Welcome!
I kind of have to agree with Fred Light when he states that "Video is not intended to and never should replace photos." But like you, Teresa, I'm not really looking to incorporate video into my online presentations anytime in the future. This is because over the 8 years I have been presenting properties online, I inadvertently created a style of photography that made sense to me as a buyer looking online. In effect, my pictorials serve as both a quick palette of photos and a still video tour. Lets not forget that video or film is really a series of photographs. So, if you present your photos like those nineteenth century moving image toys, e.g., how Zoetropes and flipbooks made use of drawings like an animated film, then you can provide enough additional detail and interest like the flow of a video. For example: Court Square Press Loft The other point I would concur with is Chris Jones' comment that good photos take time and skill to produce. Obviously a cellphone camera shot is not going to cut it. That said, I, unlike Chris Jones' suggestion, never use a tripod. I prefer to get in and out of property as quickly as possible. A tripod would slow me down. That's not to say that bracing yourself against walls, door frames or furniture isn't important. Anything you can do to mitigate against camera shake is important. Judicious use of manual settings on more sophisticated cameras, like aperture and shutter speed and exposure override, can also be a wise investment. However, if you can't afford a more expensive camera or don't have the time to absorb the learning curve then, PhotoShop is a one-stop tool for image correction and manipulation. I put all the processing time in post-production of an image. Many of my clients would not be able to have me disrupt their day by setting-up an image with lights, levels... all that pre-production that goes into say a professional model shoot. The dirty secret of my website is that of the over 17,000 photos presented on the site (that represents just 430 loft properties... that's approx. 40 photos per property), 94% of the images were taken with an 8 year old, point-n-shoot camera (Nikon Coolpix), with a wide angle converter attached to the lens mount. The power of PhotoShop is that I can make the relative poor quality images from my point-n-shoot camera pop out of the screen once I go live with the finished pictorial on the site. Neither the sellers nor the buyers are any wiser as to how badly my original photo shoot turned out. Thank you Adobe for PhotoShop... and thank you Teresa for this discussion thread. Great comments everyone. Sebastian Diessel LoftsBoston.com, Inc.