gus
Posts: 381
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 19 Jun 2007
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Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 12:35 GMT
updated: 25 Jun 2008 at 12:35 GMT
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I have landed my first residential assignment and was wondering if you experienced guys have some tips for a rookie? I've done loads of limos and informal panos, but nothing really architectural.
I'ts a 9 bedroom mansion (on the market for £5m  )with an indoor pool and large gardens.
I will be using a D70s, 10.5mm FE, NN3, manfrotto tripod, remote release and perhaps my SB600 flash remotely triggered for dark corners.
The idea is to take bracketed (RAW) shots, and I'll try to take some nadirs without the tripod to practise the viepoint correction on PTgui which I've been meaning to do for a while.
All the lights on, avoid long tripod shadows, reflections in the mirrors and marble worktops, and try not to bring mud onto the carpets .LOL
Anything else to add?
Thanks in advance, gus
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 692
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 13:52 GMT
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Gus
I work out of the landry rooms, the washer & dry make good work "desks"
Take a spare battery and the charger and plug it in while you're shooting so you'll know you have a charged battery just in case.
Make sure the memory card is empty and take a backup card
Use a dust brush on the lens everytime you move to a new room
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
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Paul Thomas
Posts: 35
Location: East Sussex, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 Nov 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 15:47 GMT
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Congratulations on landing the residential job and good luck with the shoot. £5m! Phew! Nice place to start with.
Let us know when you've got the pano's available so we can all have a look around 
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Steven Scott
Posts: 38
Location: Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, United States
Registered: 13 Mar 2008
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 19:53 GMT
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Get a DOG in the a shot. People love to see a dog .... or a cat. Just kidding !!
Good luck. Take notes and share with us your workflow.
steve
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spyboy
Posts: 239
Location: New Hampton, NH, United States
Registered: 7 Oct 2006
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 21:01 GMT
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Make sure you set your tripod to the right height. I set mine to eye level for me (I'm 6' tall) and this pano came out a bit high I think.
www.kmembrydesign.com/flash.html
You might want to shoot bracketed (HDR) to get multiple exposures so you can pull back in a blown out window.
Just don't do the HDR cartoonish look that everyone does, I think they look horrible. Real HDR should be very subtle, just to pull a little detail back from the shadows or to recover a window.
You should read up on this great blog (Photography for Real Estate) photographyforrealestate.net/
I bought his pdf book, definintely worthwhile, gives alot of tips and techniques, and do's and dont's.
One thing to remember, make sure your verticals are vertical and your horizontals are horizontal. You can't always fix that while shooting, but you must make sure it's fixed afterwards before the client sees it.
The Photography for Real Estate flickr group is also a great source of inspiration...
www.flickr.com/groups/photographyforrealestate/
Hope this helps. I'm still learning these techniques myself, I need to use my house as a test house before I go out and shoot real estate.
Kirk
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marcus newey
Posts: 127
Location: somerset, United Kingdom
Registered: 23 Oct 2005
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 21:45 GMT
updated: 25 Jun 2008 at 21:54 GMT
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Good advice to think about camera height, though I wouldn't go too low for a VR compared to a straight RE shot.
Here's some discussion on the topic:
www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=44315269%40N00&q=%22camera+height%22&m=discuss
Also try to find interesting viewpoints that have some separate points of interest as you rotate. The center of the room isn't necesarily the best place to set up.
I don't shoot VR's commercially at the moment but here's a recent test shot.
www.threesixtyvr.co.uk/tours/percival/percival.ht...
Same set up as you. Three shots at +/-1.3ev, blended with Enfuse for lightroom and stitched with PTGui. [doh, I forgot the nadir, had to use a mirror ball]
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iam360Texas
Posts: 62
Location: Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Registered: 12 Jul 2006
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 21:53 GMT
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Actually, The centerline of our fisheye lens is about 3' or 1 meter above the ground/floor elevation line. Using a fisheye lens that captures the full lot.. there is no need to look through the view finder at your particular eye level.
The higher the centerline of the fisheye lens.. the smaller the tripod foot print (nadir and zenith).
what works for us .. might well work for y'all too.
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softboot
Posts: 162
Location:
Registered: 2 Oct 2006
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 25 Jun 2008 at 21:58 GMT
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Sounds great.
How did ya land a job like that, thru word of mouth, advert or what?
A good first commercial project so take your time, dont be too nervous, and good luck !
(Hope your not too cheap and you end up busting a gut, been there, done it!)
Cheers, John G.
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gus
Posts: 381
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 19 Jun 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 6:59 GMT
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Some good tips thanks!
John, I came across the estate agency from an email I received from the EPEX exhibition, which was an exhibition for high end properties. Emailed the guy with a relatively cheap price, purely to get the beautiful property on my portfolio. Turns out he sells £1m+ properties nationally and internationally , and has been keen on exploring implementing 360°'s to reduce the number of timewasters that view properties and dislike features of the house that would have been detected on a 360° prior to a futile visit.
Hopefully it's the start of something bigger  Will let you know how it goes.....
gus
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Paul Thomas
Posts: 35
Location: East Sussex, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 Nov 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 11:14 GMT
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Sounds like a good lead and potential opportunity then Gus. Yell if you need anyone to carry your tripod for those tropical properties 
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softboot
Posts: 162
Location:
Registered: 2 Oct 2006
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 17:44 GMT
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Sounds brilliant, a real good start. Yes, shout if ya need help down Essex way, good luck. Be sure to post your results, and fingers crossed you get some more out of it,
John G.
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softboot
Posts: 162
Location:
Registered: 2 Oct 2006
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 17:46 GMT
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Oh, out of interest how many rooms are you doing and how long do you expect it to take, the shooting, stitching, ett etc,
Cheers, John G.
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Paddy2a
Posts: 34
Location: Ile Rousse - Corsica, France
Registered: 17 Oct 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 17:57 GMT
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Hi guys,
I would suggest to bracket raw and certainly try different angles of each room. Give them something to look at close and far from the camera. I try to shoot the 4 corners of a room and the center to lead them on the the other rooms (virtual tours). I noticed that on spot the panos I thought were good ...were not. When you bring them back home...one of the other shoots are even better...even so if you have different tripod heights. Take as much as you can....it's only digital...so who cares...for a first residential job....shoot...shoot and shoot until you hate the place.
Bravo and good luck.
Paddy
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gus
Posts: 381
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 19 Jun 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 21:40 GMT
updated: 26 Jun 2008 at 21:47 GMT
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softboot said: Oh, out of interest how many rooms are you doing and how long do you expect it to take, the shooting, stitching, ett etc,
Cheers, John G.
The property has 9 beds, an indoor pool, huge gardens and reception rooms to match. I envisage being there for 2-3 hours and capturing as much as I can in that time. Panos and stills.
At the very least I'll have 2 beds, 2 baths, pool, kitchen, living and garden.
I have my post-shooting workflow fairly streamlined, so I dont think I'll spend more than 5 hours creating the movies, and then hand these over to our programmer who will create a FPP launch page.
Actually, the property can be seen on the following youtube clip--fastforward to 1m50s in the movie:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvICRD2F90g
gus
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Paul Thomas
Posts: 35
Location: East Sussex, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 Nov 2007
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Re: Tips for my first residential job?
Posted: 26 Jun 2008 at 22:05 GMT
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Just had a look at the You Tube clip. What a huge place and well done in bagging the assignment first time out. No pressure to get it right first time then!
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