Anyone have any good tips for taking photos of your rental property without full-on staging?

I've struggled with this for years, and I see from my local listings that most other small-time landlords do too.

I have found that I can get better interior pictures if I wait until the sun is not shining brightly and open all the blinds and curtains- like later in the day or on an overcast day.

If I'm photographing a unit with stuff in it, I remove as much clutter as I can to make it look clean and roomy.

I always put bathroom seats down (ack - hate when people don't do that!)

Sometimes I bring a couple of floor lamps along to add to rooms so they are lit well.

If I have a completely empty room, I try to include at least one chair to add a sense of scale to the room.

I try to shoot all rooms in landscape, although baths sometimes end up as profile-oriented, due to size.

Take outside shots at an offset angle and not head on.

Take interior shots with all lights on and all blinds open and 1 shot from every corner of the room. I back up into the corner and take the shot.

Use a wide-angle lens

Take photos from about 4ft above the floor

Take your photos midday to get diffused light

Stay vertical, don't angle up or down

When possible, move back to get more of a room or the exterior in the frame

Take the $10 Udemy course on "Photography for RE Professionals" (or something like that) Tons of info in that class for 10 bucks. Your camera can do more than you think!

RB said, ...'Ask Roy [AL]'

Laura,

Long before I became a LL (in a previous life), I was self-employed as a professional Architectural Photographer. I was a top-notch specialist and I was paid to photograph rich people's homes for Architectural Digest and a host of other 'shelter magazines'. I also had clients that were Architects, Interior Designers (talk about home staging, they took it to the extremes!), and my highest paying clients were commercial RE Developers (I had to sue one to paid once but that was a long time ago).

My former expertise revolved around film photography (long before digital) and I used a 4x5 view camera which used 4x5 color sheet film. Just to take one photo with this film camera, cost $40.00, but someone else was paying for my film expenses so what I did I care.

You need to get yourself a ROY-1000 camera.

Sometimes I do full-on staging with portable furniture, but lately I've decided that empty rooms with dots of color and doo-dahs work well too. So I have a "staging basket" that includes colorful hand towels, shower curtains, bath rugs, vases and such. I have some lightweight pictures/art I got at TJ Maxx on clearance, and I use COMMAND hooks to hang them.

I use the same items for every house. One item is a green glass bottle shaped like the Eiffel Tower. Had a prospective tenant tell me she knew it was one of our houses when she saw that in the photo LOL!

I've chucked all my digital cameras & now just shoot with my iPhone. I picked up a wide angle lens from Amazon that clips on for less than $30.00. It has made a huge difference when shooting small rooms like bathrooms. Sometimes panorama gets a little distorted. I get better quality pics with my phone than my actual cameras & easier to download as well. I never have the right cable & the camera never had enough battery.

Shower curtain is a must as well as the toilet seat thing. Hate that.

I usually get pics after a rehab & after everything's been cleaned. If there's still a ladder around I will use it to get some unique angles. The last place we did I dinked around with some of the filters & it made a difference on how the light diffused (I guess that's the word). Exterior stuff I try to take early in the morning, evening or on an overcast day.

What I really need on my phone is a level.......it always seems like I'm shooting up or down.

Since most LLs around don't use pics in advertising I don't have to be a pro.......but even an ignoramus like me can take good quality shots with just my phone & a wide angle lens.

I have a 10 year old digital camera with only 5 megapixels and memory for only 500 pictures. I carry back up batteries because it eats up power like there's no tomorrow. The most important feature of this camera is I can see on the screen what the picture will look like before I take the picture. And then afterwards I can see on my screen if the picture came out okay -- in focus, too dark/light and if the image is captured correctly. I can turn on and off my time and date feature.

I take 2 to 3 pictures of everything I wish to place in my rental add, from different angles and distances. A close up. 5 Feet away and then further. Then with 20 to 30 pictures I can choose the best ones and then place them in my add. Adding and subtracting pictures each time I re-list my rental so people will see thing differently, getting the best exposure.

I also just use my cell phone these days - the cameras in them have gotten so much better, and it's convenient. I didn't know you could get a wide angle lens for a phone - I need to look into that.

I at least "dress" the kitchen & bath. Kitchen gets a rug in front of the sink, a container of kitchen utensils (plastic pancake flipper, wish, etc) on the counter or near the stove. Also a napkin holder with nice napkins on the counter. Maybe a roll of paper towels - particularly if there is an installed holder

The bathroom gets a soap dish, toothbrush holder, hand towel in towel ring by the sink, bath towel/washcloth on towel bar, shower curtain & rug.

I usually will overlap my photos as I move around the room - so you can get a better perspective of what wall you are looking at (Ex: you see the left edge of the window in one photo and the right edge in the next. I move clockwise around each room.

Anyone shooting digital images, needs to resize your images before uploading them online.

For example: A 5 megapixel camera will produce an image that is approx. 15 megabytes,..which is great if your intention to make paper prints of that image. If you want to upload that same 15 megabyte image online, you need to greatly reduce the number of megabytes down to about 1 meg or smaller. I downsize all of my digital images down to about 500K and make sure you are using jpeg files only for this. Doing this means your images will upload and download faster. Even with today's high speed internet connections, a series of high megabytes images will clog up the pipeline between you and whoever else wants to see your images online.

I use Adobe PhotoShop to reduce the megabyte file size of my digital images which are intended for online use. I keep the original file size (15 megs) in a separate folder for images that I want to make 8x10 prints of on my Epson printer.

Am I making any sense here?

I'm a bit confused about resizing photos.

Is this only for posting photos to your own website.

What if you're posting the photos on Craigslist and Zillow?

Also, is there any way to see that buildum's video about taking pics with your iPhone without registering and giving them all your information.

Dan (CA)

Indoor Staging: Minimal staging would be to throw some towels and few nice things in the bathrooms, and same with kitchen. Maybe books on a book case. I don't do furniture or rugs, etc.

Outdoor Staging:

Plant a palette of colorful plants by the door and curb if possible. Powerwash the house, bushes, sidewalk, driveway, etc. Powerwashing the bushes removes dead leaves and debris and cleans the plant leaves. Just make sure the spray isn't to hard a stream and not for too long.

Outside Photos:

Outside photos taken immediately after mowing the lawn. If it's a boring house, take it from an interesting angle. Try to crop out neighbor's houses, etc. If it's a small house, bring the frame in so that the house fills it corner to corner.

Inside photos:

The more light the better. Never use a built-in flash. Use an attached strobe flash. Play with the angles. If you shoot with a wide angle lens, make sure all shots are PERFECTLY level otherwise the vertical lines start to converge to the center. Use a tripod so you can take longer exposures. This brings out the natural sunlight, wood grains, etc. Play with angles. If the bathroom is too small, take a picture of it outside so they can get an idea of how it looks. Take pictures so that empty bedrooms don't look the same. If the room is really small, go outside, open the window, and take a picture with the camera in the window so that you get a wide a shot as possible before the window frame appears in the picture.

When you get ready to use the photos, make sure you color balance them and adjust brightness levels to make them look bright and colorful.

Size them to the maximum size allowed for where you're posting them. That way, when they click on the thumbnail, the photo shows up big. To continue what Roy said, they need to be as small as possible, preferably in .jpg or .png format. Those are the most efficient for web. Make sure all photos are the same size. Only take horizontal (landscape) pictures. Avoid vertical pictures. Vertical pictures screw up neat rows of photos or they're shrunk to fit.

Thank-you Landlord of the flies,