Real estate photography may be challenging, yet it is still fun and it can be a lucrative line of work. It is a great source of income, especially if you want to earn money by using your photography skills.
Real estate photography may seem simple at first since it involves taking pictures of rooms and different areas of the property. However, there are a couple of aspects that need to be considered so you can deliver a beautiful final product.
How to Become a Real Estate Photographer
The basic nature of taking pictures of interior rooms and the exterior property is that you are photographing a subject that you can control over. This means that you do not need a camera that has too many features that you won’t be using anyway, such as high frame rates and action-tracking autofocus.
Gear and Accessories
To become a real estate photographer, you first need to have the right gear to assist you in your task. The two-camera features that you need if you want to be a real estate photographer are the following:
- Ability to bracket exposures
- Ability to trigger a flash
As for the gear, the most important one to get is a tripod. You also need to own a wide-angle lens. Tripods will allow you to take pictures at a steady pace, and wide-angle lenses let you squeeze in as much area as possible in one single shot.
Image Editing Tools
After getting a great camera, a good lens, and a tripod, you will still need to know how to edit your images before you submit them to your client. You will need to have a basic notion of using Adobe’s Lightroom, an editing tool that can enhance your images during post-processing. Another option is editing your image online for free. For instance, using an unblurring image editing online tool to fix the blurred photos that you captured.
Advanced image processing and high dynamic range processing applications are very important for real estate photographers. These allow you to remove any unwanted details on your images and you can process multiple images in batches so you can finish the job faster.
Photoshop is already known for its incredible features that let you manipulate images, add effects, and enhance its overall look. It is often used on social media designs as it is also used by hobbyists. However, for professional real estate photographers, Lightroom is a better option to organize and process several images at once, since real estate photography requires shooting as many as 25 images per property.
Should You Shoot for Free Before You Charge for Real Estate Photography?
If you are still practicing and you can’t promise your client professional results yet, then you can do one or two real estate photography jobs for free.
Just make sure that no client will take advantage of you, especially if they could have paid you for your time.
Studies show that 32% of houses that are photographed by a real estate photographer get sold, which means that once you’ve done your practice, or if you already have the skill, you will have the leverage to start charging.
What Should You Charge for Real Estate Photography?
What you charge for your real estate photography job will depend on the area of the property and its value. It will also depend on how long it took for you to finish the job.
The exact amount will also depend on the location. A quick job pays $100 to $200. If the property is massive, you can charge as much as $500 to $1,000. A larger job can range from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars.
Conclusion
If you are passionate about photography and you want to make a career out of it, then you can become a real estate photographer. The demand in this field is high, and a lot of professional photographers were able to make a career out of it.
You can do the same as well, as long as you have the skill, the gear, the accessories, and the editing tool to back you up.