Staging and Clutter
So Is Painting The House A Good Idea?
November 2nd, 2007 Photography, Staging and Clutter 7 Comments »
I dunno…
…you tell me.
Streetfighter Real Estate Photography - The Under $1000 Gear I Am Using
October 29th, 2007 Photography, Portfolio, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 7 Comments »
I got a “what camera should I buy” question a day or so ago on the blog.
I have no clue.
Let me tell you how I got my current camera though…
New to real estate and having held a camera in my hands for about 4 hours total over my entire life, I went to my wife’s camera shop. In theory Jen is the family photographer, she has a fancy pants film camera that dwarfs mine.
Anyway, so I go into the shop, and wow what a collection of weird looking old guys with crazy hair. But its a camera shop, so this somehow relaxes me. So I walk up to old guy with Santa Claus beard and say;
“I’m going to be shooting real estate photos, what sort of camera should I buy?”
And he says…
“How much money do you have?”
…
I think it’s fair to mention that at this point, with the money still in my pocket before I brought the camera, is the point of having the most money I reach in this story.
…
Spending Money Phase One
Anyways I end up buying a Canon PowerShot SD800 IS 7.1MP Digital Elph Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Image-Stabilized Optical Zoom
Currently it’s on Amazon for $275. I also would recommend a Battery and Carry Case for it. Another $40 off Amazon. Also you’ll need a Memory Card another $40 or so.
That pretty much got me some straight out of the box point and shoot goodness. The Wide Angle lens is in laymans terms “moderately wide”. (28mm) So just fine for all purpose real estate shooting. I have discovered over time that perspective distortion is fairly predictable, and the camera packs fisheye distortion into every single shot.
Generally it’s pretty light, easily handled, can take about 340 shots on the memory card and the battery recharge time seems to be about an hour from completely flat. There is like a 2 photos left to go low battery warning and that is it. Be warned!
I can’t really comment on other cameras. Never used anything else seriously as yet. Been pretty pleased with it though.
Spending Money Phase Two
I do a lot of post shooting tweaking. My software of choice is Paint Shop Pro X2. Currently $80 on Amazon.
Here’s my earlier post on X2. Paint Shop Pro X2 - Oh My God “Graduated Blue”
My best advice is to take lots and lots of photos – of your own house if need be – and just play with the software over and over. If you’re using the Canon SD800 the fisheye correction is 30 in X2.
X2 is pretty close to Photoshop in what it can do, but takes a little longer to process images and start up. Also from what I’ve heard it’s simpler to use than Photoshop. The price is extremely appealing.
The free filters that come with it are positively godlike. I was unimpressed with “Sunlight” – then we headed into fall and it is simply off the hook for New England fall leaves. “Sunlight” simply rocks for exterior shots, “Brillance and Warmth” for Interior shots, “Graduated Blue” just astounding for editing blown out skies. All free with X2. Seriously good additions.
This version of Paint Shop also comes with a CD of video tutorials for how to use most of the features. Nice.
Oh and get good with the clone brush. Great for smoothing out dust particles. The sellers never clean their houses as good as they think they do.
Spending Money Phase Three
Tripod. Seriously, you just have to get a tripod. It saves a huge amount of fluffing about time setting up and lost time with “opps I moved” shots. I use Bogen / Manfrotto 785SHB Modo Mini Photo-Video Grip Head Tripod and I know you won’t believe it when I say it’s available on Amazon! It’s $80. 
Nice and light, the legs are metal and everything else is a hard plastic. It collapses down to about two feet fast and easy. I gave up on pole shooting attempts after discovering that 90% of the time holding the tripod above my head was almost as good. (Three second delay is about right)
HDR shooting (I do this rarely) is all but impossible without a tripod.
The time saver is that you can set the camera and do a “what have we got?” shot, then move objects and lighting getting the shot just right. Also you can use a time delay and go point a light somewhere, or on occasion use my heaving bulk to block out a light source casting an odd glare or something.
Spending Money Phase Four
Lighting. It’s all about lighting. I went very cheap and dirty for this phase. See my Professional Quality Lighting post. I will add that Daniel Rothamel was 100% correct about the yellow tint to the halogen bulbs. It really bugged me once I noticed it. I corrected this by buying replacement “bright, white” bulbs at Wal-Mart @ $6 a pair.
