Let us be the first to tell you, unless your next listing is being shown as a one hour Netflix feature, the gear is far less important than the one using it. Now of course, professional real estate photography demands a certain starting point for equipment; we would never encourage you to use a smartphone to capture your media. But knowing how to capture what buyers are looking for is far more important than the cost of equipment. However… We aren't exactly frugal when it comes to our arsenal of gear.
The most important two things we bring are the camera body, a Canon R5 mirrorless camera; and a wide angle lens, a Canon 16-35mm f/4. The full frame camera with a wide angle lens gives us and our clients the spacious, open look we want in all properties. With every property, we use these two items to create the majority of content that you need; especially your HDR photos. We also bring a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens for exterior photos or anything else that requires compression.
From the air, you can find us flying our DJI Mavic 3 Pro. This is the flagship consumer drone from DJI that is actually equipped with three different cameras. While one of them is seldom used for real estate photography, the other two cover a range of focal lengths between 24mm and 70mm with the best image resolution you can find. We are also properly licensed to fly drones, especially around properties in Belgrade where the airspace around the airport is of concern.
We use this drone for images, but also aerial videography in southwest Montana. If we do video on the ground on the other hand, you can find us breaking out the DJI Ronin RS2 3-axis stabilizer. With our Canon R5 camera on this gimbal, you can expect silky smooth video without any of the abrupt shaking or bouncing; perfect for our cinematic property video offerings.
The last piece we take with us is our InstaX360 camera. As the name implies, this is a 360º camera that we use for creating 3D Tours of your properties in Bozeman or Big Sky. We import these with Matterport software to create virtual tours that go a long way to retain interest among your buyers.
Not listed are the dozens of batteries and memory cards, cords and computers, tripods, and editing software that travels with us everywhere. When we first began photographing real estate here in southwest Montana, all we were told was not to focus on the gear but instead the composition and overall content produced. It is because of this advice that Messner Media has been able to scale so quickly and upgrade to some of the most reliable and sought after gear in the industry.
Next time you catch yourself wondering what it is that your photographer is using, try and remember that it has more to do with the person that is using it.