Fishbowl / Wide Angle Lenses and Photoshopping

DaveM

DaveM

Is it just me or is the "artistic license" taken by agents and photographers reaching absurd levels.

Rooms with angles so wide, corners are at 45 degrees. Hallways looking like bowling alleys when in reality they are little more than an alcove to be walked down sideways. Lush green lawns photoshopped over bare dirt or uneven paving.

At what point does polishing for sale equal gross misrepresentation and fraud on behalf of the agent?

And I wont even mention the photoshopped clear blue sky or the picture of the house photoshopped onto every TV and computer screen in the photos. Oh wait, I just did.

Sick of turning up to opens to find shoeboxes where the photographs showed a well proportioned home.
 
I usually use the objects in the photos as guides for the likely size of a room, etc. eg. how much space is between the dining table and the wall behind it, etc.

But I did read somewhere a trick was to use smaller furniture to make a room look bigger.

I do like the fireplaces with roaring fires, computers and tvs with high speed images, etc. Classic.
 
I hate it too. I was looking for interstate units which thankfully you can get the strata plan and total size to have a better idea. I was doing heaps of googling and finding old pics in same complexes that had sold a few years earlier before the camera tricks became so popular, or properties for rent that usually don't get photoshopped to get some better ideas. I was also taking copies from nearmap and google earth to compare roof and yard. I also got an agent to take some photos with her camera to give me a better idea too. Very frustrating.
 
chilliblue said:
The act in NSW is clear about misrepresentation however until someone takes the agent to tribunal nothing will change.
Click to expand...

Which Act Chilli the PSSBAA?

Besides that, someone has taken an agent to court and won - a site in Mosman (Sydney) was claimed in adverts to have waterviews STCA but it was found that unless you built up some 13.5m (which was above the permissible height of any building), there was no view.
 
A good property photographer will use a wide angle lens but only around 10 - 20mm lens. Bad photographers will use extremely wide angle lens or even worse real estate agents that take shabby photos with their mobile phone.

A good property photographer will use software like Photoshop to highlight the image and bring out the colors and lighting to highlight the property. A bad photographer will use Photoshop etc to make the photo look unreal,even worse real estate agents that don't edit terribly shot photos.
 
It astounds me when I see $1m plus homes with terrible terrible pictures. They do it no justice. Surely you will generate more buyers/interest by taking good photos.

I do agree that some shots just take the mickey.
 
Good quality photos are the most under estimated tool by RE agents. It's always shocking to see how bad their photos are to sell homes worth a peoples entire life of working from 9-5, 5-6 days a week. They take the photos with a shabby 2-7 year old cell phone piece if junk.

Would you hire a real estate agent without qualifications?

Real Estate agents often don't hire professionals to take good quality photos. Instead they do it themselves. Just take a look on RE or domain to see the tons of terrible photos taken by Australian Real estate agents that have no training in photography, in fact most wouldn't have a clue how to use a DSLR camera, pro lighting and proper equipment to take professional photos and the reason they use cell phones.

It has been proven that good quality photos can improve the chance of a property selling by as much as 80%.
 
It is very dependent upon your market prop photo. If the house isn't worth a pinch of $@#@, the owner is less likely to see value in spending $200 for professionally retouched photos. It is even rarer to find a pro photo or floor plan for that matter for leasing properties.
 
DaveM said:
Came across this one today via Whirlpool.... agents are now photoshopping on views out windows

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-coleraine-113167587
Click to expand...

The interior design magazine photographers shoot the room from one angle focusing on the interior, then adjust the camera and shoot the same angle but this time to enhance the colours and sharpness of the outside view. They then composite these two, so you get a perfect room photo with a perfect view out the window.

It looks like this may be the case in the link above, but done by a beginner :)

Personally, I can tell what is a 'real' photo and what has been touched. I find that real photos almost always don't do the property justice, and touched photos tend to go a bit the other way.

I try and make our photos look like: http://www.metrocityrealty.com.au/listings/residential-74037-house/

Just taken with a wide lens 'point and shoot camera', and we pump up the contrast and saturation.

I do not like when things like power poles & wires are shopped out of the view photos, or things like ugly neighbouring houses removed & replaced by bushland. That's just annoying.
 
just curious, is there an app or a way to do these wide lens angles?

a lot of the renos I do, I just want to be able to take one for my own records, but its hard when all you can take is a small corner of the room , no matter what you try

its also frustrating when you show people what youve done before and after, but the before photos look better even though its unrenoed, but due to the fact that it looks more spacious....

there was an app, Nokia N8 I used to have that allowed you to take panoramic photos, basically you took one photo, then moved the camera across, and once it determined you had moved 90 deg, it would pick it up and take another shot

the outputs were pretty darn good for a phone camera
but I am not too sure how they printed or how they came up on PC

and you could do as many rotatins as you want, so you could easily do a 360" one.....
 
There are iPhone apps- so probably available on android as well. Some stitch photos already taken (there's also PC programs which do this); others take the photo dynamically.

There's Austostitch, DMD, Pano Camera, 360 Panoramawhich I've tried- there's probably others.

A pano photo is different from a wide angle shot- which is just a single shot with a broad view- the broader, the more distorted.
 
There is a helluva lot more to producing ultra wide shots that show everything in a room and at decent exposure levels.

Having done plenty of this work for agents and others marketing their properties, it's not a case of snapping from the Mum & dad cameras and using apps.

Sure that may work but nothing replaces a pro and their pro equipment.

Best get a pro if it's very important to ones marketing.
 
Absolutely agree about getting a pro when it for marketing. Photography is something people try to skimp on but something which can generate thousands of dollars.

However TMNT wants photos just for his own records. He probably wants to post them on the forum. An iPhone pano can do a fair job- as long as the light levels don't vary through the shot. It wouldn't be a good idea to have part of the shot pointing at a window with blinds open- the auto adjusting of levels in the pano shot can make a very uneven shot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top