I’ve posted in the past that bringing your own lighting with you to a home to shoot interior photos is important. I usually bring 2 lights with me – one to add light from behind me and another smaller light off in the distance and out of sight where the camera doesn’t pick up enough light so that I can add the necessary depth to the picture. I may still bring the lights with me, but, my life is certainly going to be a lot easier now and the pictures, well, there will be no comparison.

I’ve only had this camera for one day and the sun has yet to come out from behind the clouds so I can’t actually get outside and do any shooting, but there is no question – if you are not using a digital SLR to shoot photos of listings (or hiring a photographer who will) you are not doing your job as well as you should be.

Take a look at this photo – it is an absolutely unedited photo that has simply been cropped (it was about 6 megs so I cropped it to only see the detail I wanted) and it was point and shoot in the auto setting. No tripod or anything. Simply On/Aim/Shoot. The same way you would shoot from a little camera. It was also the thrid picture I took so I didn’t hadn’t even read the manual all the way through. My point being is that if you buy the right camera, it isn’t any more difficult. Here is the photo. The photo should enlarge when you click on it. No way you get that much true color and detail from a little point and shoot.

I know, it’s a flower – not exactly someone’s living room, but, try that with your little point and shoot and it won’t take long to see the difference. My point and shoot camera wouldn’t even take the picture for a comparison shot! There is more and I’ll post a quick blurb with a couple of links to actual comparisons (I’m not shooting pictures of my house the day after Christmas).

Now imagine. You have a nice new listing that is well cared for and staged properly. You walk in with your little pocket camera (like I used to) and set up this elaborate mess of cords and lights to take your photos only to get home to see that the photos are overexposed on one part, glare from the lights is somewhere else and another part is completely washed out by the flash. This camera doesn’t even need a flash for most interior shots. You get home to edit the photos only to find that many of them just don’t really show the house off well and the colors aren’t as vivid as they were when you were at the house. But there’s more. This camera comes with a lense that will take a wider shot than your a point and shoot so you will be able to get more of the room in the picture. Have you ever backed out of a doorway to try to get a wide enough shot to get the whole room only to find that the door frame gets in the sides of the picture? Not with this camera.

This next week, I’ll be getting out to all of my listings to take new photos. No matter what part of the country you are in, your listings need to have the best pictures you can take. Unless you are using an SLR, you are not going to get them and the Nikon D60 is the perfect SLR camera because it is simple enough for any of us to use.