Are you new in real estate photography? Picking the right lens is the fist step you should!
Lens play significant role for your final image result, it can affect the clarity, distortion and versatility. Many photographer consider lens more important than any other tools like tripods, lighting gear and even camera.
In this article, we are going to list some of the best lens for real estate photography for your reference. we provide complete explanation with its pros and cons so you can better choose which one is the most suit with your needs and situations.
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What Is the Best Lens for Real Estate Photography?
Real estate field is quite competitive landscape. It demands the agent to be able to present the properties into appealing and attractive products. One of the shortcut is by hiring the professional photographer to package their products.
If you are planning to shoot on your own, make sure you have the right kit and knowledge before starting.
In choosing the right lens for real estate photo, find the one that allows you to cover all sorts of spaces. Your camera should be able to cover small spaces and details. You final result should be sharp enough to bring the details.
Based on that case, you should look for this kind of lens:
- Wide Angle lenses
- Zoom lenses
- Minimal chromatic aberration or distortion
1. Wide Angel Lenses
For producing spacious space in your image, this lens is super essentials!
You want to capture as large as possible space inside your image. This wide angle lens allows you to get a wider view of space.
In other hand, try to avoid using fish eye lens. It is because of the distortion. Correcting the distortion may take more time and make you loss your image quality. Besides, the rectilinear wide angle also have same kind of distortion.
2. The Zoom Lens
If you just starting out or taking your own real estate photos, this zoom lens is a great choice! The amazing versatility from zoom lens is perfect for this situation.
The zoom lens give you freedom to choose what kind of wide range that suit the best for you. You can shoot room with different kind of shape and size without swapping any lens.
Make sure you put the image quality as the first priority above any other key points!
3. Minimal Distortion Lens
The quality that you are looking for in better lens it the chromatic aberration. It is about the color quality around the contrasy edges on your wide angle image, people often call it soften edges.
This chromatic aberration is noticeable by bit blurry or muddy look in the edge of frame. In common, the high-end lens will have sharper and less distorted picture edges.
Best Lenses for Full Frame Cameras
1. Editors’ Choice: Canon EF 16-35MM F/2.8L II USM
| Focus Lengths: | 16-35mm |
| Aperture: | f/2.8L |
| Lens Mount: | Canon EF |
| Weight: | 1.4 lbs |
| Pro & Cons: | + Light Weighs (only 1.4 lbs) + Made with Perfect build quality (sturdy) + High glare resistance + Instant focus |
This lens was Canon’s top ultrawide lens for expert and professional sports, news, and action shoot. It was released from 2007 until the end of 2016.
This lens was the fastest, most expensive, and most robust lens on its time until Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L III released.
Even though its already outdated, but this lens is super useful to capture the real estate photo. This high-end lens can capture ultra-zoom and wide-angle for real estate. This lens can maintain the sharpness of the edge of the image.
This lens allows you to capture images under various lighting conditions because of its maximum f/4 aperture. The perfect build quality will enable you to shoot in all weather conditions without worry about dust or water.
You can use this lens for a full-frame camera or cropped sensor.
As one of the high-end Canon lenses, the price is high, but as the new lens comes out, the price will drop. The high cost comes with super quality.
The final image with this lens is nice and sharp, not only in the center but also in the corner. It allows you to snap a space without any misinterpretation.
For us, this is the best lens for real estate photography in 2022 when concerned with image quality.
2. Best Nikon Lens for Real Estate Photography: Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED
| Focus Lengths: | 16-35mm |
| Aperture: | f/4 |
| Lens Mount: | Nikon F |
| Weight: | 1.49 lbs |
| Pro & Cons: | + Dust-proof and waterproof metal case + Fast and quiet auto-focus drive + Effective image stabilizer – Light Softness on the image’s edges – Slight barrel distortion |
Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED was released in February 2010 as a pro-grade wide-angle lens for enthusiasts and professionals photographers. It has the latest generation of VR (vibration reduction) technology for DX and FX cameras, which is the first in the world.
