Here is the difference between using a cell phone photo and hiring a pro (like us). This is an actual client’s photo they used for promotions before they brought me in.
A few differences include the angle, the perspective/straight lines and the brightness/no blown out highlights.
In the professional photo, even though it is still a wide angle shot and there is some distortion, due to being in close quarters, we are able to correct the perspective so that vertical lines are actually straight upside down, vs in the top photo, where the window is slanted and distorted.
Shooting interiors during the day can be challenging because of the difference in brightness between the inside and the outside. Shooting this on a cell phone, though perhaps better with a phone’s HDR mode enabled, is not going to do justice to the range of highlights and shadows. The professional shot here is an HDR composite of 3-5 images at different exposures, so that we can capture detail in all areas, and then carefully put together so that it looks natural and realistic.
Additionally, although phone cameras are generally wide angle, frequently they are not actually wide angle enough to capture the actual feeling of the space. For instance, in this case, the room is very small, so a phone would not be able to capture enough of the room to give a realistic perspective of the space.
In real estate photography, the shots that really give you an understanding of what the space is will be from an angle where you can see at least three walls, and preferably from a corner. this allows you to see the depth and the breadth of the space simultaneously. In the top photo, you only can see 2 walls/1 corner. This means that you have no idea if the photographer was standing in the middle of the room or at the edge, and therefore there is no sense of how the space feels. Whereas in the bottom photo, you can see just enough of the wall on the left to gather that the photographer is right next to the corner and that you are seeing the whole room.
