Originally posted by shaolen 
So a little while ago I was looking for a wide angle lens I could do real estate photo with. I had my eye on the DA 15mm Limited for it's size, low distortion and build quality. The one thing holding me back was the thought that it might not be wide enough. I got some advice from a member here on the forums that showed me that real estate photography isn't about getting everything in the room in the shot but to let people feel what it's like to be in that room. So I went ahead and got the DA 15mm Limited and I'm happy to say the results (atleast to my eye) turned out very good. I'm much happier with this lens than I would've with the next option (sigma 10-20). The 15mm Limited is an absolute joy to use. Take a look at my shots and let me know what you think. I'm just starting out in this field so any feedback is helpful.
Hi Shaolen! Sorry I didn't respond before. I just saw your private message now. Not sure how I missed it before.
The technical issues people have already mentioned are dead-on. Most of these are a little heavy on the flat HDR feel. It's okay to blow out light sources and lose details in the deepest shadows. For in-camera HDR scale back the setting. (My K-r has like 4 HDR settings. I never go above the medium one, and only rarely that high.) While you can add contrast back in later (Lightroom is excellent for this), you can't easily remove the halo effect around high contrast transitions.
Some shots are definitely too dark. Again, this is typical of in-camera HDR. It just assumes that what you want to see is in the highlights. But with real estate the highlights are almost always windows and when the view is just as important as the interior being illuminated by it I would never use in-camera HDR.
All of that said, GREAT WORK! Glad to hear you liked my advice, and glad the 15mm is treating you well. Your compositions are great, and you definitely understand what I was saying about capturing the feel of being there, rather than just trying to cram everything into the shot. (For those who weren't there for the discussion before this is true regardless of the size of the property; small apartments still need to convey a feeling, and the only feeling you get from squeezing into the most distant corner and shooting at 10mm is "flat and boring". Though when you're shooting empty rooms there isn't much you can do anyway.)
Well done! I think the only composition critique I could offer is more of just a question since I wasn't there to frame the shot myself. The shot of the front room, with a view of the staircase and out the back door, feels like you could have framed from further back to camera left, capturing a little bit more of the front room without sacrificing the view out the back door.
Oh, and one more little nitpick: Watch out for your own reflection, especially in bathrooms. There are odd psychological effects to barely seeing (or even only subconsciously/subliminally seeing) some stranger in the home. But for the sake of this post it's actually kind of fun to see you there. I mentioned in that other thread that I edit for another photographer. I've done over 5,000 shots for him so far. I'm compiling a folder of shots of him while shooting, "Dave's Cameo Appearances". I look forward to surprising him with a little slideshow of them after a while, because he probably didn't even know he was there in even half of them.
Thanks for the heads-up about the thread!
- Jon
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