What a great video. I ultimately think micro four thirds has always been affected by bad marketing, not only the marketing attacks from other companies, but the inability of Olympus and Panasonic to be good and efficient explaining the obvious advantages of the system in many many aspects.
Yes. For sure. It's honestly the best of both worlds in many situations. Big enough sensor to be good enough in low light and the ability to shoot wide open without a super shallow depth of field. Win win!
Oh I'm sure. I've looked into that 7-14mm lens a few times. I should probably invest in that lens for sure! And the g9ii is coming out soon! I like the looks of that camera as well!
Very well explained regarding the doubling of depth of field ( not the misunderstanding of aperture). I am lucky enough to have acquired several Olympus MFT cameras and have recently added the OM5 ( replacing my EM5mkiii) to my collection. Paired with smaller lenses it’s ideal as an every day camera. Have just found your channel and will sub, thank you .
Early in his channel videos here, Joe extolled the benefits of micro 4-3rds cameras and I took his advice. I sold my SONY a7sii that I had bought used on eBay and bought a used Olympus EM-1 Markii on eBay for about $400. The lenses are WAY cheaper than for SONY full frame cameras. The camera is lighter, has more customization options to adjust (took me days to go through!). It holds two SD cards and has a swing-out touch screen, something the SONY didn't have until later models. I appreciate the benefit of shooting at f4 aperture and getting f8 focus range. It really does help shooting interior real estate!
Im thinking of getting the GH7. Sounds like you'd live it. Its like an upgraded S5ii but MFT. My problem is that i want the lower depth of field and worry the MFT will be too limiting to my photography. Tough choices ahead...
Honestly I love my gh5ii. You can still get great depth of field especially if you use a 1.8 or 1.4 aperture. Also you can blur background in lightroom now and it looks surprisingly real. That's my 2 cents on that.
Whatever the camera aspect ratio is I send them. So even my drone photos are different. I never remember to keep them all the same and never had a ln issue yet. Most of my shots are the 4x3.
I think 4x3 is actually better for viewing on smartphones and for IG thank wider aspect ration. But I think it's nice that every short have same ratio whatever it is.
Good timing - I recently dropped from 7.1 to 5.6 on the S5ii, with ISO of 320. I can shoot very large spaces with three speedlites when ceiling are below 10 feet. Love the weight of the kit. I squeeze the aperture or drop the ISO when I need a window pull.
thats good to know! Thank you for your response! I love the s5ii. Need a wider lens though than the 20-60 kit I have, but don't feel like spending $800 right now. lol
I shoot with the GH5 using bracketed photos and all my clients have had nothing but good things to say. I use the Rokinon 12mm f2 and I feel it's a little soft, so I'm looking at the Laowa 7.5mm, not only to go wider, but I feel the quality of glass is going to be better.
Cool, you are the first I see who recommend mft for real estate shots. I use a GX9 20mpix pocket camera with Panasonic 9mm and 200w godox remote compact flash. As long I don't zoom in the images it looks great, zoomed in is quite big quality difference from my full frame 40mpix Nikon... But I love the light weight and size of mft and most clients people watch those shots on smart phones :). However I wonder if it is worth to get better mft body like yours or newer to get better image quality... Less noice better colors etc ?
You may get a little better ISO performance on a higher end micro four thirds camera but honestly I am either at 320 iso or lower. When we light rooms we don't need higher iso. So you're probably just fine with what you got in my opinion.
The remote trigger not working for photo is probably the wrong cable. I had a remote that came with 2 cables: one for Olympus and 1 for Panasonic. The 4 conductor plugs worked for me. It has 3 black rings on it. The 14 to 28 lens is great. I like it a lot. The FF sensor gives better colors imo and no noise ever. And I dont have to be so precise with the ISO. I use f5.6 for a toilet and f8 for any other room and there is just no noise ever. The GH5 mark 2 with the 8 - 18 pana is about the same size and weight as the S5 2 with the 14-28 so now the S5 is my main camera and the m43 is a nice backup. I use mostly flash (or bracketing with enfuse for larger spaces).
