| Rick McEvoy Photography

You need photography gear to take real estate photos. But how much stuff do you need? Well it might surprise you how little gear I use.

These are the 11 bits of photography gear that I use on real estate photography shoots.

Canon 6D

Canon17-40mm lens
Manfrotto 190 Go Tripod
Manfrotto XPRO Geared Tripod Head

Universal L Bracket
Manfrotto 200PL quick release plates
Neewer Loupe viewer

Eclipse Lens Cleaning Solution
Pec Pads
Lastolite Grey Card

Peak Design Everyday Backpack

And there is my iPhone XS for everything else. Sorry and memory cards and batteries…..

And that is, for 95 out of 100 shoots, all that I use. Seriously. I have lots of other stuff but this is all I pack and use.

Who am I?

I am a real estate photographer based in the UK. I specialise in real estate photography, architectural photography and also construction photography. Basically I photograph buildings.

I am also the creator of the Photography Explained Podcast.

I am also a Chartered Builder.

So you can trust me when I tell you that I know what I am talking about.

Affiliate links

The links to gear in this post are affiliate links – if you buy something using one of these links you do not pay any more, and I get a small commission. And you get my gratitude.

All my own experience

This series of posts about real estate photography is based on my many years doing this stuff, and is not the result of a quick Google search for all the latest buzzwords.

I am not a gear fan

I love my gear, but as you will see from the list above neither do I have the latest gear, nor do I have lots of gear.

I have assembled this little lot over the years, and this is genuinely all that I use for the vast majority of shoots.

Less is more

I used to take everything that I had on a shoot. And I mean everything. And not use most of it. And I did this on every shoot just in case. This becomes a problem when you are trying to photograph an entire house in the allotted hour that you have.

And even more of a problem trying to get around a live construction site with a load of gear.

The penny finally dropped, and on one shoot I used one small bag with the things that I thought that I needed, and guess what?

I was fine. It went just fine.

Getting from less to even less

Once I had started down that road of less after a shoot I would look at what I had used, and had not used. I kept doing this until I got down to the bare minimum, which is what I use now.

And this got me looking at all the gear that I had. I took a load of stuff and put it in the garage, and then roughly a year later sold all that stuff that I clearly did not need.

But what if something fails?

I have two camera bags. One I take on a shoot, and one that stays in the car.

The bag for the shoot

As I said I have two bags. One is the Peak Design Everyday Backpack. I use the smaller. 20 litre one. This is the one that takes all the gear listed at the start of this post. Using a backpack leaves my hands free to get around.

I also use this great bag as my hand luggage for foreign trips.

The reason I use such a small bag is because I can, as I am not taking a lot of gear with me. And when my camera is on my tripod my bag is virtually empty.

I also use this great bag as my hand luggage for foreign trips.

The reason I use such a small bag is because I can, as I am not taking a lot of gear with me. And when my camera is on my tripod my bag is virtually empty.

The bag in the car

The other camera bag is the mighty Lowe Pro Magnum. I used to lug this around brimming full of stuff, but not anymore. This bag stays securely locked away in my car, and has all the spares and other things that I might ever need.

It used to be crammed full of everything, but now just has the things that I might need.

And this works really well for me

OK that is the bags done – now for the gear itself.

Canon 6D

Yes I still use the good old Canon 6D. It was a great camera when I bought it, and it is still a great camera now.

It takes great photos for me every time, and I see no need to replace it.

You do not have to have the latest gear to take photos commercially, but you do need the right gear!

Canon 17-40mm lens

A great L series lens from Canon. The L series lenses are pro lenses. This is great lens that gives me a perfect ultra-wide angle view at 17mm – the field of view is 93 degrees which is pretty awesome.

Wide enough to get everything in without making everything look fake and exaggerated and with little distortion.

The lens is small and sharp. And the maximum aperture of F4 is fine for me – I do not need a faster lens with a larger maximum aperture as I take most of my photos on a tripod.

Manfrotto 190 Go Tripod

I have used many tripods over the years, and keep coming back to this one. One of my problems is that I need to get into the corners of a room to get everything into a composition.

Larger tripods were making this harder and harder to do, but this little gem works perfectly.

Not too heavy, but stable enough for what I am doing.

Manfrotto XPRO Geared Tripod Head

This is an essential bit of kit for me. I use the levers to get the composition about right, and then fine tune it by rotating the knobs which give very fine adjustment. This head was a game changer for me, having tried all sorts of other stuff, none of which gave me this level of fine control.

Top Tip – Get the horizontals first and then you can get the verticals sorted.

Universal L Bracket

Now the one that I use you cannot get any more. The link is to a shiny new Manfrotto one. I use the L bracket to change from landscape to portrait orientation and back without moving the tripod head.

This is another game changer, allowing you to take photos in both orientations quickly and efficiently.

The bracket attaches to the tripod thread on the bottom of my Canon 6D, and I attach two mounting plates to the bracket.

Manfrotto 200PL quick release plates

Talking of quick release plates, here they are. I need two of these (Ok I have at least 6) which I attach to the L Bracket. I can then quickly attach my camera to the tripod head, and quickly take it off using these very well made quick release plates.

Neewer Loupe viewer

This is on old viewer. The link is for a shiny new Hoodman one.

I use this to magnify the LCD screen on my Canon 6d. If you have an older camera with a small screen you don’t need to get a new camera to have a nice, large bright screen.

Stick one of these on your camera and you are sorted!

Eclipse Lens Cleaning Solution

The only cleaning solution I use, which is always in my camera bag. I use it to clean the front and rear lens elements, and then the rest of the camera, and anything else.

Pec Pads

These are the cleaning pads that I use with the Eclipse cleaning solution. I use them to clean the front and rear lens elements, the viewfinder, the LCD screen, the rest of the camera, my glasses….

Lastolite Grey Card

Now I stick this in the first photo in a room, in a prominent place. And then I take another photo without it. And when I start editing the photos I use the eye dropper white balance tool – simply click on this and 9 times out of 10 that is my white balance done for that room, and many times for the whole building.

I just copy and paste the white balance and that is that.

You need to repeat the process every time the lighting changes though, like when moving from the lounge to the kitchen, where there are often different types of lightbulbs.

Peak Design Everyday Backpack

I have already mentioned this.

And that is that

This is really what I use on a real estate photography shoot. Having just the essential gear that I need has simplified shoots and helped my ageing spine!

And I very rarely have to go back to the car for anything.

Over to you

Have a think about what gear you carry with you – do you really need it all? This really has transformed my photography, getting rid of stuff that I did not need, taking only the essentials on a shoot, but having spares of the right stuff in the car.

And I do not look at new gear anymore – I used to be a little bit obsessed with it back in the day – photography gear that is!

What else do I have?

For a full list of my gear check out the gear page on my website.

Photography Explained Podcast

Yes I have my own podcast, the Photography Explained Podcast, which is very good, even if I do say so myself! Photography things explained in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details.

I am done now

Right I am done here. I hope that you found this post useful. Until the next time,

Rick McEvoy Photography

Real Estate Photography Gear – The 11 Things I Use On Most Shoots