How To Take Real Estate Photos with Your Phone | Real Estate Photography Tips

Lighting Your Real Estate Photos

Natural light is the best light for real estate shots. If you choose to add artificial lighting, make sure that it is consistent and doesn’t cast harsh shadows in your photos.

Open all the curtains and let as much natural light in as you can.

Observe how light enters your home throughout the day and take your real estate photos when it is the best time.

Rays of the setting sun may look nice but will be difficult to photograph.

You can shoot the exterior during golden hour when the sky isn’t so bright. Turn on all the lights in your home to give a golden hue.

Tip: Don’t use the flash on your phone as this will make your photos look flat and create uneven lighting in your photos.

Shoot at Waist Level

Shooting at waist level will make your room look bigger and will keep lines straight.

Move into a corner of the room and try to capture as much of it as you can.

Also, photograph in horizontal (landscape) mode to get more of the room into your shot.

Helpful Tip: Turn on the grid lines on your phone to help you align vertical and horizontal lines. 

 Photo taken at regular eye level.

Photo taken at waist level.

Notice how the room looks bigger and the lines are straighter.

Tip: Make sure to add a corner of the room in your shot to give the space some dimension and also to help it look more spacious.

Pro Tip: Using a tripod will make this a lot easier. I'd also recommend a good phone mount for your tripod. The UniMount 360 Phone Tripod Mount is great for this. It allows you to shoot in landscape or portrait and comes with a remote shutter.

Shoot in HDR or Use a Photo App

What happens when you take a photo of the interior with a window or door exterior view? Your camera exposes the shot for the interior OR the exterior, but not both.

The results? Either a dark interior with a perfect view of the outside or a well-exposed interior and blown-out windows where you can’t see outside.

What you want to achieve is a well-exposed interior while seeing the view out of the windows.

The HDR feature on your phone can help with this but sometimes it isn’t enough to evenly expose the photo.

You can download a specialized free app like Photomatix Real Estate Camera for iPhone, that will take several photos in different exposures and automatically stack them so that you have a view out the window while the interior remains well exposed as well.

Photo taken with HDR feature on iPhone.

Notice how we can’t see out the patio doors.

Photo taken with Photomatix Real Estate Camera app.

Notice how we see outside the patio doors and the interior is still evenly exposed.

Photo taken with Photomatix Real Estate Camera app.

Now we can perfectly see the outside and the inside.

Use a Tripod

The best way to optimize the success of your photos is to make sure that the phone or camera is as stable as possible.

A tripod is essential for this. You don't need anything fancy, but I suggest getting at least a mid range one that will have the main features you need.

If you're shooting with your phone, you're going to need a phone mount for your tripod as well. I highly recommend the UniMount 360 Phone Tripod Mount.

This will help you take steady shots with any phone and even comes with a Bluetooth remote shutter.

Straighten the Verticals

There is a good chance that your house will look skewed when standing and shooting it straight on.

It’s nothing you’re doing wrong, that’s the perspective from your standing point and there is nothing you can do about it.

The height of the building and the distance that you are standing from it will have an effect on the perspective of your photo.

But what you CAN do is edit the vertical lines in a photo editing app.

Thankfully, apps like Snapseed offer a cool feature where you can upload your photo and pull the photo into a straight alignment so that the building looks perfectly vertical. 

Photo straightened in Snapseed using the PERSPECTIVE tool. 

Extra Tips and Tricks for Amazing Real Estate Photos with Your Phone

• Be mindful of mirrors. You don’t want to show up as a reflection in the photos.

• Take photos of details that are interesting in your home, but don’t use the zoom on your phone. Move in closer or crop the photos.

• Bathrooms can be tricky. This is a space where you can get high up in a corner to get most of it in your shot. Stand on a chair and point your phone down.

• Tap your screen on the farthest part of the room to make sure that the whole space is in focus.
  

• Use a remote shutter release to make sure your phone stays perfectly still.

• Don’t hesitate to edit your photos.

The more time you put into preparing your home for the real estate shoot will be rewarded with photos that you will be proud of.

Take your time going through your space and try different compositions in each room.

Remember, you want the viewer to purchase or rent your space and if your photos look better than others that they are viewing you will stand out and look more professional.

It is absolutely possible to get great real estate photos with your smartphone.