Of sweet! Can you please share a link to these cables for the s5ii or talk me exactly what to search for! Thank you so much! Also yes, iso 4000 is no different than iso 100 on the s5ii. Thanks for your help!
Great Video. I am getting getting my real estate license. Currently teaching Photography, Graphic Design, Podcasting and Video Production for H.S. With my art background I want to also offer my clients my services as far as Real Estate Photography / Video. Do you have a video on what gear I would need to get started and do it well? What would you recommend if you had to do it over? I don't want to buy a bunch of things I don't need. I love being efficient / effective when I work. Thoughts? Thanks for the great vids.
If I had to start over,I would get the camera and lens I'm currently using. Olympus em1 mark ii and the laowa 7.5mm. I would get a Manfrotto tripod with the gear head and the godox ad200 flash. Get a good wireless shutter release and the godox trigger for the ad200 and you'll need nothing else. Good luck and thanks for the comment. Let me know if I can help further.
Thanks so much for the info. I will be sure to reach out if I have any more questions. I am going to practice on my own home first with the gear you recommended. I showed a realtor friend some drone work I did for a friends house and he liked it. He wants me to do some of the same for him. @@joefoto
@@MajorChisholm I will have to check this out. If the lens distortion has improved, then I would say yes for sure. Have you checked to see if any reviews have been made on it yet? I'll look into it.
I am using Lumix G7 For My 360 Virtual tour Business its so amazing i upgrade To Fujifilm XT3. For Real estate still apsc is enough or i need to FF ? I learning from videos so many things. Thank you so much
I have to ask as I see MANY real estate photographers in the US use flash, why are you using flash? Why not shoot 3 or 5 shot HDR with 2 stop exposure increments? Once merged you get a much cleaner look than those really harsh shadows from the flash and still have great view out of the windows etc. Just a tip from a real estate photo- and videographer in Denmark.
The reason I prefer using flash is because I personally get a better result. I have yet to find a good hdr app and I don't know how to do luminosity masks so I'm stuck using flambient. How do you edit your hdr images?
@@joefoto In the company I work at they use the "Enfuse" script to merge HDR photos on a server side (us photographers upload images to a server, the server merges them and then they are sent to editing). I believe they are just using the standard preset with the script. Personally I use Aurora HDR for my own projects which is in my book much better. Its made from Skylum who makes the Luminar software. They discontinued Aurora HDR for some reason but it can still be purchased and used. Also extremely easy to use and I just use the standard preset (I've tested different of their presets but I prefer the standard and edit the output .tiff file in Lightroom to my liking after merging.) Luminar Neo is using the Aurora HDR engine for their supreme HDR merging tool, however, for some reason they don't support bulk merging. So you have to merge each photo individually. Aurora HDR does however support bulk and this is why I use that over Luminar Neo.
California RE shooter here.....I've talked to a lot of homeowners over the last 6-years and they know the difference between the look of HDR and flambient photos - they don't understand the difference, but they appreciate the way their listing photos look when compared to photo mill HDR listing photos that their properties are up against. They instinctively notice the realism and accurate colors of flambient, vs highly processed HDR. Realtors like it too - and if you can keep your prices competitive, they'll choose flambient over HDR packages. "Harsh shadows" are not a normal look of flambient shots - in fact, it's the opposite. Clear window views in the asphalt jungles of the Bay Area aren't the be all of photos - more often that not, a purposely blown out or accurately bright window hides not so pretty views. Surprisingly, not many consumers like the LCD TV hanging of the wall in place of a window look.
The main benefit of flash and "flambient" is to get correct colors! On walls etc... Hdr does not solve this. But if you're clients don't care so much no-slah shots are really nice, I like it too. I prefere to merge flash and ambient, however for long time I shoot only one image with nice ambient lighting and flash, much faster editing and very nice results... But not always color accurate :)
Yeah the full frame thing is really just a big draw for video I think, and most of us don't want to buy two separate lens systems. That being said If there was a really cheap setup I would consider it as a backup.
