Real Estate CameraTo photograph a kitchen for a real estate listing, clear the counters, turn on every light in the room, and shoot from the corner that shows the most cabinets and the island in one frame. Hold the camera level, a little higher than you would in other rooms, and set exposure on the cabinets rather than the window. Then take a second wide shot from the opposite side and one detail shot of whatever the kitchen does best.
That's the short version. The rest of this page covers the parts that go wrong most often: stainless steel, a window over the sink, and a counter the seller swears is already clear.
Prep the kitchen before you pick up the camera
Kitchens collect more stuff than any other room, and all of it shows up in a wide-angle photo. I spend more time clearing a kitchen than shooting it.
- Counters: toaster, coffee maker, knife block, paper towels, fruit bowl full of bananas, mail. All of it goes into a cabinet.
- Sink: dish soap, sponge, drying rack, the scrubber on the faucet. Empty the sink itself.
- Fridge door: magnets, calendars, kids' drawings, takeout menus. Buyers read every one of them when they zoom in.
- Floor: trash can, pet bowls, the mat in front of the sink.
- Stainless fronts: wipe the fingerprints off the fridge and the dishwasher, then the oven door and the microwave. Zillow's photo tips for sellers call this out too, and it's the thing people forget.
Leave one or two things. A cutting board leaning on the backsplash, or a bowl of lemons on the island. A kitchen with nothing on it at all can look like a rental that's never been lived in, but a kitchen with five decor items looks cluttered in a photo even when it didn't in person.
Open the blinds over the sink and pull the stools in so they sit evenly under the island. Uneven stools are the kitchen version of a crooked picture frame.
Where to stand
The main shot: corner, cabinets and island together
Walk the room and find the corner that gets the longest run of cabinets plus the island in one frame. That's usually the corner diagonal from the range, or the spot just inside the doorway from the family room. The goal is depth: two walls of cabinets receding away from you, with the island in the middle ground.
Keep the island from filling the bottom third of the frame. If you're standing right against it, all you get is the countertop edge and a lot of stone. Take a step or two back.
The second shot: the reverse
From the far side of the island, looking back the way you came. In an open plan this is the shot that shows how the kitchen connects to the family room or dining area. Buyers look for it. If the kitchen is closed off, shoot from the doorway toward the window instead.
The detail shot
One close shot, only of something worth it: a range and hood, a farmhouse sink, a tiled backsplash, a wine fridge, a walk-in pantry. Switch to the 1x lens or a normal focal length for this. The ultra-wide makes details look odd up close.
Galley kitchens are the exception to all of this. There's no corner to stand in, so shoot from one end down the length of the galley, camera centered, then from the other end if both ends look different. Two shots is plenty.
Camera height and keeping it level
In most rooms I hold the camera around light-switch height. In a kitchen I go a few inches higher, roughly the height of the counter backsplash. From lower down, the counters shrink to a thin line and you lose what buyers want to see, which is how much surface there is.
The height changes but the rule doesn't: keep the camera level. Raise it; don't point it down. The moment you tilt down to get more countertop, the upper cabinets start leaning inward and the fridge looks like it's falling over. Kitchens are full of vertical lines, from cabinet edges to the fridge and the range hood, so a small tilt is obvious here in a way it might not be in a bedroom.
On a phone, turn on the grid and the level, and line a cabinet edge up with one of the vertical grid lines. If they run parallel, you're square. The guide to fixing leaning vertical lines goes into more detail if a shot slips.
Lights: turn on all of them
Overheads, pendants over the island, under-cabinet strips, the light in the range hood. Every one. Under-cabinet lights matter more than people think, because without them the backsplash sits in shadow under the upper cabinets and reads as a dark stripe across the photo.
The catch is color. Kitchen bulbs tend to be warm, the window is daylight, and under-cabinet LEDs are often a third color. You'll get a yellow cast near the lights and a cooler tone near the window. I leave the lights on anyway. A color cast can be fixed afterward. A dark kitchen with one bright window can't be fixed nearly as well.
If you can, ask the seller to replace dead bulbs a few days before the shoot, and to use the same color bulb in each fixture. That one request does more than any amount of editing.