This lens is ultra-fast with AF-S silent-wave focus motor. Not only that, but it has also Nano crystal coating to back you up against flare and harsh weather conditions.
How about the result? The result is ultra-sharp with beautiful detail, even in the corner of the image. You can easily zoom and focusing on just inches object distance.
This 16-35mm f/4 VR just became my recommendation for a Nikon FX ultra-wide zoom because of the excellent combination of features and price. It is perfect for a limited budget real-estate photographer.
3. Best Canon lens for Real Estate Photography: Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Lens
| Focus Lengths: | 11-24mm |
| Aperture: | f/4 |
| Lens Mount: | Canon EF |
| Weight: | 2.60 lbs |
| Pro & Cons: | +126.5 degrees of field of view + Low level of distortion + A small level of chromatic aberrations + High sharpness – Expensive cost – Vignetting at open aperture |
We nominate Canon EF 11-24mm f4L USM as the best Canon lens for real estate photography because of its high-end ultra-wide zoom lens. This full-frame design lens was announced in February 2015 as the world’s widest rectilinear zoom lens, which can boast minimal distortion across the focal range.
The lens can capture 126.5 degrees of field of view across the diagonal. This feature makes it super ideal for architectural photography or a huge group shot.
This is not a fisheye lens! The straight line is not going to go funky. It does have little distortion, but it will be easy to correct in Photoshop. You can tell how advanced it is from the bizarre shape of a sphere in the rear. The most fantastic thing about this lens is its sharp, contrasty, and colorful images, just like a regular lens.
If you’re a landscape or real estate pro, you need to have this lens to stay in the game. There is no other lens that can go this wide with excellent image quality.
4. Best Fuji Lens for Real Estate: Fujinon XF10-24mmF4 R OIS
| Focus Lengths: | 10-24mm |
| Aperture: | f/4 |
| Lens Mount: | Fujifilm X |
| Weight: | 0.89 lbs |
| Pro & Cons: | + Wide viewing angle (110 degrees) + Built-in optical stabilizer + High sharpness over the entire range of focal lengths + Filter attachable -High cost – No manual-Focus override – Sharpness reduction at the edges of the frame at f /4 |
This Fuji XF 10-24mm f/4 OIS is a 15-35mm ultra-wide zoom for Fuji X-mount cameras. This metal-made lens can do amazing internal-focusing and zooming. Not only that, but this Fuji lens is also well known for its ability to capture images with a lack of distortion and light falloff.
The amazing robust build quality allows you to shoot in a different kind of situation. One of the unique things is that you can use filters on this lens, which is uncommon for a wide-angle lens.
The Optical image stabilizer will make you feel the confidence to shoot having a tripod near you.
Many people don’t know if Fuji does a great job in developing advanced optics. Some of their work like making binocular for military and space, the lens for TV, and motion pictures with super expensive tags on it. We can tell if Fuji has tons of experiences and research and great competitor of Canon and Nikon.
5. Best lens for Beginner Real Estate Agents: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 USM
| Focus Lengths: | 24-70mm |
| Aperture: | f/2.8 |
| Lens Mount: | Canon EF |
| Weight: | 1.77 lbs |
| Pro & Cons: | + Perfect optical quality and sharpness + High build quality +Good vignetting and light fall-off control at all apertures – High price – Inability to use front or rear filters of any type – No auto focus |
The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L is a must-have lens for a pro photographer since it was released in 2002. The reason is because of the great optical and ergonomic. This lens is quite popular with professional wedding and event photographers.
It has less distortion and excellent build quality. The Autofocus feature is immediate and silent.
You can directly change the manual focus anytime from the lens and zoom range is ideal for all kinds of real estate shots.
One aspect that people talk about is the weight of the lens, which is about a kilogram.
This lens model is suitable for real estate photographers. It produces a decent image quality with minimum distortion and builds quality.