What Makes a Quality RE Photo?

I suggest dividing the features into two groups, which for the lack of better names at the moment I'll call form & function.

Form - the overall LOOK of the photo, it's visual appeal. To a certain extent this is going to be a personal thing. I'll concentrate on interior photos. Let's face it, It's difficult to take a bad exterior real estate photo on the sunshine coast. We get a high average number of sunny days each year with startling blue skies. As long as important features are not in deep shade then - click- you're pretty much done.

Interiors are potentially problematic to capture as the eye sees them, especially if the scene takes in some of that perfect day outside which is so much brighter than the interior. While our eyes flick from living room to the picture window view our brain deftly makes rapid adjustments so that we see both scenes clearly. But a camera can't do that. At best it will average the brightnesses of the view/room so that neither is ideally rendered, or it will favour one over the other so that either parts of the room look good (although other areas may be too dark) but the picture window is a white furnace, or conversely the window view is seen clearly while the room is a dark cave.

To capture such a wide range of brightness in one image requires know-how. You can take two or more photos, whose exposures favour a different part of the scene, and combine them with image editing software. Or you can raise the brightness of the relatively dim interior with flash (and one is rarely sufficient) so that it approaches that of the world seen through the windows. Both require skills and tools that I don't see being employed by DIY real estate photographers on the Sunshine Coast. Most interiors are dim and gloomy through underexposure.

Function - the photos should show assets in relation to each other eg the main scene might be a kitchen and its fabulous stainless steel appliances, but might also include glimpses of the dining room beyond or a hall leading (..oo show me more photos from down thataway...), or of French doors opening out onto a patio.

Sure, one can't fit the whole house into one shot, but unless one is shooting for Home & Garden it's probably best to avoid zooming in on details but rather 'go wide' and attempt to convey the floor plan..how spaces might interact.