Home Staging starts with good quality real estate portfolio.
Since the Internet became readily available in North America, more and more home buyers use the Web to shop for properties and select the ones they want to visit. The latest statistics indicate that over 85% of the potential buyers for YOUR home will use your pictures to make a decision whether to visit based on what they see. So, if your pictures are out of focus, blurry or unclear, you'll likely lose many of those potential visitors....
One important question to consider for best quality photographs is the number of megapixels your digital camera should have. (A megapixel is a measure of how much detail a digital camera can resolve and record.)
The answer to this question depends on where and how you are planning to use the photos you take of a property or listing.
If your photos are only going to be used online (such as for the MLS or an FSBO site, for a realtor website, or for a single-property website), any digital camera with at least 3 megapixels is perfectly fine for real-estate photography. Actually, more megapixels may work against you because the size of the resulting image file becomes larger and takes more time to transfer. For example, pictures taken with my backup 3-megapixel digital camera generally are only about 2 MB, while pictures from my digital SLR camera are around 4-6 MB each (at least)! Although you wouldn't be able tell the difference between these images if you viewed them on-screen, you WILL notice a difference in the time you'll wait for the pictures to appear, especially at their full size!
On the other hand, if you are planning to use these photos offline (to print a flyer, brochure or handout, for example), then a digital camera with more megapixels will allow you to print larger images from a file. For example, an image from my 3-megapixel backup camera, I can create good 4" x 6" prints and O.K. 5"x 7" prints, but not 8½" x 11" prints. On the other hand, my digital SLR camera produces very good 4" x 6", 5" x 7" and 8½" x 11" (or even larger) prints. This is very important if you want to use a full-size print for the cover of a home's brochure or in a handout, as well as if you plan to use the image within an online video tour or slide show.
So, depending on your real estate marketing plan, decide where and how you are going to be using the images you capture with your digital camera. If you are shooting online images, your current camera might just do the job. If not, you might want to invest in a new camera or consider hiring a professional real estate photographer, who will take the BEST quality pictures for your home selling project.
The content of this blog was contributed by Home Staging Montreal's partner, Justin Soles. Justin is the owner of JustSo Photography, Montreal's only real-estate photography boutique studio. To reach Justin or read all about Home Staging, please visit www.home-staging-montreal.com/activerainnov07.
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