Real-estate 360 photography
A practical real-estate 360 photography workflow for consistent room coverage, clean stitching, and buyer-friendly virtual tours.
Plan the property before the camera arrives
Walk the property with the agent and decide which rooms, circulation areas, and exterior views deserve a scene. A useful tour answers how spaces connect rather than simply collecting attractive views.
Ask the agent to clear personal documents, mirrorside clutter, bins, and fragile items. Turn on practical lights consistently, open curtains where views matter, and agree on whether people, pets, and vehicles should be absent.
- Make a room list and a capture order that avoids walking through finished scenes.
- Record room names and a simple floor-plan note so scene labels are unambiguous.
- Check mirrors, windows, and glossy appliances for reflections of the operator.
Capture each room consistently
Place the tripod near the visual center of a room, at a natural eye height, and keep the camera level. In small rooms, move furniture only with permission; an unobstructed doorway is usually more useful than forcing the camera into a corner.
Lock focus, exposure, and white balance after evaluating the brightest window and darkest interior. Shoot the required overlapping frames without changing the tripod height. If the room contains a bright window, bracket exposures only when your stitching and tone-mapping workflow can handle them reliably.
- Use manual settings and a self-timer or remote to reduce camera movement.
- Keep the tripod and camera orientation repeatable between scenes.
- Capture a nadir frame or clean plate when the tripod will be removed in post.
Stitch, inspect, and publish
Stitch the image set with a consistent projection and inspect door frames, railings, cupboards, and window edges at full size. Correct the horizon before exporting, then patch or crop the tripod area without hiding a meaningful floor feature.
Export a web-sized equirectangular image with the correct spherical metadata when the platform expects it. Review the actual viewer, not only the flat image: test the first view, navigation between rooms, labels, and mobile loading.
- Check every vertical line near a seam for bending or a double edge.
- Confirm that dark corners retain detail and windows are not clipped beyond recognition.
- Use descriptive scene names and preserve an untouched master.
Mistakes and final checklist
Common failures include placing the camera too close to a wall, mixing automatic white balance between frames, shooting through people, and leaving reflections of the photographer in glass. Re-shoot a problematic scene while the property is available instead of trying to conceal obvious ghosts.
Before delivery, compare the scene list with the property walk-through and ask the agent to verify privacy-sensitive content. Keep raw frames, stitched masters, and delivery files in separate folders.
- Verify tripod level, camera height, focus, exposure, and overlap.
- Review seams, horizon, nadir, windows, mirrors, and room labels.
- Test the published tour on desktop and phone.
- Archive the source frames and record the export settings.