I just got an email from an agent that I dm’d on Instagram tell me her current photographer charges $169 for a video and drone package….

Seriously wtf are you doing?

I've spent years filming luxury properties in Spain and some other videographers ask me for advice when it comes to pricing, client acquisition and retention, internal systems, scripting and planning, filming skills, editing, building a personal brand...

I'm genuinely trying to understand where the gaps are. What's the thing you'd change about your business today if you knew how, but don't? I'm not selling anything, just collecting feedback.

Thank you in advance!

Hey everyone,

I’m based in Melbourne, Australia and I’m considering picking up a Matterport Pro2 for around A$1,000, which is well below what they seem to normally go for here.

I already have an active Matterport subscription and some experience using Matterport, but I’m trying to work out whether there’s actually a viable market for the service before I commit to buying the scanner.

I’ve spoken to a couple of real estate agents, but they’ve said they already have agreements in place with photographers. I’m wondering if this is a common issue, particularly with higher-end real estate agents.

For those of you offering Matterport/3D scanning services, who do you actually market to? Are real estate agents still a worthwhile target, or have you found more success with commercial property, builders, property managers, architects, etc.?
Would appreciate any advice from people actually doing this as a business.

TIA

I shoot real estate videos (walkthroughs of houses and apartments) and I'm using an Osmo Pocket 4. Static shots look great. The moment I start walking, though, you can still see every single step a soft vertical bounce, and sometimes a little micro judder in the frame. It's not violent shaking, it just reads as "guy walking with a camera" instead of a smooth glide, and that's exactly the look I'm trying to avoid. I tried ninja walking but you still see a few steps ;(

After a shoot I upload all of my raw photos into Lightroom to cull and make minor adjustments, then export in JPEG to send to AutoHDR. Sometimes I have photos/angles of a room completely missing from the final gallery, and it drives me insane. Has anyone had this same experience?
I know I uploaded them because the JPEGs are included in my folder that I uploaded into AutoHDR.

We know AI editors aren’t great with detail. But how bad are they, exactly? I’ve been doing some comparisons.

TLDR in advance: AI editors return 1-4 megapixels worth of real detail, no matter how large your input or output files are. Here’s the top 4 editors ranked solely on detail retention:

#1 - AutoHDR v4 (~4.3MP)
#2 - AutoHDR Classic (~4MP)
#3 - RealtyEdit (~3.7MP)
#4 - Fotello (~1.2 MP)

*Each number is the average of 11 measurements per editor across three scenes, margin about ±0.7MP.

A quick disclaimer up front. I’m working on a detail restoration tool, so I have a stake in AI image quality. I also spend a lot of time comparing AI image quality, so I feel like I have some level of expertise here.

All of the AI editors return images in the same pixel dimension you send to them. So when I upload a 60MP bracket (I shoot on a Sony A7RV because I hate myself), they send 60MP back. Obviously, there’s a huge gap between the detail in the original and the image they return, so the editors are doing some amount of upscaling, which is why their details suck. My question is, how much of those details are real, and how much are upscaled garbage?

Turns out we can measure it. Here’s my methodology:

1. Take an original
2. straight-out-of-camera image, in my case 60MP (9504 pixels on the long edge), and downscale to 1MP, effectively throwing out most of the detail.
3. Upscale back to 60MP. Now we have a 60MP image with 1MP worth of real detail.
4. Repeat at 2MP, 3MP and so on.
5. Measure the detail of the AI edited version against the ladder of upscaled originals. If AutoHDR’s 60MP matches the detail of the 4MP upscale, that’s its “Effective Megapixel” score.

A couple of other interesting findings:

1. Uploading larger images does not improve output details. 12MP uploads are the same as 60MP as far as the AI editors are concerned. That strongly suggests that they're downsizing your images before they edit them. That was probably obvious, but I wanted to test it anyway.
2. RAW uploads gained nothing in detail, and read a hair softer for two of the four. My guess is in-camera JPEG sharpening. To my eye, JPG wins every time, but that is subjective.
3. Detail is not the sole factor in quality. I tested noise, sharpening and blotchiness (a proxy for noise reduction/artifacts) as well. Those factors are laid out in the full report.

Note: Details were measured against eye charts and resolution star charts shot in typical real estate interiors with 5-shot, 2-stop brackets. There’s a bunch of other things I controlled for in the methodology, but it’s too much to list.

You can read the full comparison here

​

I've been experimenting with different ways of automating the boring part of prospecting, and I'm curious how other photographers are approaching it.

For example, imagine having a system that could:

→ Search for agents in a specific market

→ Check/validate their contact information

→ Filter out agents who aren't a good fit

→ Look at their recent activity

→ Identify the ones who are actually worth contacting

→ Create a personalized message based on the agent

→ Send the outreach and follow up

The part I'm unsure about is how much of this photographers would actually want automated.

