After holding on to my Palm Treo 650 for over 5 years (actually I’ve gone through 4 of them, 1 unfortunately met its end between the car & the car door – not a pretty sight) I’ve finally taken the plunge.
Every year I’d upgrade to the latest fan-dangled unit, and although I’d try over 1-2 weeks to get the “hang of it”, each one just didn’t seem to offer what seemed to be the Treo’s ease of use and functionality. So I’d get rid of the new upgrade and find / source another T650. However Telecom are going to shutter the CDMA network soon so this time I was under a bit more pressure to upgrade to XT.
So with the arrival of the Galaxy I thought I’d give it a good go this time around. Lo and behold I was surprised….its a delight to use and so far I’m loving it. I still long for the ease of use of the Treo when it comes to texting or inputting characters, but most other things work well.
In light of my experience, & perhaps the shuttering of the old network it set me wondering whether there might be some other baby boomers out there going through a similar experience.
With this in mind, I thought it pertinent to cobble together the most helpful apps I’m using and let you know about them…so that if you were to upgrade to an Android phone you too, could hopefully see & experience some tangible benefits. Here we go….
Sun Board
Great little app that displays via an overlay over a Google Map, where the sun rises and sets, where it is now….winter & summer sunshine rise and set angles……and
It can be used to
- plan photo shoots
- plan trips and holidays
- position flowers and plants on the sunny side
- choose a real estate
- calibrate orientation and inclination of solar panels
- estimate exposure to sunlight
Click on Image above for further details.
Compass
As the English say in the UK “where is the South….”
So it is down under, all home buyers are always asking “where is north?”
For Nelson we’re fortunate in that most locations are hemmed in, and you can practically always get a idea of a landmark somewhere, but appreciate it some really built up areas it might not be so easy. Could imagine that for an inner city apartment dweller, this would be quite a neat aid when viewing downtown apartments.
there's quite a few different ones, but I find this one is easiest on the eyes
for when you are asked “that doesn’t look right does it, is it level?”
Maps Ruler
Keeping in mind it’s as the “crow flies”, but you can change that and enter your own “track”…this tidy little app will do your measurements all for you.
Unfortunately it doesn’t cover the whole of New Zealand at this stage, just traffic cam images from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Tauranga.
Click for more info
Still, if you live in one of these places and don’t prefer to purposely sit in the car for an unnecessary extended period, this site might just be worth a look.
Android Date Wheel
Click for more details
Helps if you are “chronologically impaired”….in a calendar type of way I mean.
So that you can ensure you co-incide your viewing inspection appointment with the High Tide. Not pretty because its not a graphical representation mainly just a list of numbers, but it does the job. Also assist with finding the right time of day to get fabulous listing photos of your new seaside/estuarine property.
Ok, …..so its not really from the “useful” real estate agent section, but it is a fun one you must admit?
And there you have it.
To add to this there are plenty of mortgage assessment / calculators out there, and although not in New Zealand yet, plenty of Android Apps worldwide that allow you to search for property based on your GPS estimated location…..or so called “location aware” apps.
I’m aware that realestate.co.nz has an iPhone app….but with US researchers like Gartner Inc’s comment above…… forecasting increasing Android uptake, it must only be a time factor until we see an equivalent Android one.
I’m sure there equivalents to these apps here in iPhoneland, however I have personally found these to all be really useful and quite relevant in day to day real estate work.
One thing I have come to appreciate on this Galaxy S / I9000 is the brightness of the fancy named Super-OMOLED screen, its brilliant when trying to read the screen outdoors in the especially sunny skies we are accustomed to here in Nelson.
As regular readers well know, I have a keen interest in photography.
So do in fact take pride not just in my real estate related property photos but also in what you might term “everyday” shots.
Great to see Jim Hickey display my photo on tonight’s TV One News as his pic of the day.
This morning on my walk I had my new phone with me, a Galaxy 9000 and it does indeed take some pretty neat photos I’ll admit.
CLICK TO SEE MORE SUNRISE NELSON PHOTOS
However living here….well you can take these sort of vistas for granted….but I do make an effort to try not to.
I took a few others, you can see them over here at Nelson Life….along with many more photographic posts depicting Life in Nelson, in a sort of “Day in your Life” style……. 37 x photo posts this January 2011 alone.
As if you needed another excuse to buy one. (needs to be an iPhone 4 or 3GS camera version)
Whether you are a Real Estate Salesperson or not, its not always convenient to get the best photo of a home potentially for sale.
I mean….. oftentimes when you are called to pop around for a visit, its at a time when the light isn’t the best to take a photo, at least a good one.
http://www.pictional.com/TrueHDR/Overview.html
Regular readers will know I have an interest in real estate photography with more than a passing interest in HDR and “blending.”
So I was quite surprised to learn that there is actually an iPhone app that will process an HDR type image – and do it all in-camera, ready for you to just upload that shot directly to the office, or immediately onto the web.
iPhone app TrueHDR
Even more reasons to go mobile if you ask me.
