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Tips on Buying and Using a Digital Camera
For Real Estate Marketing
By J. L. Winn

Digital cameras have been around for several years, and many Realtors have actually upgraded once or twice (as you do with PCs or cell phones every few years). One of the great results of the tremendous growth and acceptance of digital cameras as a standard real estate marketing tool is that if you're in the market to purchase a new digital camera today, you really can't go wrong. All digital cameras have great features and take wonderful photos! Your purchase will reflect your own preferences and budget but you can't buy a "bad" digital camera anymore. So here's what you should look for when making your next purchase.  

1. Resolution / Image quality. Resolution really refers to the number of pixels or color dots in one photo. The more dots, the higher the resolution and typically the higher the quality of your photos. Almost all digital cameras today are rated in megapixels. This means one million pixels. So a 3.3 megapixel resolution camera will capture over 3 million pixels in one photo.  

2. Lens features (wide angle vs. zooming). For anyone who has used a standard video camera to tape your kids' sporting events from the stands, you know that zooming in from a distance is an important feature. But real estate photography is completely different! You rarely want to zoom in on a particular feature, instead you want to be able to capture the widest possible view of a room or exterior scene (the front of the house). So while the zooming features are very popular on many higher end digital cameras, they are a complete waste of money if your primary use for the camera is to help you visually market your listings. Instead, either go with the camera that features the best wide angle lens you can find (28 mm to 30 mm is considered wide angle) or get a wide angle lens attachment that will fit on the camera. A lower number means it is has a wider angle (28 mm is wide angle, 35 mm is standard).  

3. Decide how you want to use the photos. Are you going to use the photos primarily for electronic marketing (email attachments, website enhancement, virtual tours) or will you use them for print marketing (post cards, flyers, magazine ads)? For the most part, when you use digital photos for electronic marketing, you can set your camera's resolution setting down considerably. Even if you can take a 5 megapixel photo, you'll want to set your resolution setting to just 1 or 2 megapixels. Why? A 5 megapixel photo is an enormous file size! It's way too big to be used in email or on your website. So you'll have to resize and compress the photo anyway. You may as well just reduce the size of the original photo to save yourself time and you can also store many more smaller resolution photos on one memory card.  

4. Other factors. Size and weight can be important. Do you want to lug around a large, heavy camera and attachments or is it more important to have a small, lightweight camera that can easily fit in your purse or pocket? Is it so small that you can't read the settings and maneuver the buttons? For almost all interior photos, you'll want to use the flash feature. Make sure the flash is useful for at least 10 feet, otherwise you won't be happy with the results. Is the memory card compatible with your current PC? If not, you'll need to purchase a memory card reader/adapter. These are typically $20 to $50, or you might just download with a USB cable.  

5. Related factors. If you plan to create your own virtual tours and panoramic photos, you might want to purchase a tripod. These run from $20 and up and the inexpensive models are just fine. Then you might want to get some panoramic stitching software or virtual tour software to turn your still photos into eye-catching virtual tours. Stitching software is usually $50 or less and you can use VisualTour.com to create, store and distribute your virtual tours inexpensively.  

Remember, you really can't buy a bad digital camera. Your only risk is overpaying for features (extra zooming, high end resolution, etc.) that you really don't need. But the bigger risk is not using a digital camera at all!

J. L. Winn is the VP of Sales & Marketing for VisualTour.com. He's a noted speaker at real estate conventions and author of numerous articles on marketing and technology for real estate professionals. For more information on Agent Controlled virtual tours or to sign up for the VisualTour eMarketing newsletter, please visit www.VisualTour.com.

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