New to Photography. Question about settings.

[clark77494]

I just purchased a Canon EOS Rebel T5 to do Real Estate photography. For outside photos I want to set it to ISO 400, f/5.6 and let the camera determine the shutter speed. On the inside I want to set the camera to f/7.1 ISO 200 wih no flash, and also let the camera determine the shutter speed. I have a tripod so slow shutter speeds should not be a problem. I have a 18mm-55mm lens that came with the camera. I have two years video production training so I know how to setup a motion picture camera, just never took stills except with my Iphone.

[clark77494]

The outside photos. The inside photos were taken by the Realtor.

Clark

[clark77494]

Robert,
The Outside Photos. The inside photos were taken by the Realtor.
Clark,

[Waddizzle]

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@clark77494 wrote:
Robert,
The Outside Photos. The inside photos were taken by the Realtor.
Clark,

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Those inside photos are terrible, IMHO.  They look a bit rushed.  The camera does not look like it was carefully leveled, at all.

[ebiggs1]

clark,

You got good advice and you got bad advice in this thread.  I am going to guess you know which.

"No problem for the T5 and no problem getting professional Real Estate photos with ANY modern dSLR."

This is correct.  You have all you need with the addition of a good tripod.

Av is the answer.

One thing I will add is be careful with the 'sliders' in post.  This is a case of less is more.  Just because a little looks good doesn't mean a lot looks better.

[TTMartin]

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@clark77494 wrote:

Scott,

I was able to get it working in AV mode. What I was doing wrong is there is a light scale in the middle of the menu that goes from minus 4 to plus 4. I moved the pointer from minus 4 until it was at Zero on the scale and that fixed the lighting problem. Now the shutter speed is 4.5 seconds, except now it is taking phenomenal photos.  I haven’t reduced the photos yet, will work on that tomorrow.

Clark,

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When in Av mode the 'light scale' becomes your exposure compensation display. You use exposure compensation when there is lighting that confuses the camera's built in metering. If the built in metering is giving you too dark a photo add some + exposure compensation, if portions of the photo are over exposed you would use - exposure compensation. Canon's evaluative metering is pretty good, so you won't need to mess with exposure compensation very often. 

[clark77494]

Robert,

I stand corrected the last four photos are the professional ones. The Club House, the two photos of the swiming pool and the playground. The picture of the front of the house was also the realtor, along with the inside photos.

Clark,

[clark77494]

Good to know. Also I noticed there is a setting for light Temperature. Most houses have CFLs I tend to replace the lights with Halogen lights which tend to last longer and don't contain mercury. I'm thinking of leasing Photoshop for $10 per month. The Software that came with the camera "Picture Style Editor" Works really well except it saves the photo in an unusable format. It puts the photo in PF3 format which I cannot view in any other program. I tried opening it in Corel PaintShop Pro and the software won't open it.

[clark77494]

Ebiggs,

I noticed that some people said I need a high-end rig to take professional quality photos. The way I see it is my realtor was using an IPhone to take snapshots of houses to put online. I figured an $800 DSLR would be a major improvement over an iPhone. The IPhone is great for taking snapshots to show my contractors what needs to be fixed and to Email over the photo, (something a DSLR camera can’t do.) The one thing I did notice about the T5 is you can’t change the aspect ratio. It has the setting, except it shows you a box inside the viewer of what in the photo will be removed. I guess the higher end cameras can change the aspect ratio automatically.

When a person looks at my houses online there not going to care that the photo is square instead of 16:9. Some Realtors think a picture is a picture and why spend the money on a DSLR? In a tight Real Estate market, photos can get you more showings. I proved that by using a Professional Photographer. When the Professional Photographer took photos I would go from 1 to 2 showings a week to 10-12 showings a week!

Clark,

[RobertTheFat]

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@clark77494 wrote:
Good to know. Also I noticed there is a setting for light Temperature. Most houses have CFLs I tend to replace the lights with Halogen lights which tend to last longer and don't contain mercury. I'm thinking of leasing Photoshop for $10 per month. The Software that came with the camera "Picture Style Editor" Works really well except it saves the photo in an unusable format. It puts the photo in PF3 format which I cannot view in any other program. I tried opening it in Corel PaintShop Pro and the software won't open it.

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1. LEDs are more efficient than halogens and are a good value, now that their prices have plummeted.

2. The Picture Style Editor is not a photo editor; it's a way of creating idiosyncratic "picture styles" that can supposedly make editing go faster. I've never used it, and you don't need it either. Canon's photo editor is "Digital Photo Professional". It comes with Canon's DSLRs and should work well for you, especially if you shoot in RAW mode. If you process a huge number of pictures, or get tired of DPP's slowness, you could try Adobe's Lightroom, which isn't prohibitively expensive. Many people who use Photoshop don't need it. Those who do need it tend to be high-end graphics designers or photographers doing fairly specialized work.

[TTMartin]

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@clark77494 wrote:
Good to know. Also I noticed there is a setting for light Temperature. Most houses have CFLs I tend to replace the lights with Halogen lights which tend to last longer and don't contain mercury. I'm thinking of leasing Photoshop for $10 per month. The Software that came with the camera "Picture Style Editor" Works really well except it saves the photo in an unusable format. It puts the photo in PF3 format which I cannot view in any other program. I tried opening it in Corel PaintShop Pro and the software won't open it.

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There is also a Canon program called Digital Photo Professional (DPP) that comes with your camera. It will allow you to shoot RAW, adjust your white balance in post processing, and export in the JPG format you need to use the photos.

You can also get the Adobe Photographers bundle with Lightroom and Photoshop. Lightroom and Canon DPP perform similar functions, and either one will do most everything you need. Photoshop is a very complex program with a pretty steep learning curve. Your time would probably be better spent doing your primary job (Real Estate) than learning Photoshop.