The window over the sink
Most kitchens have a window right where you want to point the camera. A phone or camera will try to expose for it, and the rest of the kitchen goes dark. Tap on the cabinets or a wall to set exposure there instead. On an iPhone, touch and hold until AE/AF Lock appears so the setting sticks while you reframe.
You'll lose most of the view out the window in a single exposure. That's normal. The phone's own HDR will blend some of it back, and editing can recover more. What you should avoid is exposing for the window and leaving the cabinets muddy. Nobody is buying the view out of the kitchen window.
Shoot kitchens when the sun isn't coming straight through that window. Hard sunlight on the counter blows out to white and pulls the eye to the wrong place. Bright overcast is ideal.
Stainless steel, glass and other reflections
A stainless fridge is a mirror with handles. So is the oven door, the microwave, a glass cabinet front and a glossy backsplash. Before each shot, look at every reflective surface in the frame for three things:
- You. Step out of the fridge's line of sight, or shoot it from a steeper angle. Use the phone's timer or a remote and walk out of the room if you have to.
- The flash, if it fired. Turn it off. A flash in a kitchen puts a bright hot spot on every shiny surface and flattens the room.
- Pendant lights doubled in the glass cabinet fronts. Move a foot left or right and they usually shift out of the way.
Shooting a fridge dead on is almost always a mistake. At an angle it reflects the cabinets across the room, which looks natural. Square on, it reflects whoever is holding the camera.
Editing the kitchen shots
A kitchen photo straight off a phone usually needs three things: the yellow cast taken out, the window brought back, and the verticals straightened by a degree or two. You can do that by hand in Lightroom or the phone's photo editor. Lightroom's Upright tool handles the verticals well; the white balance takes a bit of trial and error when there are two or three light colors in the room.
Real Estate Camera's Enhance does those three things in one pass. It fixes light and white balance and straightens verticals, in 20 to 60 seconds for 1 credit. It doesn't change the cabinets, the counters or anything else about the room, and it won't swap the view out the window for a nicer one.
Look at the before shot for a second. The lights were on, the counters were clear, and it was still a hard photo to use because of the color. That's the typical phone kitchen, and it's why I'd rather fix color afterward than shoot a dark room.
If the seller's kitchen is empty and you're staging the whole house virtually, virtual staging includes kitchen as a room type, at 2 credits a photo. Staged files are flagged "virtually staged" in the app. Check virtual staging MLS rules before you upload, since boards differ on labels.
A quick kitchen checklist
- Counters and sink cleared, fridge door bare. Stainless wiped.
- Every light on, including under-cabinet and hood lights. Blinds open.
- Flash off.
- Main shot from the corner with the most cabinets and the island.
- Camera a little above chest height, level, a cabinet edge lined up with the grid.
- Exposure set on the cabinets, not the window.
- Check the fridge, oven door and microwave for your reflection.
- Reverse shot from the far side of the island.
- One detail shot at 1x, only if something deserves it.
The kitchen photos usually go right after the living room in the gallery. The room-by-room shot list covers the full order, and shooting real estate on an iPhone covers the phone settings in more depth.
Questions
What is the best angle for a kitchen listing photo?
Stand in the corner that shows the most cabinets and the island together, then take a second shot from the opposite side, often from behind the island looking out toward the family room. Shoot straight on only when the kitchen is a single wall.
How high should the camera be in a kitchen?
A little above chest height, so the counters read as surfaces instead of thin edges. Keep the camera level. Raising it is fine; pointing it down is what makes the cabinets lean.
Should the kitchen lights be on in listing photos?
Yes. Turn on the overheads, the pendants and the under-cabinet lights. The warm color they add can be corrected afterward, and dark corners under the upper cabinets look worse than a slight yellow cast.
How do I stop my reflection showing in a stainless fridge?
Shoot the fridge at an angle instead of square on, step out of its line, and use a phone timer or remote if you have one. Check the oven door and the microwave too.
What should be on the counters for kitchen photos?
Almost nothing. Put away the toaster, knife block, dish soap and sponge. Mail and fridge magnets too. Leave one or two things at most, like a bowl of lemons or a cutting board.