A Beginner’s Guide to Better Property Photography When Selling Your Home
This blog is quite a diversion from my usual landscape photography, but many of you who have an interest in photography will also be homeowners, and at some point you are likely to sell your own home. As I have been busy with a run of property photography and estate agent photography jobs recently, it felt like a good time to share some practical tips from that side of my work. Even if you can't justify booking a professional property photographer, understanding the basics will help you do a better job yourself – and, in many cases, better than the rushed phone snaps some estate agents still rely on.
When you put your home on the market, the first viewing usually happens on a screen, not at your front door. Good photos will not magically sell a bad house, but they will make sure you are not losing out on viewings before people have even read the description.
This guide is written with homeowners in mind: people who might use a phone or a simple camera, but still care about doing the job properly. Along the way, you will also see what a professional property photographer adds – things like perspective correction, colour correction, window blending and careful removal of distractions – so you can decide when it is worth bringing someone in.
1. Start with preparation, not the camera
The biggest improvement you can make is probably before you even pick up your camera.
Clear surfaces where possible: kitchen worktops, coffee tables, bedside tables. Leave one or two well‑chosen items rather than a line of bottles and gadgets.
Hide obvious distractions: bins, laundry baskets, pet bowls, cleaning products, phone chargers and cables, coats on the back of doors.
Make the beds properly, straighten cushions and throws, and line up chairs and stools.
Open curtains and blinds fully; and clean the windows.
In bathrooms, put the loo lid down, remove as many toiletries as you can, and the loo brush, and hang one simple towel.
Think of it as setting a stage. You are not trying to pretend you live in a show home, but you want buyers to see space and light, not your clutter.
2. Choose the best time for light
Light makes or breaks property photos.
For interiors, aim for daytime when the room is naturally bright but not with direct, harsh sun blasting through the windows. Overcast but bright is often fine and can be easier to photograph well.
For exteriors, sunny days are best, and try to shoot when the front of the house is in light rather than deep in shadow. If you can, avoid shooting straight into a low sun.
Turn on practical interior lights if they add warmth, but be aware they can introduce orange colour casts, especially mixed with cool daylight. If the room already looks bright and clean with lights off, you can leave them off.
A professional doing estate agent photography will often photograph a property at a specific time to catch the best light on the front, or return at dusk for a “twilight” exterior if that suits the listing. For a one‑off homeowner shoot, just avoiding the worst light already puts you ahead.
3. Phone or camera? Use what you have, properly
If you have a decent smartphone and you are willing to take a bit of care, you can get respectable results.
On a phone:
Use the main wide lens, not the ultra‑wide if it makes the room look wildly stretched or distorted.
Turn on the grid lines in your camera app to help you keep walls vertical and, if shooting straight on to a wall, keep that wall horizontal.
Clean the lens with a soft cloth; smears can destroy contrast and sharpness.
Tap to focus on something mid‑distance in the room, then slide to adjust exposure so the room is not too dark, even if that means the window view is a bit bright.
Avoid heavy portrait or other filters; they are usually designed for faces, not rooms.
On a camera:
A basic DSLR or mirrorless with a sensible wide‑angle lens (for example, the equivalent of 16–24mm on full frame) is enough.
Use a tripod if you have one. It lets you use lower ISO and slower shutter speeds, which keeps the image cleaner and sharper.
Shoot at a mid‑aperture such as around f/8, where your lens is usually at its best and the whole room will be in focus, plus it lets in more light than smaller apertures.
Keep ISO as low as you reasonably can to avoid noise, but it's fine to put it up to around 1000 if that helps to give you a good exposure.
A professional property photographer will normally use specific wide‑angle lenses, sturdy tripods, and multiple exposures per frame. That helps control distortion, noise, and dynamic range in ways that are tricky to match with a single handheld shot.
4. Composition: where to stand and how to frame
Most of the “professional look” in property photography comes from simple composition and keeping lines straight.
Camera height and keeping things straight
Aim to hold the camera at about chest height for most rooms. This helps furniture and worktops look natural and stops you seeing too much ceiling.
Keep the camera level. Avoid tilting it up or down; that is what makes vertical lines lean in or fall back. Use the grid or level indicator in your camera or phone if it has one.
Before you tap the shutter, check the edges of the frame: are there obvious distractions? are door frames and walls as upright as you can get them?
A professional will also correct any remaining perspective issues in software so that verticals are properly vertical, which gives that very “clean” feel. You can do a simple version of this later in many editing apps.
Typical room angles that work
In each important room (kitchen, living room, main bedrooms):
Take a photo from the two best corners, looking across the room to show as much of the space as feels natural. If you have a good window view or patio doors, make sure one of the angles shows this off.
Take another from near the doorway, especially if it helps link spaces (for example, a kitchen flowing into a dining room).
If a window has a particularly good view – (not unusual where I work in Devon!), with sea or countryside outside – take one “straight on” shot to feature that view, keeping the window central and level.
Try not to stand so far back with a very wide lens that everything looks stretched and the room appears twice its real size. Buyers will notice the mismatch the moment they walk in.
5. Exposures and basic settings
You do not need to dive too deep into technical settings, but a few basics help.
On a phone:
Turn off the flash; it tends to create harsh reflections and odd shadows in rooms.
If your phone offers an HDR mode, use it if it gives a more balanced result between bright windows and darker interiors, but turn it off again if it starts to look too artificial.
Take more than one photo of each angle, slightly adjusting your exposure by tapping different areas of the room, then pick the best later.
On a camera (with a tripod if possible):
Us Aperture priority and set your aperture to around f/8.
