Smartphones are a viable option for real estate agents to take interior and exterior shots. Modern phones have sensors and lenses built in with sufficient resolution for great online listing pictures.
Consult our quick guide for some tips:
Hold The Phone Correctly
Give your phone sufficient support for sharp images.
Insert image of holding a phone at arm’s length
Holding the phone at arm’s length (as above) will not give you a perfect photo. Hold your elbows against your body or kneel and rest your elbows on your knees to create a stable base. You could also use the volume button instead of the on-screen button to trigger the shutter.
Don’t use the smartphone’s zoom – it will make your photo pixelated and grainy.
Invest in a Tripod
You’ll find several smartphone tripods on the market. They are small, mobile and provide the stability you need. You can also use a smartphone adapter on a regular tripod. With the tripod, you can also use the self-timer to trigger the shutter and avoid touching the phone at all.
Did you Know? There’s an App for That
You can process pictures on the spot with an app like VSCO or Snapseed. Darken or lighten images, adjust color and contrast and enjoy several tools for enhancement. There are even apps to help you beat the ‘wide range dilemma’. With the room being darker than the light entering through windows, most cameras won’t handle the wide, dynamic range. But you can beat this issue with special real estate photography apps. PropertyRender.com can also take care of your photo editing with their affordable image enhancement service. PropertyRender.com applies a 2-step technique for consistently high quality images.
Shoot Horizontally
You may be inclined to hold your camera upright but holding it sideways in landscape will get much better photos. (This is also true for interior shots).
Find the Corners
Unfortunately, with smartphones, the lens offers only a narrow angle, making it tricky to capture the entire room in one image. A great solution is to stand in the corner of the room, increasing the distance from the camera to the opposite corner for a sense of more space. Alternatively, use the panoramic setting on your smartphone.
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