Real Estate video on the web

[clive trex]

Hi there

I am looking at making short videos of our properties to put on our website. Can anyone recommend what equipment use. I have an imac intel dual core and have Adobe premier on a trial basis. Low level lighting and wide angles are important. Do I need a professional type recorder or prosumer type product?Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[ppc_michael]

For low lighting and wide angle shots, I think you will need at least prosumer-level equipment, so you can have a camera that gives you control over iris and gain (for low lighting), and interchangeable lenses for wide-angle.

Resolution-wise, I don't think you would have to go HD because you're just putting it on the web, so that could lower your cost a bit.

If you're just showing panning/tilting shots of real estate, I think all you would really need is a camera and a good tripod (one with a fluid head for smooth pans and tilts). If you're going to have a "host" of some sort talking about the property, you would really have to get some lighting and audio equipment to make it look good, and would require a bit more expertise to use properly, which is a whole nother story.

 

[748s]

A link to a company doing it and what they use.
http://www.apple.com/au/pro/profiles/propvid/

 

[ppc_michael]

Note: For something like PropVid (linked above), you'll need a professional HD camera, matte box with Tiffen filters, camera jib, high-end lights (ARRI are good), etc, etc.

 

[heelie]

web videos are so heavily compressed I think you could make do with a higher end consumer camera or lower end prosumer camera. You don't need HD for web streaming unless you are doing something very high quality. For Short real estate videos, I think you could stick to standard definition.

But get yourself a tripod and a decent zoom lens. Lighting wise you could go cheap and easy and bring something to bounce into the ceiling. If you want to make the rooms look like a furniture store catalog you'll need quite a few lights and people to set them up. That'll be more expensive but in cinematography terms it would look great.

Best

Tim