http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summarySat, 03 Jun 2006 18:18:39 +0000http://lohrman.com/realphoto.htmlarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114326259814875068Sat, 25 Mar 2006 04:56:00 +00002006-06-02T09:40:18.723-07:00 I got a reader comment today on my May 15, 2005 post about the challenge of bright windows that I can't help commenting on. The reader said, “1) you could 'bracket' exposures in a couple of three shots for every scene... one exposure in the middle range, one exposure to capture the bright windows, and one to capture the darker interior. then... 2) use Photoshop to merge the three layers to http://lohrman.com/2006/03/get-external-flash.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114887251169224235Mon, 29 May 2006 03:15:00 +00002006-05-28T20:20:57.986-07:00 Yesterday I came across a brochure presenting a new upper end home that just came on the market in our area. The photography was stunning. Large, beautifully exposed, bright, crisp photos of nicely lit interiors were printed on 100 lb glossy paper. Several of the shots took up full and half of an 8.5x11” page. This brochure was easily the best done photo brochure that I’ve seen. After drooling http://lohrman.com/2006/05/photo-size-is-important.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114572235395770635Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:12:00 +00002006-05-24T07:00:26.720-07:00 Have you ever had difficulties getting a great front shot for a real estate photo? I have that problem all the time. I keep wishing I had a “jetpack” that would let me hover 50 to 100 feet off the ground so I can get good angles to shoot from. The best I’ve done is stand on the top of my truck. There’s another way. Hire a photographer that has a Helicam. That’s a radio controlled helicopter http://lohrman.com/2006/04/real-estate-photos-from-helicam.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114801692849365265Fri, 19 May 2006 05:35:00 +00002006-05-22T09:55:28.606-07:00 Back on my April 24 post on Styling and Staging I a pointed out that interior photos of empty rooms should be avoided. If you are the listing agent you should convince the seller not to have empty rooms. If you are the photographer you should convince the listing agent to not shoot empty rooms. Marc Lacoste gives a great example of what a difference a little furniture can make in the feeling ofhttp://lohrman.com/2006/05/any-furniture-is-better-than-empty.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114735795809129099Thu, 11 May 2006 14:32:00 +00002006-05-18T08:57:30.573-07:00 Marc Lacoste of Nantes, France contributed an important technique in a comment on yesterday’s Helicam post. I think it is important enough to repost so no one misses this discovery. Marc says, “I've found a trick for getting a high point of view, fast, cheap and suitable for crowded locations. I extend my tripod the max, set a ten seconds timer for the shutter, grab the feet of the tripod and http://lohrman.com/2006/05/fast-cheap-technique-for-getting-high.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114589280591842837Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:33:00 +00002006-05-17T15:31:04.910-07:00I was asked recently to review a virtual tour by a virtual tour vendor. The tour had photos of empty rooms, photos of the garage, photos of a hallway and photos of the exterior with no landscaping. The problem is what to do when you need to sell an empty home or new construction. Photographs of empty rooms usually look terrible unless the space itself has some interesting aspect. You need to http://lohrman.com/2006/04/styling-and-staging.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114730871460473374Thu, 11 May 2006 00:51:00 +00002006-05-11T01:35:18.293-07:00More news from Tabb at nwaerialphotography.com. Tabb has now well on his way to perfecting the process of creating spherical panoramas for his Helicam. Tabb sent me this example shot today. Tabb uses a Canon 5D suspended under the Helicam with a Canon 15mm wide angle lens. The Canon 15mm lens is produces a really crisp, sharp image. Tabb says this particular QuickTime VR image was stitched from http://lohrman.com/2006/05/spherical-panorama-taken-from-rc.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114724098794410107Wed, 10 May 2006 06:03:00 +00002006-05-09T23:04:46.510-07:00I know a many readers of this blog are photographers rather than real estate agents. I recently ran across Carolyn E. Wright’s PhotoAttorney blog which appears to be a good resource for legal information for photographers. As a real estate photographer there are legal considerations associated with photographing people's homes. One example is that the external shot made for a listing that is http://lohrman.com/2006/05/legal-resource-for-photographers.