The only reason I don't use the olympus for video is because I have the s5ii for weddings and portrait work...otherwise it can be used for doing real estate video and image looks great.
@@joefoto I see you do a lot of vids about flambient, what do you think of the style where you shoot everything in 1 exposure with flash (balance your ambient and flash at the same time) Another youtuber, Dombowerphoto, seems to do that method. He's in the UK where realtor commissions are low and thus RE photo gigs pay less, so I'd imagine it's a common practice over there as they all seem to run and gun with no tripod in order to work very quickly. I also saw some very seasoned American RE photogs talking about it in a facebook group, and their work looked very high end.
@@trip_the_deep I wish I knew how to make that look good but it seems to depend on the situation. Some rooms this might work but it won't work for every room so I can never do that. You have to be consistent room to room but I will look into this more as some listing may be enough and just charge a bit less. Thanks for the info!
@@joefoto One name I found was Thomas Balagula who seems to work this way sometimes. There's an interview on UA-cam somewhere of a few very seasoned photogs talking about this technique, one of them mentioned that if you nail it editing goes so much faster than having to do blending. If I come across it again I'll share it. I've also seen a video of Dom Bower editing, he's pretty meticulous as well and seems to just apply a preset to a whole library and make tweaks.
What a great video. I ultimately think micro four thirds has always been affected by bad marketing, not only the marketing attacks from other companies, but the inability of Olympus and Panasonic to be good and efficient explaining the obvious advantages of the system in many many aspects.
Yes. For sure. It's honestly the best of both worlds in many situations. Big enough sensor to be good enough in low light and the ability to shoot wide open without a super shallow depth of field. Win win!
Hi Joe, you should give the lumix G9 with the Olympus f2.8 pro 7-14. Works a treat for real estate
Oh I'm sure. I've looked into that 7-14mm lens a few times. I should probably invest in that lens for sure! And the g9ii is coming out soon! I like the looks of that camera as well!
Very well explained regarding the doubling of depth of field ( not the misunderstanding of aperture). I am lucky enough to have acquired several Olympus MFT cameras and have recently added the OM5 ( replacing my EM5mkiii) to my collection. Paired with smaller lenses it’s ideal as an every day camera. Have just found your channel and will sub, thank you .
I love m43 system. So many advantages many don't realize. Thank you for the sub and comment!
Early in his channel videos here, Joe extolled the benefits of micro 4-3rds cameras and I took his advice. I sold my SONY a7sii that I had bought used on eBay and bought a used Olympus EM-1 Markii on eBay for about $400. The lenses are WAY cheaper than for SONY full frame cameras. The camera is lighter, has more customization options to adjust (took me days to go through!). It holds two SD cards and has a swing-out touch screen, something the SONY didn't have until later models. I appreciate the benefit of shooting at f4 aperture and getting f8 focus range. It really does help shooting interior real estate!
Thanks for the feedback!
Im thinking of getting the GH7. Sounds like you'd live it. Its like an upgraded S5ii but MFT. My problem is that i want the lower depth of field and worry the MFT will be too limiting to my photography. Tough choices ahead...
Honestly I love my gh5ii. You can still get great depth of field especially if you use a 1.8 or 1.4 aperture. Also you can blur background in lightroom now and it looks surprisingly real. That's my 2 cents on that.
Hi Joe. Do you send your photos in a 4x3 aspect ratio to your clients or do you crop to 3:2/16:9?
Whatever the camera aspect ratio is I send them. So even my drone photos are different. I never remember to keep them all the same and never had a ln issue yet. Most of my shots are the 4x3.
I think 4x3 is actually better for viewing on smartphones and for IG thank wider aspect ration. But I think it's nice that every short have same ratio whatever it is.
