What is your favorite "digital staging" trick for taking killer glamor shots of your new listings?  Here are some of my favorites...

Artificial Lighting

This has been one of my most successful enhancements.  Rather than close the interior doors on rooms on the far side of a room, place a diffused worklight (i.e., bright) in it, hidden from your camera.  It can be more inviting to see a room in the distance in the photo that is open, and well lit through the doorway. It looks far more inviting, to go explore it, drawing the viewer in.  Also, hide a diffused worklight source behind a couch, illuminating a dark corner of a room, to get rid of those "dungeon corners" in your pictures.

I carry a small duffle bag of three $15 halogen work lights from Lowe's, extension cords, and reflector/diffusers.  Total cost under $100.  

BTW, here is a great simple trick I stumbled upon just last week, even simpler than above.  I pointed my handheld spotlight, rechargeable-battery powered, at a 1'x1' piece of white cardboard.  The diffused light bouncing off the box cast a nice soft glow on what had been a dungeon-corner of a room.  It worked real fine!

Prevent the Overpowering White Washout of Windows in Interior Photo's

I used to try to close curtains.  Dog gone light still sneaks in and causes washout.  The easy magical solution is simply to take the interior photos at dusk or dawn, when outdoor light is just slightly darker than you are comfortable with.  Open all the window curtains and drapes as far as possible so that views to the attractive outdoor scene show in the room-photo (assuming the outdoor scene is attractive).  To me, this seems a very substantial subliminal message technique because it show the view the way our human eyes see it, and it shows off the fine views, as an integral aspect of value.

But be quick.  I find that there is a "window" of only about 15 minutes between too much sun light and too little.

Pole Cam

I tape a tiny 6" tripod to the end of a telescoping 20' window washer's pole from Lowe's.  I find that 20' is about right, with 30' or 40' and higher is too high. This method can make a powerful shot of the front of the home with a view over the roof showing the neighborhood's other houses in the background.

Get creative.  One of my listings had a loft with very interesting visual lines, plus some geometrically interesting window shaps.  Trouble is, there was no way to step back and get a shot of the loft.  So I went outside, ran the pole cam up and took a shot looking in from outside (at dusk with the lights on inside).  It turned out quite a dramatic photo, much better than if I had taken it inside.  And, it helps the viewer 'feel' like they are able to secretly peep into the house, in some ways allowing a bit different psychological intrique to checking out the home.  Sound goofy?  Try it.

No need for fancy remote shutter release.  My used $89 (eBay) Sony DSC-H70 point and shoot camera is all I ever use, for both stills and video, with great results.  That camera has a 10-second delay option.  Just trigger the timer and then hand-over-hand raise the very light pole/camera combo up to vertical before the shutter releases.  It often takes 2-3 tries before the picture is framed just right, but well worth it.  For great tips and examples, check out the AR Pole-cam Group.

But be deliberate in selecting use of the pole-cam.  If there are faint fungus rings in the green blue-grass lawn, the pole cam will see it better and shout about it.  While it can highlight the shape of a creative deck layout, it can also show that the deck is not quite parallel with the house line.  Or when combined with telephoto it can imply incorrectly that a business street intersection in the distant background a block away is closer than it really is.  Just "pick your shots."

Wide Angle Lens

One important, somewhat uncommon aspect of the lens on the DSC-H70 is its wide angle lens.    I try to use the camera as a surrogate for the buyer's human eye, while the buyer is still window shopping online.  But the human eye sees a much broader peripheral field than most camera/lens setups off-the-shelf under $1000.  You can buy stick-on wide angle lenses on Amazon, and also mounted with a magnetic ring.  I have tried them and dislike the flimsy attachment method.  I now use an old movie camera lens from a garage sale, held to my camera lens tube with a pipe clamp (hey, it works).  You can buy .42x converters on Amazon and many other places, such as Best Buy stores.  But .42x is the minimum you should settle for.  Keep the number at .42 or below.  

I think this is one of the most important improvements that could be made to most of the listing photo sets on our MLS.  As the internet takes real estate shopping more and more visual, I believe a wide angle lens is so important, it should be a minimum, to satisfy the State requirement of competent sales representation.

Just please, don't replicate one of our MLS's agent teams.  They bought a special high-end camera/lens setup that has such a wide angle that it truly misrepresents the sizes of small rooms in their video ad's.  I've begun to warn my buyers prior to entry of one of his listings to be prepared to be a little surprised (if not disappointed) upon discovering how much smaller the rooms are.

Golden Glow Front-elevation Shots

This one is fun.  Ahead of time, learn how to take 1-second to 60-second timed exposures.  For that you must use a tripod.  I set up yellow and orange 13 watt (i.e., not bright at all) bug lights around all the front rooms of a house.  Open all the curtains ahead of time.  Turn on the front porch outside lights (which you loaded with small bug lights ahead of time).  Switch on the landscape lights.  Stand in the front yard facing the home with the camera on the tripod.  At dusk start taking a photo every minute or so, and varying the exposure time from 1-second to several seconds.  You'll get a home with eye-candy golden glow.

But be sure to practice on your own home first.  It will take 1-2 practice sessions like above before you get those professional looking glamor-at-dusk photos.  I learned the hard way, you may want to warn your family ahead of time you'll be outside in the near darkness taking pictures through the windows.

Close-up Macro Shots

Try to surprise and delight the buyers when they see your photo album for your new listing.  You want them to remember the listing because of the unique close-ups. You're a big winner when a buyer says to her spouse "Let's go see that house that showed the great close-ups of the upgraded bath fixtures." Be on the alert for super close-up photo opportunities, such as details of carved mantelpiece, inlaid hardwood flooring, upgrade-level plumbing fixtures, inlaid tile in the master bath's shower wall.  

Most every modern point and shoot camera has a "macro" setting, which allows you to focus up close on small things, like the size of a quarter or dollar bill.

A very special variation on this is to learn how to set the camera shutter speed and exposure manually.  Then, when doing a close-up macro shot, also set the camera's f-stop to a very low number (the camera will automatically speed up the shutter to compensate for total light).  This will cause only close foreground items to be in focus, while the more distant background is so far out of focus it is hardly recognizable.  (This can be a great way to 'tune out' unattractive neighboring properties in the background of your exterior shots.)  This technique takes practice and is not readily mastered on your first try with clients watching.

KISS

One reason I use such an inexpensive camera is that I can "seize the moment."  For example, for a horse property I was listing I caught a neighbor, a Marlboro-looking fellow, riding through the yard right in front of the home.  Also, the simpler a camera is, the easier it is for me to take more photo's (usually about 100 images in one session) because I spend less time dithering with camera settings.

Please add your best photo trick to the comments below.  (So I can use it!)  Thank you.

You may want to check out my six-part series on simple photo tricks:

 1- Lighting

 2- "Digital Staging"

 3- Camera Selection

 4- Camera Placement

 5- Photo Editing

 6- Techniques

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