USEFUL TIPS ABOUT

PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
AND
REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY
BY

PANOTORA
9/24/2018 Useful Tips About Product Photography and Real Estate Photography

Real Estate Photography

Gear needed for real estate photography:

Camera (Full-frame preferred)

Wide lens
Light stands
Light modifiers (umbrella, soft box, etc)
Lights (Flash, Strobe)
Cold shoe for flashes
Flash Trigger

Camera
Crop-sensor (APSC/ DX) cameras can also be used but with a very wide lens. Very wide lenses can suffer
from sever distortions, which should be corrected in post editing.

Lens
On a full-frame camera, a 14-24mm lens is a great option. Avoid 14-24mm lens on your DX camera as the
crop factor will render your pictures unfavorable. 14-24mm on a crop-sensor is equivalent to 21-36mm on
an FX camera. 21mm is certainly not wide enough for many shots.

On a DX camera, a 10-24mm lens or 12-24mm lens can be successfully used. You may ask why is 14mm
not wide enough but a 12mm is acceptable. It is only 2mm difference in focal length after all. The answer is
that every mm in the wide end makes a significant difference.

The only disadvantage of 10mm lens on a DX camera is the heavy distortion on the wide side. Distortion is
more visible and problematic for objects are closer to the lens. So if you’re shooting a small room with a
bed or chair too close to your camera, you will see heavy distortion.

Tilt/shift lens: we mentioned how important it is to have vertical lines in your photos vertical. This can be
done in Photoshop, but will heavily crop your pictures. These lenses, which are very expensive and manual
focus, are used to photograph tall buildings, etc.

Always expose for the highlights and bring the brightness of the rest of the objects in your photo up by
using a flash/strobe.

Flash
Flashes are very handy because of their lightweight and flexibility. Optical slave is highly desirable in
flashes, as it will help synchronizing lights without extra triggering system. The only limitation with optical
slaves is that they need to “see” your main light to be triggered. This means, if your main light is in another
room, or when your flash is outside with lots of ambient light, it may not function reliably. A radio trigger is
considered a more reliable option.

A good flash, has the following features:

Optical slave (for easy synch and control)

Several stops of power output (around 7)
PC Sync jack (to plug in radio triggers)
Zoomability (to match the zoom in your lens and increase efficiency)
Power socket (to be attached to outside power source for faster recycling)
TTL and Manual options (to let the flash/camera choose the right output if needed)
High speed synch, i.e. High Frequency flash (to be able to use faster shutter speeds than the flash
sync speed, that is 1/200 s)
Build quality (has to withstand drops, yes they happen often!)
Always have spare batteries handy, and use freshly charged batteries for important gigs. Fresh batteries
recycle your flash faster, because they have more “juice”.

Flash Vs. Strobe

Strobes are larger and heavier. They usually need to be plugged into a power outlet or a battery pack to
operate. They provide a lot more powerful output and can light up the whole room.

Flash is usually selected because of it’s compactness, mobility, and the fact that it can be operated by 4 AA
batteries. High capacity batteries are recommended (greater than 2000 mAh) to provide faster recycling.
Some flashes come with an extra battery compartment which can be attached to the flash. This can reduce
the recycling time by 20%. Recycling time is usually very fast for 1/4 output or lower, but can be significant
for 1/2 power, and several seconds for full power. If you shoot at full power most of the time (which is
unusual), you may want to consider an external battery pack such as Quantum Turbo battery pack, or
Fomito Godox PB960.

A good strobe has the following features:

Many stops of power output

Modeling lamp (so you can check the shadows)

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Constant color temperature
Fast recycling
A 320 Ws strobe is considered average, while a 640 Ws strobe is considered strong. A strobe with greater
power, e.g. 1280 Ws is considered insanely powerful.

At PANOTORA, we use both flashes or strobes depending on the situation, the time of the day, and the size
of the property. The larger the house, the stronger the light we utilize.

Full-Frame Vs. Crop-Sensor

Full-Frame
A full frame camera has several advantages. The size of the sensor is larger, which means there is more real
estate for capturing light. This usually has a positive impact on the dynamic range. The dynamic range is the ability
to redeem the shadows and high lights and getting more details in those extreme areas of the picture.

The other advantage is on the depth of field and bokeh. Imagine we are taking a headshot with one
particular lens. If you attach the lens to a crop sensor camera, you will have to stand 2m away to take the
shot. When you use a full-frame body and the same lens, you’re going to have to step closer to the model.
This will make the depth of field shallower and will make the bokeh look creamier and better. Depth of field
is affected by two parameters, aperture number and the distance.