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114689333937936396Sat, 06 May 2006 05:28:00 +00002006-05-05T22:37:06.133-07:00 A classic effect used by photographers for many years is the vignette effect. That is to use a vignette of focus or vignette of light to draw attention to the subject of the photograph. For external home photos the vignette of light technique frequently works well. The way this works is that the viewer’s eye is attracted to light areas in the image. So if you subtly darken the outer edges of an http://lohrman.com/2006/05/draw-attention-with-vignette-effect.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114675801520185404Thu, 04 May 2006 15:53:00 +00002006-05-04T08:57:16.186-07:00Yesterday I attended the Photoshop CS2 Power Tour in Seattle. In the next few days I’ll be passing on some photo editing ideas that I picked up. BH stands for “Beards and Hats”.http://lohrman.com/2006/05/how-to-get-free-shipping-at-bh-photo.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114671486032349609Thu, 04 May 2006 03:54:00 +00002006-05-03T20:57:27.830-07:00There are two new articles published this month by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on the subject of Virtual Tours that are of interest to anyone involved in real estate photography. The first article titled “Create grade A shows” by Jack Cotton published in the May issue of Realtor Magazine. Cotton says “I can’t overemphasize the need to high-quality photos in a virtual tour. If you http://lohrman.com/2006/05/recent-nar-articles-on-virtual-tours.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114658680204863906Tue, 02 May 2006 16:20:00 +00002006-05-02T09:37:37.803-07:00 Notice the funny looking pattern in the blinds on yesterday’s photo I posted. This is called a moiré pattern and it’s caused by too much sharpening for the particular image. The sharpening process creates a pattern in the image that can combine with existing patterns in the image to create a moiré pattern. See www.mathematik.com/Moire for a great example. Patterns like these are frequent http://lohrman.com/2006/05/over-sharpening-can-create-moir.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114653732219621205Tue, 02 May 2006 02:35:00 +00002006-05-01T19:36:37.456-07:00 Digital image sharpening is a deep subject but for real estate photography there are some key things to be aware of.Your camera does some sharpening in the camera before you even get your hands on the image. Most cameras allow you to set how much sharpening is done in the camera. Understand what you camera is doing for you in the area of sharpening. Those of you shooting in RAW mode have the http://lohrman.com/2006/05/how-keep-your-photos-sharp.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114642070110442767Sun, 30 Apr 2006 18:11:00 +00002006-04-30T15:26:12.420-07:00This camera’s 24-120 mm equivalent lens plus a 0.8 x wide angle converter (Sony VCL-DEH08R ) make it an excellent choice for real estate shooters. Another feature important to the interior photographer is the hot shoe that is off center (not directly behind the lens). This means you don’t get those nasty reflections like you do when the flash is directly on the center line of the lens. This is http://lohrman.com/2006/04/sonys-cyber-shot-dsc-r1.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114637452112933894Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:22:00 +00002006-04-29T22:24:59.836-07:00 Lately I’ve been running across bad looking photos on listings and even on Real Estate agent sites and marketing materials like the one above. I created the ugly image above by downsizing a 400 x 166 jpeg to a width of 200 pixels and sizing it back up to its original width. I think trying to enlarge images is the basic mistake that people make. When you enlarge the image like I did above http://lohrman.com/2006/04/curse-of-small-jpeg.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114619178273839334Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:36:00 +00002006-04-27T19:37:54.180-07:00 We spent Monday and Tuesday of this week in Vancouver, WA.I ran across the above image while I was walking around downtown Vancouver. I noticed the lighting mostly because of the polarized sunglasses I wearing. The effect of my sunglasses reminded me to put the polarizer on my camera. I am continually amazed by the wonderful effect a polarizer has on an image. I’ve not significantly altered the http://lohrman.com/2006/04/dont-forget-your-polarizer.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114611393122290098Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:58:00 +00002006-04-26T22:04:54.470-07:00 Have you ever had a need to give a client photos on a CD? We do this for all of our selling clients and many buying clients. Sellers like to have a copy of photos and virtual tour as a keepsake of their home their leaving and buyers like to have a photos CD to show their friends and family. This is a product opportunity for Photographers. The way the photo CD should work is all one should have http://lohrman.com/2006/04/creating-photo-cds-for-clients.