Real Estate and Architectural Photography - Keeping it Straight and Crisp

One of the things I love about abstract photography is that I don't have to be neat and precise. This is not the case for with real estate and architectural photography. If you're putting a home on the market, do you want people to think that the home slants? Probably not. :)

This sounds obvious, until you consider that a wide-angle lens is the best option for this type of photography. Unfortunately, if you go too wide, then you start to see distortion on the sides - at least with some types of lenses. If you're not using a wide angle lens at all, then the situation is worse, and you have the leaning building effect, because you're tilting the lens upward.

To complicate matters, ensuring the picture is crisp is another challenge with this type of photography. This is because levels of light are relatively low. Sure, you can bump up the ISO, but I wouldn't do it past 800. This is why I reached the conclusion that using a tripod would be inevitable one of these days. You really can't afford the slightest shake where these pictures are concerned.

For all of these reasons, this is why I consider this type of photography the most precise. And frankly, the most scary (for me).

So what can you do? Well, aside from using a tripod, which will solve these issues, consider the following:

For crispness, hold the camera very close to your body. Keep your elbows in. Bump up the ISO to 400 or 800. Take several versions of each picture. Remember that what looks good in the viewfinder might not look good when you load it on to your computer, so multiple takes are a must. I admit that if I were paid to take these types of pictures, I'd suck it up and bring a tripod.

As for keeping lines straight:



If you don't have a tripod, make sure you line your camera viewfinder such that it's parallel with the floor. Doing this will help ensure that you aren't inadvertently pointing the camera upward. Otherwise, use the Straighten tool post-processing (most image editing tools have it). It is, though, much easier to get this right the first time.

Here's another example:





Here, the key is to focus on the vertical lines of the pictures because it isn't obvious how the floor should be oriented. So, line up the vertical part of the viewfinder instead.

Believe it or not, I learned even more than this - such as tips on taking pictures outdoors. I'll go into that tomorrow.