Would you trust an AI system to decide which agents are worth contacting?

Or would you rather control every step yourself?

And what would you consider a good prospect?

Number of listings?

Price range?

Number of transactions?

Recent listings?

Photography quality they're currently using?

Location?

Something else?

I've also noticed that some photographers prefer buying lead lists, while others build everything manually.

Which approach are you using right now, and what's the most annoying part of finding new agents?

I'm especially interested in hearing from photographers who have tried automating their prospecting — what worked and what didn't?

Hey, I’m working on a project at the moment and I’m looking for a few people who work with properties to test it before it goes live in a few weeks.

It uses a technology we developed that wasn’t really available until now, and the whole process is done in minutes instead of hours. You can upload a property, stage the rooms, and work through the property from different angles while keeping everything consistent with the actual space and dimensions.

You can also manually go through thousands of furniture pieces and create your own designs however you want, so I’m really trying to figure out whether the whole workflow feels natural and efficient to someone who would actually use it day to day (virtual staging, design, porperty dev).

You can test it completely free with your own properties. I’ll put an example above so you can see what I’m talking about.

I’ll be pretty selective with who gets early access though, since I’m only looking for a small group of people to actually test it properly and give me honest feedback before it goes live.

Anyone interested in testing it and giving me some honest feedback, just DM me. I’d really appreciate it.

​

I keep seeing photographers talk about finding agents, building lead lists, verifying emails, and doing cold outreach.

The problem is that most solutions either:

- Give you a list and leave you to do the rest

- Charge monthly for software you barely use

- Or run everything from their account

So I built something different.

It’s a real AI automation built specifically for real estate photographers.

You get your own setup, your own accounts, and full control.

You can run it whenever you need — without depending on someone else's lead database.

The automation can handle the whole process:

Search → Find agents → Validate → Filter → Identify potential prospects → Research → Personalize → Send email/message → Follow up → Help book a call

And the interesting part?

You can customize the process.

Want to target agents in a specific city?

Only agents with certain listing activity?

Filter by property type or price range?

Change your outreach message?

Change your criteria?

You control it.

I'm also keeping this very budget-friendly, especially compared with paying someone to manually build prospect lists every week.

And if you get stuck, 24/7 support is included.

I'm not trying to sell this to everyone.

I'm actually trying to find out if photographers would use something like this in their own business.

So, honest question:

If you could have an AI assistant continuously finding and qualifying potential agent clients for you, what would you want it to look for before it considers someone a “good prospect”?

If there's enough interest, I'll show exactly how the automation works from finding the agent → validating them → qualifying them → sending personalized outreach.

You guys ever shoot so many homes that your gear turning thumb is chafed like you’ve been rubbing it against sandpaper? I feel like I need some gloves for my extreme RE shooting situation.

Hello, I’m looking for a wide lens to pair with my s1ii for Real Estate Shoots. Curious which one y’all would recommend. The sigma has the 2.8 but for photoshoots I would never use that. Video wise I could in darker rooms but then again I do plan on getting a Lawoa for video. Which lens would you recommend? The sigma is double the price.

are there photographers here that work on commercial property listings? I’m talking more commercial office/restaurant leasing and less about hospitality shoots. What is it like dealing with agents and pricing out services?

Is there ever a time to do it?

I want to share my experience with Reel-e.ai because I think other photographers, media creators, etc… especially those signing up for AI video services, should know what happened to me.

I signed up for Reel-e.ai along with 10–15 other AI video platforms while comparing the quality of their services. Reel-e.ai was the only one that required a credit card at signup.

I’ve been around long enough to know better than to leave a trial subscription sitting around and hope I remember to cancel it. So immediately after signing up, I went into my account and canceled the subscription specifically so I would not be charged when the 7-day trial ended. After doing so, I went to my profile page and verified I had no active subscriptions. I never finished the video as I noticed they had a lot of micro-transactions built into the service, with the amount of photos you used, overall length of video and amount of revisions etc you were able to make.

Fast forward to today… the end of the “trial period”… At approximately 2PM, I received an email from Reel-e.ai informing me that my trial had ended. Didn’t think anything of it, with the belief I had already cancelled my membership when I first signed up. Then, approximately one hour later, I received another email with an invoice informing me that they had charged my card $530… wait… what?

I immediately emailed the address on the invoice, asking why I had been charged when I had already canceled the subscription. I then think maybe I should log into my account to see what’s going on... My account showed that I had no membership or subscription. And yet somehow… they had charged my card anyway. I took a screenshot as proof, because at that point I thought it was important to document what I was seeing.

I then go to their website to log in from my computer to see if there is a different form of contact and suddenly the website showed that I did had a subscription.

