Why Virtual Tours is Not Only for Beautiful Properties

1. LightingLight and illumination are the basics of photography. The very word “photography” comes from two Greek words, phos meaning light, and graphis meaning drawing. Hence, photography can be described as “drawing with light”.If you ask me to name the most important thing in photography, I would say light. Without light, there is no illumination. In a room without illumination, everything is pitch black. You can’t see a thing. Taking a shot – assuming your camera allows you to – produces a solid black photograph. You switch on a lamp, and you send light across the room, and everything is illuminated. Now you can take a photograph and show something in the picture. You realize that your eye and the camera both needs light and illumination to work.Photography is about capturing light and recording it, whether on paper, or more frequently now, in a digital format. As a photographer, you can control the amount, intensity and duration of light required to create the picture. One advantage of using a 360 Camera is the ease of use. There isn't so much to take note of when position for your shot unlike traditional camera's concern about capturing the right lighting. The concern is only when under dim condition is where quality will be affected generally. So what you need to know most importantly is only 2 simple things when taking photo with a 360 Camera. Firstly, switch on all the lights in the room and pulling up all the curtains to allow as much sunlight as possible. This will be sufficient enough to get good quality shots with a 360 Camera.2. BalanceProfessional photographers usually toggle with the balance of the camera to frame the idea shot, expressing the feeling they wish to portray out of a photo. Even for the leisure photographer, do you remember the last time when you were taking different shots of your food or photo of yourself just trying to find the best photo that portrays the desired feel? The benefit of using a 360 Camera is you only need to remember to keep your 360 Camera straight up. Because of the nature of the surrounded image that 360 Camera produce, balance is not a significance issue, thus another plus point of why 360 Camera is a must have. 3. Above waist level    This is very simple and straightforward. Always make sure your camera is taken above waist level, ensuring your image will give your user an eye-level point of view. Avoid placing camera on the floor or anywhere lower than the waist will provide a more professional looking result.4. Right camera settingsWith numerous camera settings available, for a beginner this can be both confusing and daunting. Manual exposure, aperture priority, ISO, shutter speed may all sound demanding for a normal user. Another reason why we highly recommend the Ricoh Theta cameras is because of it’s ease of use. Its like the Apple of all 360 Cameras with its user friendly settings and control. Users new to 360 photography need to know only one thing, and that is setting your camera setting on the phone’s app to HDR mode. Ricoh did a great job in creating simple settings like HDR mode for beginners so now anyone can take great photos. HDR stands for high dynamic range, and it essentially takes a series of images, each shot with a different exposure from darkest to lightest. This is currently only available for the Theta cameras. So if you are using a Theta camera, remember to set it to HDR mode before shooting. Another common problem of using a 360 Camera is shooting in fluorescent lighting. The lighting and illumination will look distorted in images. The solution to tackling such problems is changing your shutter speed to 1/50, or shooting it with auto mode may work as well. 5. StagingHome staging is the act of preparing a home for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to make a home appealing to the highest number of potential buyers, thereby selling a property more swiftly and for more money. Staging techniques focus on improving a property's appeal by transforming it into a welcoming, attractive product that anyone might want. People usually use arts, painting, accessories, lights, greenery and carpet to stage the home, to give potential buyers a more attractive first impression of the property.After understanding the importance of staging, there is only 2 main point that user should take note of when taking photo for their virtual tour. 1. Always make sure the home is kept tidy and presentable. Giving potential buyer a homey feeling or a visualisation that this is their future home, is vital in deciding if this is going to be their future home. A good first impression always count nevertheless. 2. Engaging a professional stager. Empty homes leaves an empty feel to some buyer after viewing it. You can’t really blame them as there will always be viewers with poorer imagination, so do consider it a worthy investment as a professional stager can transform an empty home into a dramatic one that everyone dream of owning. Leaving a deep impression of that home is vital so eventually it will help you to sell off your home quicker. Notice the significance difference in an empty and staged home? There's a reason why 80% of the population are not artistes because they have bad visualization. So its your job to show them and help them visualize a home they will live in the future. On the day they sign the option to purchase, you be glad to find all this worth the investment. There are many home furnishing company that provide home staging services . Look it up in google and you will find one easily.6. User experienceLast but not least, user experience is also another important thing to take note of when creating virtual tour. You should always try to place your camera at the middle of the room so your viewers can navigate easily. Also try to keep to a recommended minimal amount of images or scene in a virtual tour . Ever heard of too much of anything is no good. Same logic applies here as too much images can be confusing sometimes and that will leaves a bad impression to your prospective buyer. We recommend an average of 7 to 10 scene per virtual tour . For larger landed homes, try to keep it under 20. ConclusionWith this 6 basic tips, you are ready to start taking your panoramic photos for your virtual tour. Follow the guide here for a more detail step by step on how to do it. 

