Why A Mobile Phone Won’t Do For Property Photography and Video

With the property sector moving heavily toward virtual 360 tours and video walkthroughs, there is a lot of misconception about what equipment will give good results. You only have to take a look at some of the property portals to see some very poor quality virtual viewings, both in video quality and filming technique.

Why you need good quality

Think about the ads you respond to on a daily basis. Products are made more desirable with quality photography and beautiful video. Think Apple, Nike etc.

Mobile phones won't cut it

While mobile phones have come a long way since the days of the Blackberry and the Nokia 3310, the physical limitations of a tiny sensor and the amount of light it can gather, plus the movement required to properly stabilize footage, means there will always be a limitation. Your mobile phone will shoot vibrant selfies out in sunlight, but the lack of ability to gather a lot of light on such a small sensor results in a noisy image with bad colours. Interiors in the UK are not the brightest, especially in the winter months.

Sensor size

"But my iPhone has as many megapixels as a DSLR!" This is a common misconception that megapixels are the most important thing. In fact, some camera companies have actually reduced low light quality in their products with certain models because they were drawn into the megapixel race. Consider a full-frame sensor (the same size as a piece of 35mm film) and a mobile phone sensor (see below for size comparison). If each of them has the same amount of megapixels, the smaller sensor will have much smaller pixels and be more crammed together. The large sensor can have bigger pixels that gather more light. This results in the larger sensor being able to shoot in lower light without suffering the digital noise of the mobile phone sensor. Let's look at the size of the common sensors.

Imagine the same amount of pixels used in the full frame or APS-C sensor crammed into that tiny phone sensor - 12 million of them. Although to be honest, cameras these days generally have two, three, or even four times more megapixels than a phone.

Another thing to note is the shape of the sensor. This is the shape of your phone pictures, but if you shoot a photo you are loosing millions of pixels due to the 16:9 aspect of video.

Image Stabilisation

Stabilisation is important on video to give smooth footage rather than jittery, nauseating clips. Phones have come a long way in this regard with optical and digital stabilisation, but the amount of restriction of travel allowed on that tiny OIS (optical) unit due to the physical size is minuscule.  You are also throwing away pixels when digital stabilisation is used due to the image being cropped.

A professional gimbal has the ability to travel in multiple axises allowing for smooth cinema quality stabilisation. These gimbals have come a long way in recent years and although they can be expensive and awkward to setup, we can now use these for video walkthroughs.

Lenses

In a lot of ways, lenses are the most important part of photography and video. Like the sensor, they have to allow as much light as possible through their elements, but due to physics, good lenses are large (certainly in comparison with phone lenses) and expensive. A great lens will cost much more than the price of the most expensive iPhone. Cameras come and go, but good lenses last a lifetime!

In Conclusion

Mobile phones are amazing tools and they have changed the way we go about our daily lives and work. But they are no substitute for professional equipment. But there is an even more important part of this whole equation that I haven't  even mentioned in this article so far - the photographer/videographer. Professional photographers are problem solvers. They have studied their craft for many years or decades. They know instinctively how to overcome problems and how their equipment works. There is no quick way to gain experience or expertise.

Find out how Property Exposure can help make your 360 Virtual Tours, Video Walkthroughs, and Property Photography professional and cost effective by getting in touch today.