Do your real estate photos seem to lack that special oomph? They look alright, but they don’t stand out among the sea of real estate photos out there.

One way to make your images more appealing to potential buyers is to increase the detail and color. Use the images to show every inviting detail of the home.

The way to do this is by adjusting the exposure so there are no washed out white areas or shadowy dark areas.

The answer you are looking for is HDR photography.

What Is HDR?

In short, this is High Dynamic Range. Images that are done this way have multiple exposures. So three separate images get used to create one.

Creating an image from multiple exposures allows your photographer to balance the light throughout the entire image. From the darkest of the darks or the lightest of lights.

Using three images provides the most amount of information possible to create the final image. The prevents those super dark shadowy areas or washed out white areas.

When these two things happen there is no amount of adjusting the image to save them. The image simply lacks the details to create the detail.

A good example of this is when you take an image inside of a room. What happens most of the time is that the view beyond the windows become washed out and super bright.

When you try to bring the window view into focus, you end up with a very dark room inside. Neither one of these outcomes is desirable or appealing.

With an HDR photo, the interior room is well lit and welcoming. At the same time, the windows will not be blown out.

Now you have an appealing and detailed image that will help you successfully show your home.

What Makes it Advanced?

The HDR photography that most people do these days is what we’ve described above. Take this to the next level and you have advanced HDR.

This new kind of HDR photography is slowly making its way into the world of real estate photography.

This type of HDR is achieved also using a flash when capturing the multiple images. This is called a flambient image.

This type of photography combines both flash and ambient photography. This will give your homes well-balanced photography with a professional feel.

This type of photography has a steep learning curve. The trick is to not deceive potential buyers, but to enhance the home’s space and colors.

Think of it as putting the home’s best foot forward to make a great first impression.

How Long Does HDR Photography Take a Professional Photographer?

This is a tough question to answer. We are experienced in real estate photography so it tends to go fairly quickly. Less experienced or knowledgeable photographers tend to take longer.

How long it will take to photograph a home will depend on how large it is. Smaller can take as short as an hour or an hour and a half. Larger homes can take up to a few hours.

If you request flambient HDR and aerials it will take a bit longer since this is two different types of real estate photography.

When HDR Images Go Bad

One of the biggest misconceptions about HDR photography is that it needs to look grungy or painterly. This is completely wrong.

HDR is a photography technique, not a style. Those overly processed images that everyone immediately thinks of give HDR a bad rep.

These images happen when lazy photographers use the presets that their software comes with. Or when an inexperienced photographer gets carried away with their editing.

You know you have quality HDR when the image looks natural. The goal is to enhance the beauty of the image, not create a whole new art piece out of it.

Overly processed images distract from people looking at the home. They can also turn people off to the home simply because they don’t like the photography style.

You know you have bad HDR when the clouds are black. Now, there is a difference between actual Florida thunderstorm clouds and white puffy clouds with HDR black highlights.

Another common give away is a sky that is a rainbow of harsh colors. This isn’t natural, the sky never actually look like that.

A third dead giveaway is when the vegetation around the home is weird colors. When have you ever seen trees that are entirely bright pink?

Let Us Help You with HDR Photography

Let us help you make your real state images stand out with HDR photography. We take the time to create beautiful images that are not over or under processed.

We believe in taking the time to do the job right. You are hiring us to help sell homes, so we want to make sure you have the best images possible to do that.

Contact us today and let’s take some photos!