The third advantage is the lens compression. On a full-frame camera, if you are keeping the same distance
from your model, but taking a similar shot, you’re going to have to use a lens with a larger focal length. For
example, when you’re taking a picture of a model standing with mountains on her behind, using a DX
camera you may need a 60mm lens, but when switching to FX, you will need to use a 90mm lens to take a
similar shot (and filling the frame as the first case). As we increase the focal length, we are introducing a
phenomenon called lens compression. The lens compression brings the background forward relative to
your model, and makes it less relevant, diverting attention back to your subject. It also make the fact and
body tighter, which is desirable by a lot of people.

Crop-sensor
Now, let’s talk about the advantages of a crop-sensor camera. The first one is the pixel density (pixel pitch).
When you need to crop your pictures, for instance when shooting a distant bird, or a tiny piece of diamond,
what matters is the pixel density. The pixel density is usually higher in a crop-sensor camera. A 20 MP
crop-sensor camera has more (tinier) pixels per square centimeter than a 20 MP full-frame camera.

The second advantage of a crop-sensor camera is its much cheaper lenses. Most lenses are perfect at the
center of the frame but suffer from aberrations and vignetting as we go to the corners of the frame.
Therefore, more glasses with better quality will be required to correct all that.

As a rule of thumb, full-frame cameras are preferred in landscape, portrait, and real estate photography.
Crop-sensor cameras are good enough in sports and wildlife photography. In product photography, both
types can be equally useful, but a camera with a higher pixel density (an not necessarily the overall pixel
count) is generally preferred. Clients need details and sharpness and product usually fills the frame and
images are often cropped.

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Product Photography
Macro Lens
A macro lens allows you to place your lens very close to your subject. That means you can fill your frame
more easily. Typical macro lenses can have 60mm, 90mm, 100mm, 105mm, 200mm focal lengths. A higher
focal length does not magnify the subject. Therefore, after cropping, you won’t end up with a larger image of
your subject. It only allows you to hold your lens farther from the object and still get the same result. One
way to magnify your object is using a higher focal length and an extension tube. An extension tube,
however, can lower the quality of the picture as the distance may not be optimum for quality. There are
lenses on the market (such as by the ones by Canon) that can magnify the image. However, the quality is
usually slightly compromised.

A macro lens is extremely desirable in product photography. It is insanely sharp and has very low distortion
and vignetting. It also allows you take detail shots.

Autofocus is a challenge when getting to close to the object. It is recommended that you shoot manual focus and
focus with your body instead of your lens. Choose the right focus and move your hands back and forth until the
object is in focus and then take the shot. Another useful method may be focus-stacking. The depth of field is
extremely shallow when photographing tiny objects. For example, when you are photographing a spider, you may
focus on the compound eyes to capture the details, but the mouth and other parts of the head will be out of focus.
The trick is to place your camera on a tripod and gradually change the focus while taking multiple shots. Load
these images in Photoshop and let the software combine them just so the entire object is in focus.

Color Accuracy
Color temperature is somewhat important in portrait photography, as editors tend to tweak the temperature
after all. It is, however, very important in product photography. Colors need to be accurate, otherwise will
mislead your customers. Beware of combining different brands of flash/strobe with inconsistent color
temperatures. This will make color adjustments extremely difficult. We at PANOTORA shoot in a studio with
fully controlled lighting to ensure color accuracy and consistency.

Lens Compression
Here we would like to demonstrate the effect of focal length on lens compression. It is in fact the only factor
influencing the compression Even crop factor does not affect that at all. We have used a 18-200mm Nikkor
lens on a DX camera. We kept all parameters constant, while gradually changed the focal length, and
walked back and forth to roughly maintain the same point of view of the mannequin head.

Notice the tree and shrubs in the background and how they moves forward and fills the frame as you switch
to larger focal length. Moreover, look at the face and how its features change. Which one of the girls would
you date? I know which one I am!

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And here, just for a fun of it, we tried to take headshots with a wide angle lens. Do not use wide angle
lenses for headshots unless you’re planning on jumping off the cliff immediately after. Because somebody
will come after you!

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Why a faster lens?

The primary role of a lens is to capture as much light as possible. The faster the lens, the larger its aperture
and its capacity to let in light. That is why faster lenses are generally bulkier with huge front elements. F# is
the measure for a lens fastness. The lower the number, the faster the lens. This measure, also, deeply
affects the price of a lens. All things being equal, the faster the lens, the better it is. Nonetheless, shots wide
open may be too soft with a very shallow depth of fields. Therefore, you may need to stop down the lens to
mitigate this issue.

Things to consider when buying a lens:

Focal length (wide, normal, tele)

F#
The number of aperture blades (affect bokeh)
The number of lens elements (affects exposure, aberrations, etc)
VR or image stabilization (lowers the shake, so you can shoot with slower shutter speeds)
These are of course true on the paper. But in real life, the build quality, reliability, accuracy, color rendition,
etc are very important. Make sure you ask experts and read lots of reviews, and ideally test the lens before.

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