Best Camera/wide angled lens

F

ferrotty

Messages
4
Name
chris
Edit My Images
Yes
Hello all my first post :wave: and I would like to ask what would be the best camera and wide angled lens to buy for specifically doing shots of a villa inside and out to put on a rental website, looking for a camera in the price range of approx £300 and the best wide angled lens.
 
Best and Budget aren't natural bedfellows.

A few questions..
- how comfortable are you getting away from automatic point-and-shoot modes?
- have you got an example of the style you'd like to emulate or are inspired by?
- is this a one-off or are there multiple villas to photograph?
- have you considered paying a professional?
 
First I would like to move up from a compact to a bridge camera to get a bit more adventurous in my picture taking, no particular style I'm looking at, the shots of the villa are mine as I'm renting it out now myself having over the last few years given it to Solmar Villas for a fee so I need to get the best shots I can to put on my rental websites, I have considered a professional but was going to upgrade my camera anyway so was going to kill two birds with one stone.
 
we seem to be getting a lot of estate agent questions of late :thinking:

in that budget i'd be looking at a compact or bridge camera with a W/A adaptor - there's no point in buying lots of expensive gear if you don't know how to use it

also as Alistair notes it might be cheaper to pay a pro to do it (certainly better value if you are relying on the shots to sell the house)
 
I'd suggest trying it with your compact. Just to test the focal length, you'll get enough information from that to know how wide/long you need a lens to be.
 
if you are determine to upgrade I'd get an entry level DSLR (like the canon 600D although Pentax, Nikon, Panasonic, or Olympus would be equally suitable) and the kit lens - you don't want to be using a really wide angle like a 10-20 as you'll get a shed load of distortion and converging verticals
 
big soft moose said:
if you are determine to upgrade I'd get an entry level DSLR (like the canon 600D although Pentax, Nikon, Panasonic, or Olympus would be equally suitable) and the kit lens - you don't want to be using a really wide angle like a 10-20 as you'll get a shed load of distortion and converging verticals
Click to expand...

Eh? What lenses have you been using?

Lenses in the 10-20mm type range tend to be quite well corrected, better corrected than a "kit" lens in the 17-50 or 24-70mm type range so you really shouldn't be getting anything like a shed load of distortion - you should be getting very little.

Converging verticals are a product of perspective. Look through the VF and tilt the camera up / down / level and you'll see what the image is going to be like.
 
you try taking a picture of a room at 10mm - then see if it looks like a representation that would make you want to buy/rent the property

(i'm using the tokina 11-16 f2.8 although I also own a sigma 10-20 , both are excellent lenses but I wouldn't use either for estate agency photos)
 
Compact with a fixed 24mm equivalent or a zoom going that wide should be a fine compromise (there will always be a compromise). Lighting (judging & managing it) is more important than the camera, even more crucially for the inside work where there's likely to be a range from shady room corners to the glare of windows ... if you want it to look convincing.
 
big soft moose said:
you try taking a picture of a room at 10mm - then see if it looks like a representation that would make you want to buy/rent the property

(i'm using the tokina 11-16 f2.8 although I also own a sigma 10-20 , both are excellent lenses but I wouldn't use either for estate agency photos)
Click to expand...

Well, you've moved the goal posts. What you originally said was that a lens in the 10-20mm range would give a shed load of distortion and converging verticals and that is obviously not correct in fact when set to 18mm a wide angle lens will give significanmtly less distortion than a kit lens.

There are plenty of technical lens reviews that show show lens performance / distortion and they will confirm that your average modern wide angle produces a significantly less distortion than your average 17-50 or 24-70mm kit lens.

As to what "look" you want... that's a different thing to distortion and converging verticals caused by perspective and tilting the camera. I've taken a shed load of internal images at 12mm on FF so I know what I'm talking about. Wide angle distortion?... Nupe, not an issue.
 
ive not moved the goal posts at all , I was answering the original question - I have absolutely zero interest in tech spec and pixel peeping, as I am more interested in actually taking photos than in shooting charts and comparing lenses

In my experience anything wide than about 16mm and you get issues with straight things not appearing straight - windows and doors being a particular issue for the sorts of shot the OP wants.