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114598155414779431Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:12:00 +00002006-04-25T09:19:47.916-07:00I’ve been talking to a number of people in the last few months about their use of virtual tours. I’ve also been trying to decide what the next step should be for the virtual tours that I create myself. The conclusion I’ve come to is that virtual tours are an opportunity to use full screen images and to go above and beyond what’s available on MLS sites and all the public real estate sites. There http://lohrman.com/2006/04/full-screen-spherical-panoramas.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114563933812714178Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:08:00 +00002006-04-21T10:26:07.943-07:00 Back in my March 7th post. I introduced the subject of blending two images together each exposed for different parts of the room as a technique for dealing with the problem of burned out windows. This technique is generally referred to as Contrast blending or HDR (High Dynamic Range). At the time I suggested the DRI plug-in for Photoshop Elements and Photoshop from www.fredmiranda.com/software. http://lohrman.com/2006/04/alternatives-for-hdr-and-contrast.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114546711886052432Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:18:00 +00002006-04-19T10:27:47.723-07:00 When you are choosing a camera to use for real estate photography mega pixels are a relatively unimportant factor these days. That is, any digital camera you purchase in 2006 will have more than enough mega pixels to do everything you need to do. Yet I continually see people that recommend cameras to real estate agents obsessing about mega pixels. The reason this is true is that 99% of the use http://lohrman.com/2006/04/doing-large-brochure-with-31-mega.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114530300489597171Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:43:00 +00002006-04-18T08:29:29.600-07:00Marc’s comment on yesterdays post raises a significant point about keeping the camera level so the walls are parallel with the sides of the photo. That is, if you shoot from eye level while standing up straight there is a natural tendency to angle the camera down because the camera is higher than all the furniture. This causes the film/sensor plane to be sloped forward which is what causes walls http://lohrman.com/2006/04/shooting-low-will-help-keep-walls.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114416467963825527Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:31:00 +00002006-04-17T06:38:14.586-07:00As interior photographers you should know there is more to the subject of perspective correction than the image editing I’ve been talking about. Many professional photographers would shudder at our previous discussions about fixing perspective problems in photo editors. There are lenses designed for shooting interiors and architecture. They are called tilt and shift or perspective correction http://lohrman.com/2006/04/perspective-correction-lenses.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114521494221876197Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:15:00 +00002006-04-16T16:22:45.830-07:00 Recently I was having a discussion about verticals with a reader that illustrated to me that on the previous posts about perspective correction and verticals I’ve not made the point explicitly or strong enough about the importance of always making sure verticals are rendered vertical in architectural and interior photographs. I’ll go so far as to state it as a fundamental law of architectural http://lohrman.com/2006/04/render-that-which-is-vertical-vertical.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114516566735877092Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:34:00 +00002006-04-15T23:29:54.746-07:00Today a reader posed an interesting question. “…isn’t a panorama a replacement for a wide-angle lens without the problem of perspective exaggeration you get with ultra-wide angle lenses?” I’ve never thought of it in those terms but yes it is. A couple of fames stitched together will in fact increase your horizontal field of view (HFOV). The key is that it needs be very fast and easy to stitch http://lohrman.com/2006/04/in-camera-panorama-stitching.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12393736/posts/summary/114503207042511972Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:27:00 +00002006-04-14T12:16:58.830-07:00 My last post on panoramas barely scratched the surface. I think this is a very important subject for real estate photographers since the use of panoramas is a very effective method of showing more of small spaces that is possible with traditional single frame photography. I’ve started a resource page with links to more information on this subject. If you are interested in the subject of http://lohrman.com/2006/04/panorama-resources.htmllarry@lohrman.com (Larry Lohrman)