These lights are to be honest cumbersome, and do of course require plugging in, which can result in leads snaking all over the place in the house. For some reason I’m unable to see bright freaking orange leads on the camera viewscreen. Thankfully I can fix that in editing.
That being said, the two rigs net 1000 watts of light that can just HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW your problems away. All for about $80.
Spending Money Phase Five
By this point I’d managed to produce some nice photos. So headed over to Shutterfly and printed up some little portfolios of my photos. I did a 5×7 booklet of 40 pages and they print and ship for around $25 each. You can do as few as 20 pages for about $15. Just great for “hey look, I can shoot good photos”. I tailored it towards bored agents sitting on the floor desk, and I’m getting good business from it already.
Either your photos are good, or they aren’t. If they are good, you don’t need to say much. If they are bad, nothing you say matters anyway. The 5×7 booklet page on Shutterfly. I am really really pleased with how well these came out.
Having these little booklets of my photos (only did this a week ago) has just released a huge amount of energy in me. I’m starting to generate real interest in other agents using me for photos from it.
Spending Money Phase Six
Get New Business Cards. Tripod + time delay + butterfly lighting + DIY = a much better agent headshot. Get funky with it. Anything other than the vanilla corporate sadist headshot. My “agent headshot” is the photo of me up on the top of the sidebar. Write a slogan on the front somewhere that sums up your business. Mine says;
Good Photos Sell Homes
Online buyers only look for two seconds.
Price and photos are 99% of marketing.
And I have a photo of a house printed on the back of the card. I’ll be the cats half brother – people actually like getting these cards.
I get them off Xpressdocs through Prudential for $45 for 500. I also snuck a variant of that photo under the radar as my official agent headshot and my “official Prudential” agent page went from about 1 hit a day to around 25. From nothing but a photo.
Spending Money Phase Seven
Wanting a little more lighting oomph on occasion, plus wanting it to be smaller and portable. The next step is getting a Canon HF-DC1 High Power Flash for Canon Powershot Digital Cameras. It’s wireless, so you can place it somewhere, or hold it, and the flash will fire automatically when it senses another flash. $89 currently.
I just added this, so not much advice on usage as yet. If you get a Canon camera, this is essentially your basic option. Canon cameras use a little light sensing pre-flash that triggers every other brand of slave flashes to fire a microsecond too early. (I learned this the hard way… bastards!)
My main worry is combating that blown out window look, so being able to really brighten a room to balance the light balance is the idea here.
Holy Mother of Expense Budgets! What’s The Damage?
$275 Canon Powershot SD800
$40 Battery and Case
$40 Memory Card
$80 Paint Shop Pro X2
$80 Tripod
$80 Home Depot Lighting Set
$120 Shutterfly Booklets (I did a bunch)
$45 Business Cards
$89 HF-DC1 Flash
= $849 Total
+ ~10% shipping
= $934 Grand Total.
So thats the story of what I’m using. There is no question that better gear exists, but for the money spent I think I’m pretty well set up. What I’m shooting is better than 99.7% of what I’m seeing on my MLS. Here’s some shots from todays shoot.
At some point I’ll double back and get an SLR as a “proper camera”. I do wonder in my private moments if Photoshop or Lightroom is really worth the wheel barrow of money. It all really started for me by writing a silly daily photo post about real estate photos that were bad. I really didn’t expect to start turning into a professional photographer – abet one in a specialized area and still working as much as a realtor on my shoots as a photographer.
Anyone can run out and get the gear, and to be honest, having a better set of gear now really helps. What really counts though, what anyone really gets paid for, is the effort in setting up the shot and then finishing it off in editing.
The Money Shot is you.
Good Vibes - Staging Is A Lot Of Fun
August 11th, 2007 Good Vibes, Staging and Clutter 5 Comments »
I’m shooting photos for a friend at the office. Usually it takes me about 40–45 minutes fluffing around to shoot a house.
But when you arrive to…
…it takes a little longer.
The owner was home and we both had the most wonderful time discussing the house and some of the most interesting pieces in it. We chatted about pricing, how homes were sold, how the MLS really works and why realtors can’t just wave a magic wand and have a buyer appear.
And as we chatted, we cleaned up a bit. Decluttered some.
The listing agent was ecstatic.
“You made that house look much nicer than it is”.
“No I didn’t, that’s how the house looks without too much stuff”.
It’s not faking it anymore than combing your hair and brushing your teeth is.
