Virtual Tour for Real Estate - best equipment?
Dia
Registered Users Posts: 9 Beginner grinner
I've been asked by one of my clients if I would offer virtual tours as part of my services. I have been shooting real estate for a couple years now & this is the first time someone has approached me. It seems that many of the larger agencies are swinging back around to the 360 tours on their websites.
I fear if I don't add this service - I may lose my existing clients to another photographer who does. The RE photography has been my consistent year round work during slow seasons here.
Before I commit to adding this - what should I know?
What additional equipment do I need? Any additional software? I use smugmug as my host - can I upload the 360 images there?
Anything else I missed?
thank you!
p.s. - thought I should add that I use a Mac
I fear if I don't add this service - I may lose my existing clients to another photographer who does. The RE photography has been my consistent year round work during slow seasons here.
Before I commit to adding this - what should I know?
What additional equipment do I need? Any additional software? I use smugmug as my host - can I upload the 360 images there?
Anything else I missed?
thank you!
p.s. - thought I should add that I use a Mac
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Comments
What image quality does your client expect?
Doe the real estate firm have their own website and server (on which to install new capabilities)?
How much time per virtual tour can you afford to spend? (Imagine a "typical" house for your market.)
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
What image quality does your client expect? -- I'm sending you a link through dgrin messaging (want to keep it private)
Doe the real estate firm have their own website and server (on which to install new capabilities)? --- I asked & they said they do.
How much time per virtual tour can you afford to spend? (Imagine a "typical" house for your market.) --- by adding the virtual tours I increase my base price (just stills) by 250% Right now there is only one other photographer (that I'm aware of) that is offering this service. I realize there is a learning curve to this & it will take me longer at first. I guess if I had to spend an hour or so extra in editing and an hour extra shooting, it would be more than worth it. The homes will already be lit and staged for the stills - so it's really just the additional shooting & editing.
What I see is a real estate site that links to a second site where the 360 degree images are hosted and shared. The images are small but reasonably high quality. In particular they appear to have been stitched panoramas and they use some sort of simple, very diffused, lighting that provides very even illumination of the scene.
The packages offered by "http://www.voyager360.com" and similar are certainly a practical and fairly fast way to achieve your goals. Additional lighting might be required and yes, there is definitely a learning curve to the process. The cost is a consideration that you must make but if there is a definite payback then it's a good investment.
I suggest that you explore local resources through their website provider in order to set up the actual site linkage required to host the images and to show how to link the images. It's not too hard and the virtual production kits may have suggestions to explore as well.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Lighting for video is potentially much more difficult than lighting for stitched panoramas. If you do a full 360 degrees in video, lights will almost certainly be visible and often a problem. If you are doing stills with available light now it would be similar but if you are adding light, which I strongly recommend, then those additional lights will be difficult to incorporate into the scene during the pan.
Be sure your friend can demonstrate their concept before you take this advice.
If you can work out the lighting then video is certainly doable and relatively easy to incorporate into a website. If you have a SmugMug account you can even host from there.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
I'm not sure but I believe that the virtual tour, 360 panorama, needs some additional code that is easier to insert on the customer's dedicated server. Links to the actual images might be able to be served from SmugMug but I would prefer to keep those local to the same customer server as well.
It would be best to check with their Internet Service Provider (ISP) to get their opinion. Not all ISPs can provide the necessary code.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Here is a solution that may help you. I do real estate photography as well and have considered doing this. It comes with the software and I think they even host the tour for you.
http://www.0-360.com/ "The fastest, easiest virtual tour system on the planet!™"
Thank you - I may try this as a rental & see how it works for me.
No problem. If you try it out.... come back and let us know how it worked out.