Set ISO to 400-800 indoors if your camera can handle it without too much noise, higher if you absolutely need to as getting a well exposed image is more important than a little bit of noise.
Let the camera choose the shutter speed if you are on a tripod, or keep an eye that it does not drop so low that your hand‑held shots blur (as a rough guide, try to stay at 1/50s or faster when hand‑holding).
If you are comfortable, you can bracket exposures (for example, one normal, one darker, one lighter) to later blend interior and window detail. Many cameras can do this automatically.
Professionals offering estate agent photography will almost always bracket exposures for key rooms and then blend them by hand or using controlled techniques. This is how they keep detail both inside and outside the windows without the room looking flat or fake.
6. Colour, windows and distractions: what a pro fixes
This is where the difference between a “good attempt” and a professional property photography set really starts to show.
Colour and white balance
Mixed light sources (daylight plus lamps, or different types of bulbs) can make parts of a room look very warm and others very cool. A professional will:
Correct overall white balance so white walls look neutral rather than yellow or blue.
Tidy up strong colour casts from lamps, small windows with green gardens outside, or coloured feature walls.
Aim for a consistent colour feel across the whole set, so flipping through the images feels natural.
On a phone or basic editor, you can:
Use the “temperature” and “tint” sliders to nudge the image towards a more neutral look.
Avoid pushing saturation too far; small adjustments usually look better and more believable.
Windows and brightness
You may find that if you expose for the room, the view outside the window becomes a white blur, and if you expose for the view, the room turns into a cave. As a pro, it is common to:
Take several exposures and manually blend them so the room is bright and the view is still visible (window blending).
Some may use off‑camera flash in subtle ways to balance interior and exterior light without it looking “flashed” (however I find this too slow and difficult to make look natural and so don't do it)
As a beginner, if you are shooting simply:
Prioritise a bright, inviting room over a perfect window view. A blown‑out but soft window is better than a dark, dingy room.
If your phone or camera’s HDR mode does a decent job, use that to tame the brightness outside of the window. Taking photos on a dull but bright day means more of the exterior view will be retained than on a very sunny day.
Removing distractions
In post‑processing, a professional will often remove or minimise:
Loose wires, chargers, and plugs.
Small wall marks, minor scuffs on floors, and stray items left in shot.
Strong reflections of the photographer, tripod, or clutter in shiny surfaces when it is reasonable to do so.
You can use simple “healing” tools in many apps to remove the worst small distractions: a bright plug socket in the middle of a clean wall, a hanging cable, or a tiny patch on the carpet. Just be careful not to mis‑represent anything structural or important.
7. Quick editing checklist
Once you have your images, run through a simple edit on each chosen frame:
Straighten and correct horizons and verticals as best you can.
Crop slightly to remove dead space or awkward edges (for example, half of a doorframe that adds nothing).
Adjust exposure, contrast, and shadows so the room feels light and open but not washed out.
Tidy up colour using white balance tools so things which are meant to be white look reasonably white.
Remove obvious distractions if your software allows you to do it seamlessly and you are comfortable doing so.
If the image starts to look like a computer rendering rather than a real room, you have probably gone too far.
8. When it is worth hiring a professional
You can absolutely improve on a lot of the rushed, uneven photos that sometimes get uploaded by busy estate agents with a phone. For some homes, that might be all you need.
There are situations, though, where a professional property photographer (such as myself across Devon and the South West!) is likely to make a noticeable difference:
Small, dark, or awkward rooms where light and composition are tricky.
Period properties or cottages with strong character that deserve careful handling.
High‑value homes where better images can directly support a stronger marketing push.
Holiday lets and Airbnbs where photos will drive bookings for years, not just weeks.
Homes with standout coastal or countryside views that need careful balancing of interior and exterior light, and the use of a drone to make the most of those views.
A professional will bring:
Specialist lenses and lighting, a controlled workflow, and experience in handling awkward spaces.
Careful perspective correction, clean verticals, and consistent colour across the full set.
Window blending, removal of colour casts, and thoughtful retouching that keeps the space honest but shows it at its best.
The ability to work quickly and reliably, so the whole job is done in a short visit rather than over several attempts.
If you are unsure, one option is to have a go yourself first, then compare your results with examples from local estate agents websites. If you can see a clear gap – especially for a home that is an important sale for you – it may be worth the investment.
Final words
All too often, estate agent listings are let down by poor, rushed photos, which is a shame given the work that goes into getting a home ready to market. Using your own house as a test ground for this kind of photography not only helps you build your skills in a different situation, but also means that next time you do sell, you’ll be in a much better position to create your own, potentially stronger set of images, even if you can't justify bringing in a professional.
Want help with your landscape photography?
If you'd like help with your landscape photography, why not check out my 5* rated 1‑2‑1 and residential photography workshops here in Devon.
About Gary Holpin Photography
As a professional photographer based in Devon, my journey began along the stunning South West Coast Path. Disappointed with my initial attempts to capture its beauty, I embarked on a second 630-mile journey, this time dedicated to mastering photography. Today, I'm a nationally acclaimed photographer with award-winning landscape photos.
I specialize in providing top-notch property photography, business photography, and drone photography services to businesses across the South West. Additionally, I offer comprehensive photography training courses tailored for both businesses and individuals. Whether you're looking to enhance your corporate image or improve your personal photography skills, my training programs are designed to help you capture stunning images.
As an award-winning and widely published photographer, I frequently share my passion for photography and Devon through engaging talks at local camera clubs and community groups. My expertise spans the entire South West region, ensuring that clients from Devon, Dorset & Somerset benefit from high-quality photography services and training.
