September 17, 2013

  • Real Estate Photography – Crop Sensor versus Full-Frame

      A friend recently asked about full-frame versus crop-sensor with respect to real estate photography. The cameras in question- The Nikon D800 with the Nikon 18-35 G, versus the Nikon D7000 with the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8

      My Ramblings:

    Honestly if you use a tripod and stay at ISO 100-400, the D7000 and Tokina 11-16 ought to work out amazingly well. The D7000 still has the greatest dynamic range of any crop-sensor camera ever made, including newer models, and the D800 is only a minimal improvement. Once you get on a tripod and stop worrying about high ISO’s for hand-holding, dynamic range and overall color quality is in my opinion the number one factor in real-estate photography. Any camera with 12-16 megapixels or more is enough for general work, and even publication if you don’t crop your images and shoot sharply enough.

    Of course the D800 is double the resolution, but honestly even if you’re going to do print ads quite frequently the D7000 should be more than enough when shot right. Seriously if I had to choose between the D800 + 18-35 and the D7000 + 11-16, which is a ~$2-3K upgrade, …I’d stick with the D7000 and spend that money on myself, (lol) or just save it…

    If 18-35mm or 11-16mm aren’t wide enough for you, you could also consider the Sigma 8-16 for crop sensors or the Sigma 12-24 for full-frame sensors, but these can have pretty significant field curvature that requires careful use. The Tokina 11-16 on the other hand has a very flat plane of focus, which is great.

    I would try doing the first few shoots with the Tokina 11-16 on a D7000, just emphasizing the use of a solid tripod and maybe doing 2-sec timer or using a cable / remote release so that you can get the ultimate sharpness at like f/8 or f/11. That would give you amazing results. If you don’t yet have a solid tripod, I can make a couple recommendations…

    Most of the time, the lighting and overall conditions are much more important than other aspects of camera quality. You might want to play around with using strobes to light different areas of the room, shooting multiple images and then blending them in Photoshop later.

    Take care,
    =Matt=

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