For what the OP wants the absolutely best option is to pay a pro who does this stuff for a living (it will be a business expense deductible from the rental income before tax), if he's set on doing it himself however the point remains that he'll get perfectly acceptable shots from a kit lens and there is zero point in buying a wide angle for this kind of work.

should he have money to burn and wish to buy a better lens than the kit , my suggestion would be something like the 17-55 f2.8 rather than buying a wide angle.
 
Your £300 would be better spent getting a professional to shoot the villa for you.

I shoot commercial interiors and architecture and there is quite a bit to do, I wrote a brief thing on shooting interiors for another forum I'm on; amongst other things to consider are:

High dynamic range, from the darkest corners to the brightest lights is more than a dslr can manage to photograph in one frame

Mixed white balance. The designer will want the colours of the wallpaper, furniture, cushions etc to be spot on accurate. One room can have several different colour temperatures, the table light, the chandalier, the downlighters, natural ambient light, they'll all be a different colour temperature. Get it wrong and you'll have all sorts of colour casts going on, stuff won't be represented in the right colour.

Angles / perspective. To show a room off to its full potential the temptation is to shoot with a really really wide angle lens. Then you find none of the verticals in the shot are straight, walls are bending inwards, verticals aren't vertical any more etc.

Getting enough light onto the scene, have you got portable studio flash to light it up? If so how are you going to shape the light to do what you want it to do?

Reflections. You don't want to appear in shot, nor does your camera, or light source.

As such in my opinion you'd be better placed spending the money on a pro and letting him or her think about all these different aspects.
 
Thanks I take all on board, the reason I was leaning away from a professional is that things change over the year and I may want to change the furnishings each year and or modify rooms and exterior so wouldn't be one off photo's so wouldn't want the added cost each year.
 
ferrotty said:
Thanks I take all on board, the reason I was leaning away from a professional is that things change over the year and I may want to change the furnishings each year and or modify rooms and exterior so wouldn't be one off photo's so wouldn't want the added cost each year.
Click to expand...

Good post from Mark M. Agreee 100%. Most estate agents use a basic compact and have no photographic skills, and often the results are predictably terrible, but taking things up from that requires a lot more than a decent camera and a wide lens.
 
If it were me, i'd probably get a Canon 350D and a Sigma 10-20mm. Don't be put off by the lack of mega pixels or age of the camera. It's capable of producing very high quality images.
It may be worth getting a cheap tripod and using the self-timer on the camera to help avoid camera shake.
 
fatmarley said:
If it were me, i'd probably get a Canon 350D and a Sigma 10-20mm. Don't be put off by the lack of mega pixels or age of the camera. It's capable of producing very high quality images.
It may be worth getting a cheap tripod and using the self-timer on the camera to help avoid camera shake.
Click to expand...

I would not be getting a cheap tripod because that leads to wonky photos.
You will need a flash, or more likely flashes. Lighting is important
Software is mega important, particularly if you screwed up with tripod.
350D + 10-20 will just about do the job. Just, for web. Low dynamic range may kill it, so better get 5D and 17-40.
I do quite a lot of this commercially btw.

or you could just hire someone for a fraction of cost and save the learning curve.
 
daugirdas said:
I would not be getting a cheap tripod because that leads to wonky photos.
You will need a flash, or more likely flashes. Lighting is important
Software is mega important, particularly if you screwed up with tripod.
350D + 10-20 will just about do the job. Just, for web. Low dynamic range may kill it, so better get 5D and 17-40.
I do quite a lot of this commercially btw.

or you could just hire someone for a fraction of cost and save the learning curve.
Click to expand...

I've got a cheap tripod and never had wonky photos. It's solid as a rock (Centon PV23).

For lighting, couldn't he just remove any lampshades, get a high wattage bulb and use the camera flash to fill in?
 
big soft moose said:
ive not moved the goal posts at all , I was answering the original question - I have absolutely zero interest in tech spec and pixel peeping, as I am more interested in actually taking photos than in shooting charts and comparing lenses In my experience anything wide than about 16mm and you get issues with straight things not appearing straight - windows and doors being a particular issue for the sorts of shot the OP wants. For what the OP wants the absolutely best option is to pay a pro who does this stuff for a living (it will be a business expense deductible from the rental income before tax), if he's set on doing it himself however the point remains that he'll get perfectly acceptable shots from a kit lens and there is zero point in buying a wide angle for this kind of work. should he have money to burn and wish to buy a better lens than the kit , my suggestion would be something like the 17-55 f2.8 rather than buying a wide angle.
Click to expand...

