6 Photography Secrets to Make Your Home Stand Out

The picturesque Ocean Reef Club has some of the most stunning scenery in Florida. The brilliant white sand, lush greenery, and sparkling clear water provide a beautiful natural backdrop for Ocean Reef Club real estate photographs. Great pictures are crucial to engaging prospective buyers if you want to sell your home. And a professional photographer is best equipped to capture beautiful homes and scenery.

Creating a compelling online presence is a crucial step in attracting potential buyers. Your home’s photos should lead buyers to your front door for an in-person tour. With over 80,000 Florida homes on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), how can you make yours stand out? Read on to discover the photography secrets for making any Ocean Reef Club home stand out.

If you want photographs of your home that attract buyers, using your phone’s camera app may not be your best bet. Houses whose listings feature photos taken with a high-quality camera sell 32% faster than those without professional images. With 97% of buyers searching for homes online, high-quality photographs are essential to selling your home.

 

DSLR stands for digital single-lens reflex. DSLR cameras allow the photographer to see exactly what they will capture. A DSLR camera uses a 45-degree mirror to direct light into the optical viewfinder, so even with a DSLR turned off, you can see through the viewfinder.

 

When a photographer takes photos of your home, their camera often has to capture the full scope of the room within the constraints of a tight space. True to its name, a wide-angle lens allows them to photograph a wide area in a single photo.

 

Taking photographs without a tripod leaves much room for error. By contrast, using a tripod allows for steadier photos, straight lines, and consistency in composition.

An advanced camera’s settings work together to produce the highest-quality photograph possible. Most pros use JPEG when taking pictures. This file format compresses the image so that it takes up less memory. Your photographer might also shoot in RAW, a file format that captures uncompressed data from your camera sensor. RAW is easier to edit, yielding more control over exposure, white balance, highlights and shadows, contrast, and other settings.

 

Professional photographers work with three other main settings to get the most precise images.

 

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is essentially your camera’s sensor sensitivity or ability to gather light. Typically, it is wise to keep a camera on its base ISO setting, which is configured to give you the best quality photo. However, if you work with too much or too little light, the ISO setting can be adjusted to brighten or darken the image. An ISO setting of 400 is recommended for most interior home pictures.

 

The camera's aperture is the opening of its diaphragm through which light passes. This is measured in f/stops, generally expressed as letter/number combinations (1.4 and others up to 16). When f/stops are lower, the apertures are larger, whereas when f/stops are higher, the apertures are smaller, so the exposure is less. While f/8 is the recommended setting for interior real estate photographs, a professional might adjust it slightly for different depths.

 

In photography, shutter speed affects the brightness and creates dramatic effects by freezing or blurring motion. Most good photos can be taken with the camera's default shutter speed.

Good lighting can distinguish between a mediocre photograph and a high-quality one. Your camera's settings can help enhance your photo's brightness or darkness, but great pictures begin with having the right light. A professional photographer has several ways to optimize the lighting in images of your home.

 

The best time to photograph the rooms in your home is usually during the day. A sunny, relatively cloud-free day gives you the best lighting. If you can time your photos for when the sun is behind your camera in the room, you will end up with the colors being illuminated and crisper. When photographing the exterior of your house, dusk is the best time.

 

Natural lighting is best for getting the quality photos you want. However, there may be circumstances when you have to rely on artificial lighting. In that case, ensure all lightbulbs are the same kind and have the same wattage. Move around lights to ensure that they are not casting shadows.

 

Even with the best natural lighting and ideal camera settings, your photos may turn out poorly if the room's color is too bold. Neutral colors like beige, white, gray, or greige work much better in real estate photography. Pops of color in vases, decorative pillows, flowers, or even fruit in a bowl look great. Yellow is a warm, inviting color to entice your online viewers.

Understanding which angle and distance works best for the room you are shooting is critical for getting the best picture. A photographer will take photos from a standing height to prevent perspective distortion. They’ll point the camera straight ahead instead of upward or downward. Getting straight vertical and horizontal lines in each shot is also essential; there are special leveling devices your photographer can use with their tripod.

After you are done taking your photos, you can edit them. Two popular editing software programs are Box Brownie and Adobe Lightroom. There are also free programs that work decently well.

The best way to ensure you get the highest quality photographs for your home is to hire a professional real estate photographer. Professional photographers sometimes have drones to get fantastic exterior and landscape photographs. Many houses for sale in Ocean Reef Club have used drone pictures to give potential buyers a feel for the size of the lot and home.

When selling your home in Ocean Reef Club or anywhere, the best advice is to find an experienced and knowledgeable realtor. Eric Woodward of Ocean Reef Club Real Estate knows Ocean Reef Club real estate. Call Eric today for the best real estate photography and expert guidance for a successful sale.