To find out more head on over to their site, where they also have a gallery of before and afters photos – I particularly like the one with the sun streaming through the clouds. (about half-way down the page)
iPhone owning Real Estate Salespersons will soon have no excuse, not even for a hastily taken listing photo!
I’ll start with what I feel is probably the most important one, exposure.
I see too many photos like this.
And it just reinforces my belief that some agents do not put as much time into this crucial part of the process as they should.
Does this accurately get the “bright clean sparkling white” bathroom message across?
Does this photo allow a member of the family to say “gee I’d love to be preparing a meal in there – just got to have a look at this place?”
For some photos, its not hard to spot the “get this over as quick as I can” type of mode straightaway.
How to fix?
Well the good news is, its easy.
Step 1
If your camera has “fill flash” or “synro flash”, enable it.
Failing this take two shots, one with flash and one without.
Step 2
Go over to the window area, aim digital camera at the outside, and make sure at least 70% of the outside light fills the frame. Press the shutter button half way down, it won’t take a picture but it will memorise the light settings……….while keeping you finger in the same place walk back into the room, recompose yourself, maintaining finger pressure on the shutter button all the time. When ready, Press shutter button all the way down, some modern cameras will have an AE Lock………
and this allows you to do all the above much easier – you go across to the window as before, aim out and fill the frame with about 70% of the outside light, then press the AE Lock button.
It will now memorise the “light” settings and you don’t have to maintain that pressure on the shutter button as before.
Step 3
Review, or if you are lucky enough to have a histogram on the camera, really find out what they mean.
These really are an indispensable aid in reviewing a photo while still on site.
Step 4
If you really want to be creative then spend 5-10 minutes learning about bracketing. Many of todays cameras will do this automatically. There are two main methods. One where the exposure is bracketed itself in degrees of EV. The second is where it actually brackets for different lighting conditions, and is a feature of digital cameras.
Step 5
And if you want to get really really creative after you have taken your 2-3-4 shots in the bracketing mode, then head on over to read my series about HDR.
If in doubt as mentioned before take a shot with flash on. However with the earlier mentioned method #2 above, most modern cameras should take consideration of the outside light and even if they fire the flash inside, you will get a much more balanced “light” photo.
And surely in most photos its the inside of the home that you want to be shown the best.
Just to show how common the issue of exposure in photos is, all of the first 4 photographs have been uploaded to a Real Estate site in the last 48hours. If you want to see more uncollectable examples of “what not to do” in Real Estate Photography, then check this out.
NOTE: All of these tips are assuming you have the camera in its normal default exposure mode, commonly refered to as either “center weighted metering” , “multi-segment metering” or “matrix metering” but definitely not “spot metering” unless you know what you are doing.
Back in Part II, I mentioned that Part III was the place to impart to you the right & wrongs of HDR. How could there be wrongs?
Well funnily enough it’s actually the same sort of thought patterns that pursues thru the vein of these people here, that make that a lay down “misère” for others who would like to make a quick gain.
In Real Estate Photography, just exactly how much HDR is too much?
Well, candidly there are certainly levels of tolerance. Rather than rave on, I’ll cut to the chase.
Above and below are quite possibly too much.
Whether you as an Agent or Realtor believe that it shows the property to its “best side” is irrelevant, because those ultimately judging the photos are the buyers, and at the very least you want them to be interested in the property enough to organize a viewing.
Needless to say I don’t believe today’s market is the place to have such a “cute” photo. It’s just that you run the risk of alienating a section of the populace.
Can you tell if a shot has been HDR’d?
Yes, but as they say, ………..at the end of the day, does it matter?
Take my latest listing above (it’s already got an offer above the asking price and it’s only been advertised on the net and amongst agents/registered buyers….Hmmmm maybe that’s telling me something? – Robert Simeon would certainly have some thoughts on my curiosity here ) if you look closer at the photo you will notice a tell-tale sign a slight “halo” effect – produced mainly on border areas, note the roof line where it meets the sky.
Then look also at this Open2View shot that Ross pointed to here where he talked about the leather sofa.
To save you having to find it, click here for my reply.
Normal 35mm, yes the old school stuff, can generally display a wider range than digital, but the gap is narrowing.
Some cameras released recently have advertised the fact they have up to a 12 EV range. And it’s no doubt that CCD / CMOS technology will soon pass this in some shape or form. If Sony are already previewing 2TB memory stick’s, just ask yourself?
But when its properly applied to Real Estate photos……..
like these Queenstown ones, then you can easily see
the benefits, and more importantly so can a buyer.
Although some photos depend just as much on “timing,”
So you work as a Realtor and just want to take better photos. Thats great because thats exactly what the client wants too, not the sort of UNCOLLECTABLE or just plain bad real estate photo’s I have been assembling over at this website.
And I hate to admit it, but scanning some recent listings on Australian RE Portals, I struggled to find heaps of bad examples of Real Estate photography. Looking here, well thats where most of the UNCOLLECTABLE ones come from, theres food daily.
I think it would be grand if you went on a NZ property portal and didn’t find a bad property photo.
