RealTown's RealTalk

@RG

For one thing, White Balance is something you never have to think about when you shoot RAW.

I don't recommend RAW for everyone, only serious photographers that want to make a commitment to a different workflow. The camera does a lot of enhancements when it saves a jpg. With RAW, you pretty much have to do that yourself.

On the other hand, like Rich and Jerry said, you can make changes later if something isn't right.

Drivespace is so cheap that it's not a tradeoff for quality. When I shoot exteriors or when I shoot for fun I typically fire 5 frames for each shot in RAW and then combine them into a 60MB TIF HDR. That does take some space but I just have to live with it.

Malcolm Waring, Realtor, e-PRO
Pocono Homes

I've been somewhat a photo buff for years. In the dark days of film I shot most of my real estate pics with a 22mm lens on my 35mm SLR. I had a 55mm 1.4f lens that was great for hand held candid ambient light shots, but the 22mm lens worked great for nearly 100% of my realestate. 28mm and even 24 mm are just not quite enough, unless you want to stich together multiple shots.

In digital cameras, I have relied on ones that allow use of added accessory lens or filters. I never found a suitable camera with wider than 28 or 26mm lens out of the box. The digital SLRs are pricey, and real estate photography doesn't require much resolution in most cases. If you are shooting a cover shot for Homes and Land Magazine that's a different story, but MLS, web posting and email only require lower resolution. High sensitivity for use in low light situations is helpful. Accessory lenses have a tendency to interfere with the built-in flash, and not that many (inexpensive) digitals accept accessory flashes. I perfer ambient light in most cases anyway.

I have had a Fuji Fine Pix, a Nikon and currently use a Konica-Minolta. All had manufacturer built adapters for filters or accessory lenses. Using a 0.5, 0.6 or 0.75 wide angle adapter allows the use of a good general purpose camera as a GREAT real estate camera. I think SONY took over the Konica-Minolta line, and may have current model that comes with an accessory adapter.

RG wrote:

"You have to be very good with photoshop to modify the raw picture."

Not anymore Ronny. Google's FREE imaging editing app Picasa supports most RAW formats including Adobe's Digital Negative (DNG) and has easy-to-use autofix. non-destructive editing, and batch processing features that are very powerful. I hardly use Photoshop anymore (I actually prefer GIMP) unless I'm retouching a scanned negative, slide or print.

I've been using it since beta and it's now in V3 and I don't see any reason for changing. Unless you shell out $$ for Aperature or Lightroom, Picasa is the best value, IMHO.

Give it a shot!

I just purchaed an Olympus FE-360 online from Staples for less than $120 including free shipping. It has 8 mega pixels and takes great photos. I like that it doesn't have a lot of extra features that I don't know how to use. I caution you, however, when buying an Olympus. They only use a certain type memory card and, therefore, you are not able to use the one from your old camera unless it, too, was an Olympus.

I find it completely amazing that Kohler spends infinitely more time and money to photograph a $200 toilet than most Realtors will spend to photograph at $600K+++ house!

It just defies logic in my mind. What's most troubling is that most don't really care that the most important marketing that a potential buyer sees are photographs. Now that the internet allows use to display full screen, full color photos (vs. the postage stamp black and white blurry photos of a decade ago in the newspaper), one would think that more would take advantage of that! But they don't. It takes 60 seconds on any MLS in the country to find crooked, dark, blurry photos of dining room tables (since that's all that will fit into the lens of the "good enough" $199 camera).

However, for those that DO 'get it', I think it presents an awesome opportunity to jump ahead of the competition by leaps and bounds. For the most part, sellers understand the power of a good marketing presentation in this real estate market.

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