior photos in aperture priority mode.
When you begin shooting a room that is not dark (i.e., one that has very little dynamic range), the following camera settings are a good place to start:
If you find that the image is too dark when you use these settings, adjust the aperture to make it wider (i.e., moving from f/8 to f/7.1) or boost the ISO (i.e., moving from ISO 400 to ISO 800).
If you find that the image is too bright using the settings above, close down the aperture (i.e., to f/11) or reduce the ISO (i.e., to ISO 200).
For Rooms That are Dark
When photographing rooms that are dark and have a wide dynamic range, a different approach is required.
As you can see below, the majority of the camera settings remain the same, except the metering mode, which should be set to Spot:
Additionally, you’ll want to bracket the exposures, as discussed earlier.
In this specific situation, opt for the maximum number of bracketed exposures your camera allows with 2 EV increments (or the maximum allowed by the camera). Also set the camera to continuous shooting mode.
Following these procedures, the resulting images will show beautiful details throughout the room whether the room is light or dark.