Stand on a central axis (maybe a few steps up a step ladder) and you want get any straight lines not appearing straight, they'll be near perfect.
 
I usually use a Sigma 12-24 (on FF) for interiors and while it does give fairly extreme converging perspective, distortion is noticeably absent. I was asked to do a few on our most recent trip and only had my compacts so I used the XF-1 at its widest (24mm 35mm equivalent FoV). Not really wide enough to get it all in but enough to keep us in coffee for another few years! Even that has very little detectable distortion (although converging perspective [being due to the laws of Physics] is certainly there!) Correcting the convergence could be seen as misrepresenting the available space (at least in terms of UK estate agency usage) so may be better avoided.
 
big soft moose said:
ive not moved the goal posts at all , I was answering the original question - I have absolutely zero interest in tech spec and pixel peeping, as I am more interested in actually taking photos than in shooting charts and comparing lenses
Click to expand...

Ok.

All I was concerned about was you stating that wide angle lenses give, in your words "a shed load of distortion and converging verticals" as that is simply a wildly incorrect statement and we don't want to be giving incorrect info to any op.
 
Nod said:
I usually use a Sigma 12-24 (on FF) for interiors and while it does give fairly extreme converging perspective, distortion is noticeably absent.
Click to expand...

If you're shooting a whole room whilst crouching in the corner you'll get an extreme perspective but it'll be the only way of shooting the whole room in one shot if that's what you want to do.

If you want to shoot something like a oven, hob + extraction hood and fit it all in from 4ft away or less (many kitchens are quite narrow) a wide angle is a good option, in fact apart from stitching it's your only option.
 
Nod said:
I usually use a Sigma 12-24 (on FF) for interiors and while it does give fairly extreme converging perspective, distortion is noticeably absent. I was asked to do a few on our most recent trip and only had my compacts so I used the XF-1 at its widest (24mm 35mm equivalent FoV). Not really wide enough to get it all in but enough to keep us in coffee for another few years! Even that has very little detectable distortion (although converging perspective [being due to the laws of Physics] is certainly there!) Correcting the convergence could be seen as misrepresenting the available space (at least in terms of UK estate agency usage) so may be better avoided.
Click to expand...

16-20mm range is the sweetspot for interiors. 12-14 is for tight spaces like small bathrooms.
 
The only real issue with using super-wides for interiors is that they can make smaller rooms look much more spacious than they actually are, and may therefore show a misrepresentation.

IMHO it's important to keep verticals vertical, and that's easily done by keeping the camera dead level. This can sometimes be restrictive though so an alternative, and the method I tend to use, is to correct in post processing. Very easily done, and looks fine so long as you don't overdo it and make things look unnatural.

There will probably be some barrel distortion visible towards the edges, though a good super-wide zoom will have a lot less than a standard range zoom at similar focal lengths. Either way, easily corrected in any number of post-processing programmes. Ditto vignetting and CA.

The major photographic challenge is lighting, as Mark M points out. I use several flash guns to balance with daylight through windows, lift dingy corners, push extra light through dark doorways, and so on. Always trying to make the room look attractive yet natural.
 
When I'm doing the interior shots, it's almost always a smallish room and I try to wedge myself as far back into a corner as possible (standing). To get as much of the room in as possible, I tend to be at the short end of the 12-24's range but usually zoom out a bit so the corners of the room at the other ends of the corner I'm wedged into are at the edge (or just out of) the shot. Since the person I'm doing them for specifically wants as much as possible in the shot, that's what's needed! Leaving the perspective uncorrected shows that a wide angle's been used (or does to most people!) and since I'm on holiday when I do them, I don't have access to PS (at least not with the English labels!) to do anything major with them. They get a quick check and resize in PSE (and maybe a tweak to bring the apparent inside lighting up a touch while allowing the view through the window to show). Since I'm not a pro and I'm on holiday, I don't have any lighting beyond on camera flash and try to avoid that, using higher ISOs when necessary.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top