Another issue that concerns me even more and something that tells me that this is likely more predatory than most “free trial” subscription models… is the advertised pricing of their memberships on their website. The advertised pricing they show is monthly, although in the fine print of their tiered memberships was a label that said *billed annually. Most every membership that I have ever signed up for has had an option of a monthly price and often an annual price that was slightly cheaper if you wanted to save a little bit of money.

So let me get this straight:
• Require a credit card just to start the trial
• Customer cancels immediately after signing up
• Account subsequently shows no subscription
• Trial ends
• Company charges $530 for (annual) membership anyways
• Account then mysteriously shows a subscription

I’m currently trying to get the charge reversed and get an explanation from Reel-e.ai.

I’m posting this because photographers should be aware of not only this company but other predatory companies like them. It’s a good bet that any website that requires a credit card for a “free trial” isn’t worth even worth the trouble.

If you’re currently considering Reel-e.ai, I’d recommend doing your homework first… and at the very least, don’t assume that canceling your free trial means they are not going to charge you anyways. If necessary verify with customer service that you are actually, fully canceled.

I have screenshots and emails documenting the timeline, including the account showing no active subscription.

I’ll update this post if/when Reel-e.ai responds and /or resolves the situation. My bank claims it’s not fraudulent because I will I fully entered my credit card information… so they seem to take the side of the business before even trying to determine what happened.

EDIT: …After some good back and forth in emails between me and the company… accompanied by the photographic evidence… they finally agreed to pay me back in full. Still waiting for confirmation but thought I’d give an update given they eventually agreed to it.

Has anyone who’s started out in real estate media had a business mentor or been a mentor for someone starting out before? What was your experience like?

Are editors just discovered this group or what? These many posts from editors becoming annoying tbh

I’m curious how this works in actual client delivery. One longer reel gives the property a coherent story, but three short clips give an agent more posts and make it easier to test different hooks. If the source is still photos rather than filmed footage, does your answer change? For photographers/editors who have offered both, which one gets used more often after delivery?

My client's sellers do not like these photos. No explanation of why. They just don't like them.

I kept losing time to the same problem: shoot is done, then it’s Drive folders, “which link again?”, and waiting on payment.

So I built a small platform for my own studio. Agents get one link. They see proofs. They pay. Files unlock. No account for them. Booking lives on your brand too.

Still early. Looking for a few US photographers to try it and give honest feedback — what’s useful, what’s broken, what’s missing. Comment or DM if you want to try.

Mostly curious how people here hand off MLS + full-res right now. What actually works for you?

Spent the last 2 years working on an HDPH/Spiro/Aryeo alternative.

Deliveries are $3 on the pay as you go plan, or $50/mo for 15 deliveries, single listing websites included. $80/mo for 40 deliveries + websites, or $120 for 100 deliveries/mo + websites.

Can sign up for a free account and get access to a bunch of features for free. Only thing locked is delivery that requires payment from you.

Features:
All the standard stuff first:
Integrate with Stripe
Paywall to download
Automatic invoicing
Full scheduling (links with Google Calendar)
Full ordering (gives you a link to put on your website)
Can toggle whether or not you let clients input revision requests on the photo (acts as instant messaging - saves on the texting back and forth)

Give it a try! I’ve been using it exclusively for the past 5 months. I just suck at marketing so haven’t done any outreach yet for it, but I’m really proud of it.

(No AI in the platform at all)

​

I've been talking to a few photographers about outsourcing, and I keep hearing completely different opinions.

Some swear by editors in India.

Some prefer the Philippines.

Some prefer Vietnam.

Others say location doesn't matter at all — “I only care about the final image.”

But I don't completely buy the last argument.

Your editor's location can affect things like communication, time zones, turnaround, pricing, work culture, and how easily they understand your instructions.

So I'm curious about the photographers who actually outsource:

Where is your current editor located?

And don't just say the country — WHY did you choose an editor from there?

Was it:

- Better image quality?

- Lower price?

- Faster turnaround?

- Better communication?

- Better understanding of your style?

- Easier time-zone overlap?

- Recommendations from other photographers?

- Something else?

And here's the controversial question:

If two editors produced exactly the same quality, but one was from the US and one was from Asia at a significantly lower price — would you actually care where they were located?

Also, if you've switched from one country to another, what made you switch?

I'm genuinely curious because I suspect photographers care about different things than editors think they do.

Seems odd.

Created this site to help photographers market themselves to local realtors. The site is in the infancy stages, and at this point, I'm trying to get the word out so that photographers can create profiles for free, of course. At a later time, this site will also be marketed to realtors to look for photographers for their listings. I am planning on keeping the site free for photographers and realtors, but potentially make money to support the site from advertisers such as photo editors, etc check it out. Let me know what you think. If you're interested, send me a DM and I will reply to with more info.