Good timing - I recently dropped from 7.1 to 5.6 on the S5ii, with ISO of 320. I can shoot very large spaces with three speedlites when ceiling are below 10 feet. Love the weight of the kit. I squeeze the aperture or drop the ISO when I need a window pull.
thats good to know! Thank you for your response! I love the s5ii. Need a wider lens though than the 20-60 kit I have, but don't feel like spending $800 right now. lol
I shoot with the GH5 using bracketed photos and all my clients have had nothing but good things to say. I use the Rokinon 12mm f2 and I feel it's a little soft, so I'm looking at the Laowa 7.5mm, not only to go wider, but I feel the quality of glass is going to be better.
I have the gh5ii. Very good photo camera. I need to use flash. How do you deal with color casts?
@@joefoto I outsource my editing and make it their problem 🤣
Cool, you are the first I see who recommend mft for real estate shots. I use a GX9 20mpix pocket camera with Panasonic 9mm and 200w godox remote compact flash. As long I don't zoom in the images it looks great, zoomed in is quite big quality difference from my full frame 40mpix Nikon... But I love the light weight and size of mft and most clients people watch those shots on smart phones :). However I wonder if it is worth to get better mft body like yours or newer to get better image quality... Less noice better colors etc ?
You may get a little better ISO performance on a higher end micro four thirds camera but honestly I am either at 320 iso or lower. When we light rooms we don't need higher iso. So you're probably just fine with what you got in my opinion.
I would like to try 4/3 especially Olympus.
Go with the em1 mark ii. Best bang for the buck. Used on ebay you can get it for around $500
The mark I have even smaller body, but it's the image quality differ at all betwean all models with same sensor?
The remote trigger not working for photo is probably the wrong cable. I had a remote that came with 2 cables: one for Olympus and 1 for Panasonic. The 4 conductor plugs worked for me. It has 3 black rings on it.
The 14 to 28 lens is great. I like it a lot. The FF sensor gives better colors imo and no noise ever. And I dont have to be so precise with the ISO. I use f5.6 for a toilet and f8 for any other room and there is just no noise ever. The GH5 mark 2 with the 8 - 18 pana is about the same size and weight as the S5 2 with the 14-28 so now the S5 is my main camera and the m43 is a nice backup. I use mostly flash (or bracketing with enfuse for larger spaces).
Of sweet! Can you please share a link to these cables for the s5ii or talk me exactly what to search for! Thank you so much! Also yes, iso 4000 is no different than iso 100 on the s5ii. Thanks for your help!
Great Video. I am getting getting my real estate license. Currently teaching Photography, Graphic Design, Podcasting and Video Production for H.S. With my art background I want to also offer my clients my services as far as Real Estate Photography / Video. Do you have a video on what gear I would need to get started and do it well? What would you recommend if you had to do it over? I don't want to buy a bunch of things I don't need. I love being efficient / effective when I work. Thoughts? Thanks for the great vids.
If I had to start over,I would get the camera and lens I'm currently using. Olympus em1 mark ii and the laowa 7.5mm. I would get a Manfrotto tripod with the gear head and the godox ad200 flash. Get a good wireless shutter release and the godox trigger for the ad200 and you'll need nothing else. Good luck and thanks for the comment. Let me know if I can help further.
Thanks so much for the info. I will be sure to reach out if I have any more questions. I am going to practice on my own home first with the gear you recommended. I showed a realtor friend some drone work I did for a friends house and he liked it. He wants me to do some of the same for him. @@joefoto
@@MajorChisholm that's great! Keep me posted and reach out anytime.
@@joefoto I see there is a newer version of the Laowa 7.5mm lens with MFT Auto Aperture. Would you recommend this or the Standard Manual Focus.
@@MajorChisholm I will have to check this out. If the lens distortion has improved, then I would say yes for sure. Have you checked to see if any reviews have been made on it yet? I'll look into it.