Plus it’s a lot of fun.
Rule Four of Good Real Estate Photos
May 10th, 2007 Photography, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 4 Comments »
Time to assert some positive energy on this photo thing. Rule Four is;
DON’T USE A CAMERA THAT DATE STAMPS THE PHOTO.
The first reason is purely for aesthetic reasons. The date stamp just becomes visual clutter on the shot and really does nothing for the shoot. (While we’re at it, get the candles off the table, the briefcase off the counter, the chair and waste bin(?) out from in front of the counter. Hmmm, either the flowers in the vase or the toaster needs to go too.)
Here’s the kicker…
I took this photo off an expired listing that had been “days on market faked” three times. Yup, it had a total of four different Multiple Listing Service (MLS) numbers spread over the entire 18+ months it was active.
I guess the agent just thought the buyers were too FLUFFY BUNNIES stupid to read the date stamp on the photos.
So lets recap…
Rule Four: Don’t have the camera date stamp the photos.
Rule Three: Take Lots of Photos
Rule Two: Don’t Use a Cell Phone Camera
Rule One: Don’t Shoot Towards The Windows
Rule Three of Good Real Estate Photos
April 30th, 2007 Geekage and Blogging, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 7 Comments »
Shout out to Maureen Francis for Giving Buyers What They Want.
“I like to take LOTS of them so that I can chose my favorites to display on our various web sites and the MLS. Sotheby’s General Manager recently observed that I have as many as 200 photos for a listing. In the end, consumers may see as few as 9 of these, depending on how they come across the listing, but I want to make sure I have good images because I need them for lots of aspects of our marketing.”
There it is. Rule Three: Just take lots of photos.
And I do mean lots and lots and lots of photos. It’s one of the reasons you have to have your own camera and not some daft shared office camera plan. You need to go and full a memory card to bursting taking shot after shot.
Fully 50% of the photos you take will be completely worthless. You jiggle the camera just a little or whatever. Just delete them on the spot and keep taking them.
Not only that, you should shoot anything that remotely qualifies as a “feature”. Fancy doorknob? Yes shoot it. Wine rack? Shoot it. Gold fixtures in the bathroom? Sweet fluffy bunnies you should shoot them. These can become the accent shots that break up a virtual tour from endless room wide shots.
With a digital camera it costs you nothing to take a shot. It’s not like you’re spending 30 cents per shot in film or anything. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot and then shoot. It’s all a numbers game. If 1 in 10 of your shots is decent, then take a 100 shots and bingo, you’ll have 10 decent shots to work with.
The Recap…
10 Steps to Creating Space In Just One Week (of hell)
April 28th, 2007 Family Life, Staging and Clutter 2 Comments »
Don’t know where to begin to declutter your house ready for photos and showings? Lets assume it’s pretty darn bad and you’re really in dire straits on the mess front. No more excuses because this time serious money is riding on you cleaning up and making the house shine.
Step One – Don’t think of it as decluttering, think of it as creating space. Decluttering can have no end and can turn into a negative energy effect. Creating space is a more positive goal. Shout to Jessica Duquette for this point.
Step Two – Don’t assign blame to anyone, including yourself, for the mess. Just accept that this is the situation you find yourself in. The choice to either to fix it, or complain about it. Complaining about it hasn’t been working very well, so lets try fixing it. No one is the slob, no one is the victim. Slobs make a mess, victims attract more victimization. See how it can be a vicious cycle?
Step Three – Call the local newspaper and order an ad for a garage sale. Call a dumpster company and order a dumpster to arrive the day after the garage sale. Order cardboard boxes for packing.
Step Four – Step Three isn’t skippable. I’m NOT kidding about ordering an ad and a dumpster. The ad is going to force you into action and once you order it you can’t change your mind about it. You better have stuff to sell for the garage sale.
Step Five – Each day pick a new room and go through everything in it and decide whether you will either;
Trash It – It’s completely worthless.
Cash It – Someone might find it useful and pay for it.
Stash It – You like it and just need somewhere to store it.
Stage everything for the garage sale somewhere, or if their is no room to do that, go through the entire house with a pad of yellow Post-It notes and slap a Post-It note on everything thats going to be attempted to be sold. Then the morning of the garage sale have your friends come over and just grab everything with a Post-It note on it and haul it outside.
Step Six – Have your garage sale. Just leave everything on the lawn that didn’t sell. Magically the next morning half that stuff on the lawn will be gone.
