The real estate marketing photo above was done by Scott Hargis, a San Francisco area real estate photographer that does what looks to most like Architectural Digest level work but shoots entire homes for Realtors in 1.5 hours or less. Scott does this high quality, fast lighting by using multiple light-weight flashes (as in 4 or 5) bouncing off walls etc. to get this even lighting look. Scott’s technique is the upper-end of real estate photography lighting alternatives. Here are the range of lighting alternatives available to real estate photographers:

1. Natural lighting – in lighting terminology this just means no lighting. You turn on all the house lights and use a tripod so you can make long exposures that are required by the unlit darkness of the interior. The big problem with this technique is that if you have a window in the photo the window will “burn-out” and look like there is a nuclear blast going on outside just so you can get good exposure of the dark corners.
2. Window masking – in this technique you shoot two photos, one of the windows with correct window exposure and a second photo exposed for the darker interior. Then in Photoshop or other photo editing software you combine the two photos, taking the best parts of each photo. The problem with this technique is the photo editing requires a fair amount of skill to master but works great once you get the hang of it.
3. High Dynamic Range (HDR) – This is a technique where you shoot 3 or 4 or more photos about 2 stops apart in exposure. That is, a really dark photo, then a not so dark photo, then a medium exposure then a too bright exposure etc. Then you use HDR software like Photomatix to combine all the different photos into a “tone-mapped” composite that has a wider range of tones than comes out of your camera. The challenge with this technique is that if you are not careful with the multitude of options and adjustments in tone-mapping software, photos can turn out looking either grungy (like the walls need a good scrubbing) or radioactive. This is not to say this technique doesn’t work; you just have to take care with the controls.
4. On camera automatic flash – This is how the camera store clerks will tell you to shoot interiors. Just purchase a flash that works automatically with you camera body, put everything on automatic and fire away. This works pretty good some of the time but has the problem that the lighting will look flat and there will be reflections and dark shadows created by the flash.
5. Off camera manual flash(s) – With this technique, you use your camera and flash on manual, so you have control of the camera shutter speed, aperture and how much light the flash unit(s) are putting out. You also bounce the light off large objects like walls and ceilings. The bouncing makes your little flash units work like big lights and big lights make the light softer and prevent shadows. This technique takes some practice to master. But if you can learn all the tricks with this technique and you carry a number of flashes and trigger them all with wireless triggers (Cactus Wireless Flash Triggers are inexpensive and popular) your photos will look like Scott Hargis’s above.

There is no right way to light, it all depends on what kind of result you want, what you or the people you shoot for are satisfied with and what things you do best. Oh yes, there’s always the issue with real estate that you only have a limited amount of time because the seller wants it on the market today or tomorrow at the latest.

Most people progress through several or all of these stages or techniques as their photographic seeing changes or matures. That is, if you can’t see the difference between photos made with these various techniques there is no motivation to change your technique but once you see the difference the lighting technique makes you are motivated to change.