I am using Lumix G7 For My 360 Virtual tour Business its so amazing i upgrade To Fujifilm XT3. For Real estate still apsc is enough or i need to FF ? I learning from videos so many things. Thank you so much
You do not need full frame at all. I use micro four thirds and get great results. Thanks for watching!
I have to ask as I see MANY real estate photographers in the US use flash, why are you using flash?
Why not shoot 3 or 5 shot HDR with 2 stop exposure increments?
Once merged you get a much cleaner look than those really harsh shadows from the flash and still have great view out of the windows etc.
Just a tip from a real estate photo- and videographer in Denmark.
The reason I prefer using flash is because I personally get a better result. I have yet to find a good hdr app and I don't know how to do luminosity masks so I'm stuck using flambient. How do you edit your hdr images?
@@joefoto In the company I work at they use the "Enfuse" script to merge HDR photos on a server side (us photographers upload images to a server, the server merges them and then they are sent to editing).
I believe they are just using the standard preset with the script.
Personally I use Aurora HDR for my own projects which is in my book much better. Its made from Skylum who makes the Luminar software. They discontinued Aurora HDR for some reason but it can still be purchased and used. Also extremely easy to use and I just use the standard preset (I've tested different of their presets but I prefer the standard and edit the output .tiff file in Lightroom to my liking after merging.)
Luminar Neo is using the Aurora HDR engine for their supreme HDR merging tool, however, for some reason they don't support bulk merging. So you have to merge each photo individually.
Aurora HDR does however support bulk and this is why I use that over Luminar Neo.
California RE shooter here.....I've talked to a lot of homeowners over the last 6-years and they know the difference between the look of HDR and flambient photos - they don't understand the difference, but they appreciate the way their listing photos look when compared to photo mill HDR listing photos that their properties are up against. They instinctively notice the realism and accurate colors of flambient, vs highly processed HDR. Realtors like it too - and if you can keep your prices competitive, they'll choose flambient over HDR packages. "Harsh shadows" are not a normal look of flambient shots - in fact, it's the opposite. Clear window views in the asphalt jungles of the Bay Area aren't the be all of photos - more often that not, a purposely blown out or accurately bright window hides not so pretty views. Surprisingly, not many consumers like the LCD TV hanging of the wall in place of a window look.
Amen. Thanks for your comment.
The main benefit of flash and "flambient" is to get correct colors! On walls etc... Hdr does not solve this. But if you're clients don't care so much no-slah shots are really nice, I like it too. I prefere to merge flash and ambient, however for long time I shoot only one image with nice ambient lighting and flash, much faster editing and very nice results... But not always color accurate :)
Yeah the full frame thing is really just a big draw for video I think, and most of us don't want to buy two separate lens systems. That being said If there was a really cheap setup I would consider it as a backup.
The only reason I don't use the olympus for video is because I have the s5ii for weddings and portrait work...otherwise it can be used for doing real estate video and image looks great.
@@joefoto I see you do a lot of vids about flambient, what do you think of the style where you shoot everything in 1 exposure with flash (balance your ambient and flash at the same time)
Another youtuber, Dombowerphoto, seems to do that method. He's in the UK where realtor commissions are low and thus RE photo gigs pay less, so I'd imagine it's a common practice over there as they all seem to run and gun with no tripod in order to work very quickly. I also saw some very seasoned American RE photogs talking about it in a facebook group, and their work looked very high end.
@@trip_the_deep I wish I knew how to make that look good but it seems to depend on the situation. Some rooms this might work but it won't work for every room so I can never do that. You have to be consistent room to room but I will look into this more as some listing may be enough and just charge a bit less. Thanks for the info!
@@joefoto One name I found was Thomas Balagula who seems to work this way sometimes. There's an interview on UA-cam somewhere of a few very seasoned photogs talking about this technique, one of them mentioned that if you nail it editing goes so much faster than having to do blending. If I come across it again I'll share it. I've also seen a video of Dom Bower editing, he's pretty meticulous as well and seems to just apply a preset to a whole library and make tweaks.