Step Seven – The dumpster comes. Fill the dumpster with everything left on the lawn. Then haul everything else that is “Trash It” into the dumpster. You can use the Post-It note trick and call for friends to help haul the trash away.
Step Eight – Call for dumpster pick up. Call for a second dumpster if you need it. Repeat as required. Ask for a discount or something.
Step Nine – Pack your “Stash It” items in the cardboard boxes. You can do this packing through the entire event, but simply focusing on one theme at a time can be helpful. Call for a 1 800 Pack Rat or similar (go through Home Efficient if you’re a Prudential Connecticut Realty client) and store all your precious excess stuff out of the house for the showings and moving.
Tip – You won’t ever fit into those clothes again. Donate them.
Step Ten – Clean the house. Buy some fruit for a display on the dining room table. Have the photos taken of the house. Act like it was no big deal. Glow in the moment of victory over your stuff.
You’ll feel so much better I assure you.
Rule Number Two Of Real Estate Photos
April 26th, 2007 Geekage and Blogging, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 11 Comments »
Check out this terrible real estate photo. Kris Berg had me crying with laughter over this photo. That agent is the owner of the house is the only thing that stopped me from suggesting they should lose their license to practice.
“Apparently, this agent-owner is using the popular Playschool Lil Agent Point N Shoot camera”
Austin Realtor Wife gets me the Aha! moment in the comments by pointing out the head slapping obvious…
…the picture is from a cell phone camera.
And here is Rule Two of Real Estate Photos.
DON’T TAKE THEM WITH A CELL PHONE CAMERA.
Breaking The Real Estate Photo Rules And Getting Away With It.
April 26th, 2007 Geekage and Blogging, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 6 Comments »
Rule Number One of real estate photography.
DON’T SHOOT TOWARDS THE WINDOWS. If you do you get that nuclear bomb flash effect at the windows and a darkened gloomily pit of a room.
And here I am breaking that rule. You can see minimal fix between the before and after pictures. All I did was hit “instant fix” on my Corel editing software and boom it looks pretty good. It’s a big open kitchen and you get the sense of space and flow out to the deck.
No nuclear flash effect either. The trick to doing it is amazingly simple.
It’s raining.
It’s actually been pouring with rain outside. The sun is hidden behind a good wall of clouds, and thus the light outside is a lot less than usual. You still usually need a little instant fix, but it will look more natural than anything taken on a sunny day.
Like the old saying goes – every cloud has a silver lining.
Go take some photos.
Editing Real Estate Photos For Virtual Tour
April 24th, 2007 Connecticut, Family Life, Geekage and Blogging, Staging and Clutter 6 Comments »
Shooting anything with a window during the day is usually a recipe for photographic disaster. The light from the window and the shadows in the room typically turn the photo into a picture of a darkened pit with the nuclear bomb flash outside the window.
I have a good camera, so some of the downside are minimized already. The editing has been to simply decrease the light balance in the highlights and increase the light balance in the shadowed areas. I might have dialed up the color slightly and I also corrected the slight camera rotation. Despite all that, it’s still an uphill battle to make it look good.
Better is to stand with your back to the window in the first place.
The colors are far closer to real life and you can see I corrected quite a bad camera rotation… er maybe a little much actually. The downside is that you do get to less of the room. The first photo shows more of the room.
Trying another angle. Getting more of the room in. The editing brightened the room and sharpened the image up a little. Magically I held the camera level this time.
Any one of the photos is reasonable and would make the cut as 1 of the 10 allowed photos on the CTMLS. The beauty of a Virtual Tour is that you can splurge on photos and toss in as many as you like. If a room is really good and has some size, a single photo isn’t enough to do it justice.
This photo for example would never make the 10 MLS photo cut, but it has a place in a Virtual Tour as an accent piece.
The tour these photos appear in is Here.
Are You A Pack Rat? (Plus The Rock Continues To… Well, Rock)
April 23rd, 2007 Connecticut, Staging and Clutter No Comments »
Maybe 1-800-PACK-RAT can help with the move.
I didn’t check on prices, but it seems like a decent set up. I got this lead from the Bits of the Rock email from Prudential Connecticut Realty today.
Oh and we’re #1 in Connecticut and now the 14th largest brokerage in America or some other hoopla plus April is Fair Housing Month as the other items in the email.