6th February 2017

Ricoh has recently release a new camera to their 360 camera lineup after a year of anticipation. It is  deem as a more budget friendly model with adequate specs to give it’s older brother the S model a run for it’s money. The Ricoh Theta SC is designed to make 360 photography more accessible with a simpler interface and a lower price point. For still images, users won't see much differences between the Theta SC and the Theta S. Both cameras uses the same pair of 12 megapixel sensors measuring at 1/2.3" and both use dual f/2 lenses. Internal software stitches the data from both sensors together to create simple 360 images. Both also share similar 8 GB of storage will keep up to 1600 images internally without an SD card. You can also always change the memory card inside by yourself but it might void the warranty so that is not really recommended. 1. Design Ricoh Theta SC has a candy bar design very much similar to the theta S except slightly bulkier in dimension. Its got a softer, powder coated metal finish and its sleek design is very practical. The camera’s layout is simple , allowing you to use with just one hand or it can be operated remotely by connecting to your smartphone. Its small form factor allows you to easily slip it into your jeans or inside your bag . It also has a number of colours to choose from and Ricoh’s fans would certainly be delighted that their prayers are heard because previously only black colour is available on the theta S.  A glowing LED to indicate that it’s recording, a Wi-Fi light to let you know if wireless communication is on or off, and an indicator that differentiates between photo mode and video mode 2. Image QualityThe Theta SC is believe to share the same camera lens and capabilities with the theta S. With 14 megapixels and capturing image size up to 5376x2688 pixels. We have make a comparison of the photos in the below example and our conclusion is that both images looks almost identical. Images taken by the 2 cameras are sharp with little saturation thus giving it a vibrant look with little detail lost.  The camera is best work during daytime and the night photography is also pretty decent due to it’s f2.0 aperture. It is still best images in the 360camera category that you can get below $1000.Below is a comparison of photos taken with both different camera. Ricoh Theta SRicoh Theta SCVideo QualityThe Theta SC only shoots in 720p instead of 1080p. Stretch that resolution around into a 360 view and video quality will be rather low when uploaded onto youtube or facebook. That footage is also recorded at a very choppy 15 fps and clips are limited to five minutes instead of 25 on the theta S. You’ll be able to store several hours of footage on the included 8GB of storage, but the individual video limit still remains. There is also no HDMI port, thus live streaming function is not possible.  Theta SC sample videoConclusion 360 photography and virtual tour is definitely going to be the future of real estate marketing as the VR popularity continues into a new era. The Theta SC currently retailing at $488 and it is consider really affordable for the image quality it gives. It provides the same image quality as the theta S and that is sufficient enough to recommend this as the go to camera to get if you decided to start marketing your properties with virtual tour. Even though its video function is relatively sub-par , but usually its not really practical if you aren’t doing a lot of live streaming and video recording. This is no doubt our favourite camera in terms of value & quality walking into 2017. 

