Best wide-angle lens for real estate photography.
Learn more about zoom and prime lenses in real estate photography, as well as the optimal focal length and aperture to capture stunning shots.
Real estate photography is all about helping potential buyers visualize the home and property, and the best way to show off every nook and corner is to capture the whole picture with a wide-angle lens. Let’s dive into some of the best types of lenses for the job.
Considerations when choosing a wide-angle lens for real estate photography.
The first thing to consider when shopping for a new lens is whether you’ll want a prime or zoom lens.
Prime lenses
A prime lens has a fixed focal length, which offers superb sharpness and better images than a zoom lens. However, you might need a wider lens to capture the whole shot at some properties, in which case you’ll need multiple lenses — something that can quickly get very expensive.
Zoom lenses
A zoom lens has a wide range of focal lengths, which offers extreme versatility with your photos. This versatility means that you can capture the best photos in rooms of all different sizes, as well as sweeping outdoor shots to highlight the rest of the property. For this reason, zoom lenses tend to be the most popular in real estate photography.
How to select the right wide-angle lens for real estate photography.
Choosing between a zoom and prime lens isn’t the only factor to consider. You’ll also want to pay close attention to both focal length and the aperture setting.
- As a general rule for focal length, anything between 12mm and 35mm will provide good photos.
- If you can, opt for a lens in the 22–24mm range, which provides an even balance of foreground and background in your photos.
- Avoid any angle that’s too wide, such as 10mm — this will create too much foreground and not enough background, resulting in image distortion.
- Choose an aperture setting in the f/8–f/11 range. That will put everything in the photo in focus, to help showcase the details.
Discover additional photography tips and techniques you can use to improve your skills.
And explore everything you can do with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to create stunning home and property photos.