Once your settings are in place and your room is adjusted, it’s time to begin shooting. 

For real estate photography, we recommend using automatic exposure bracketing (AEB) for the best exposure. AEB is a camera setting that takes a defined number of shots (we recommend 5AEB for real estate listings) at different levels of exposure and combining them together into one HDR image. This is especially helpful in settings with challenging lighting. 

HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range, is a technique that creates an image with a wide range of tones that could not be captured in a single exposure. 

Turning on AEB can vary depending on the brand and model of your camera, check out your user manual to see how to use yours. Once you have changed your settings to 5 AEB, you will shoot in continuous mode to get the 5 shots. 

In some cases, using HDR can alter the color in your image. Flambient photography is another technique that uses multiple shots for one image, in this case shots with flash and some with ambient light. Using this method tends to show the colors as more authentic to what they look like in person, such as exterior paint colors which can make a difference to buyers. Flambient photography takes much more time to do the shoot and a more skilled photographer, which is why HDR is more commonly used. 

Use your light meter to get a reading of 0 before photographing. A light meter, also called an exposure meter, detects the amount of light in your setting. Once you read the light meter, you will know if you need to adjust any settings in the exposure triangle in order to get the best exposure. 

Your camera most likely has a light meter, there are also handheld light meters but the one in your camera is sufficient. Check the manual for your camera on how to use your light meter as it will vary for different brands and models. Most of the time, the light meter is on the display screen of your camera as a line with dash marks, beginning with “-” and ending with “+” and a 0 in the middle.