6th February 2017

Difference between Virtual Tour and VideoEvery week, we conduct training to teach real estate agents on how to create their own virtual tour and one of the common question we face is that the trainees will mistaken Virtual Tour as Video. For example of some questions are, “Can we put the Virtual Tour into Youtube? What type of Video file is Virtual Tour on? Can we download the Virtual Tour Video? How big is the video file?” Very often, we have to spend time to explain the difference between Virtual Tour and Video. To this point, if you still think Virtual Tour is a Video, let me tell you that VIRTUAL TOUR IS NOT A VIDEO.So what exactly is Virtual Tour? In simple terms, Virtual Tour is a simulation of a location using multiple panoramic images (360 images). For better illustration, click here to see an example of virtual tour. As for Video, it is a visual media product which features moving images. Sounds complicated? Just on the TV now and you will know what I mean by video.If you have clicked on the link which I have shown as a virtual tour example, you will understand the difference between a virtual tour and a video. In a virtual tour you will only see still images while in a video it shows moving images. Now we have a better understanding of the difference between Virtual Tour and Video, we can go to identify in what circumstances it is better to use virtual tour or video to improve your marketing.Improve your marketing by Virtual TourBack in year 1994 when virtual tour was first introduced, it took days to create a virtual tour. As technology advance, virtual tour can be created on our own in less than 5 minutes. Not only is it easy to create, virtual tour can also be done at a very low cost unlike the past. For the convenience and low cost of creating a virtual tour, this is one of the best methods to capture potential buyer’s attention due to its impressive visual nature and its fun nature when navigating a virtual tour.  In my last blog, I have stated how advancement of technology and education affect a buyer’s demand. Buyer today are less impulsive, they do much more research and comparisons before they buy. More importantly, they want to see detailed information. In property context, Virtual Tour is the “detailed information” which buyers today want to see because it shows every detail of the property visually.  This will naturally attract eyeballs if you are marketing a property. What is the most important aspect in marketing? It is to attract as much attention as possible so that you can have more potential buyers. Whether it will be converted into sales will be depending on your sales technique and other unforeseen circumstances. If you are looking for new ways, low cost, time saving and yet high potential to attract many potential buyers, virtual tour is definitely a tool for you to do it. You may click here for a free account to create virtual tour.   Improve marketing by VideoComparing to virtual tour, video should be better known to most of us. Video marketing is a very common and effective way of marketing, which is why till today we still see advertisement on TV. Video marketing is a very good way to get your message across to your potential customer and if you are creative enough, your video might even have the chance to go viral and get across to many potential customers. Other than getting messages across, it is also a way to stamp your own brand, letting people know your existence and constantly remind them about you and how good you are. Video Marketing can be as good as it sounds, however, it is also very time consuming and costly. Personally, I do video on my own and I can share some experience with you. Creating a 3 minute video can take me up to 2 full days which include one full day of taking the video and another day doing the editing. For beginners, it might even take up to 5 days just on the editing of the video and another 2 to 3 days to take a video, ironically, it doesn’t guarantee you viewership after all the hard work because there are many creative video online. If DIY a video sounds troublesome and you still want a video for marketing, you can consider hiring a professional videographer. I cannot judge if it is cheap or not because I only hired a videographer once which is a friend of mine, after “friendship price” I was charged $500. If you think that DIY a video is troublesome and hiring a videographer is too expensive, video marketing might not be a suitable option for you. However, bear in mind that if your video go viral, your video can be reached to many people whom will convert to more enquiries and it will convert to more sales. Virtual Tour or Video?“Should I use virtual tour marketing or video marketing?” There is no right answer to this because it is all up to personal preference. However, with the ever increasing number of social network visitors and users, I will recommend to do both video marketing and virtual tour to increase your branding profile. For real estate agents, video marketing is good to have but virtual tour is a MUST HAVE. We foresee that virtual tour is the way how people in the future will view property in social media, property portal and websites. I always like to tell people “Be the one to set the trend. Don’t be the one who let the trend set you up”. 

8th March 2017