Transcript

YDQA Ep10 - What gear to get started in real estate photography

John Dickow: [00:00:00] What does someone need to get started out? What is the, what are the essentials?

Dominic Wilkerson: I know a lot of photographers who don't know how to fly a drone, and so then they call up a drone pilot. I know a lot of photographers who don't know how to do videography, so they call up a videographer myself. I started out with everything, so I started out with photo, video, drone in 3d.

John Dickow: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of your drone Questions Answered. Today we're answering the question, what gear do I need to get started in real estate photography? I'm joined by Dom Wilkerson. He is a real estate photographer and owner at Dom. Does Media, he's also an instructor at, uh, drone Launch Academy, is that

Dominic Wilkerson: correct?

Yeah, that is correct. Um, I did the drone, AK talked about how to gain clients for free on Instagram, and then we also take that co piece of the course and add it to the real estate media. Pro course that we have, that I go in and I teach you how to do [00:01:00] interior photos, interior video, drone photos, drone video, 3d, um, and compiling it all into one amazing package for everyone.

And then we add in that how to get clients at the very end of that course too, as a little bonus feature. So yeah, that's, I do a lot of things. I even have chickens.

John Dickow: Well, that'll, we'll have to say that for another episode

Dominic Wilkerson: then. Oh, we will.

John Dickow: Well, thank you again for joining, uh, me today, Dom, and answering this question first, tell us a little bit just about yourself, your experience with drones, particularly when it comes to real estate photography.

Dominic Wilkerson: So, you know, I've been in the real estate media scene for God may will be five years. Um, been, I started out as an independent contractor, but the one thing that they really pushed me to do at the very beginning, uh, I, you know, my first shoot was in June. They were like, you gotta get a drone. And so that's whenever I picked up my first drone, got my license in August and [00:02:00] everything like that, started using drone on almost every single shoot afterwards.

So, um, A lot of people are are like, ah, this may be difficult and everything, but it's just like playing an Xbox. So if you're like a millennial or Gen Z or something and you've played Xbox, I think you'll be perfectly just fine just picking up a drone. So I now have a team underneath me and I start everybody off with, um, The course, the Drone Launch Academy course, to get the part 1 0 7.

Let them learn that, and then I go hands on for about a day or two to try to teach 'em why I shoot a certain way and everything like that. Same way that I go over in the course, the Real Estate Media Pro course with drone launch.

John Dickow: When it comes to gear, what does someone need to get started out? What is the, what are the essentials?

Business into what it is now because I became a one-stop shop. Am I saying that you need to do it all in order to have a real estate media company, a successful real estate company? No. But you are gonna see a lot of people around you going to other people who can provide all those things. So yeah, you can basically start out with a entry-level camera, a 12 millimeter or 60 millimeter equivalent lens.

A tripod and a mini, too mini three drone, just that by itself under a thousand dollars. And you can start out with real estate media. You can do some add-ons for free, like Cuba, Casa, you can do free floor plans that you could charge anywhere from 20 to a hundred dollars for. Um, you can end up going with an Insta 360, uh, for a 3d, and that's about three, $400.

Or you can, there's a thing with Matterport and it's called a Matterport Access, and it just uses your phone. And rotate your phone, taking the pictures on the app to produce [00:04:00] yourself a 3D thing. And that thing is under a hundred dollars. So if you wanted an entry level thing with 3d, that's how you do it.

So you're gonna basically to bring it back to, what kind of gear do you need to start out? Probably a entry level D S L R or mirrorless camera, like a Canon T three I or Sony. A 6,000 is actually what I refer everybody to because you can do the bracketing with that. And they're still relatively inexpensive and still a 24 megapixel camera.

And you can attach a Roon 12 millimeter or Sam Yang, um, interchangeable name. They're both the same brand. Um, but it's a manual lens, but it's a 12 millimeter that really helps you start for the interior photos, and you can also do video with that. Um, for your first drone, gosh, it's very hard for me to refer anything more than a mini.

Like you could get a mini two or a mini three, and they produce quality video and quality photos and not gonna break your [00:05:00] bank. And they're light, they're small. You're able to, um, I don't recommend this if you're just starting out, but you could fly them through a house. Um, Uh, but the big thing right now in the real estate market is a vertical video and the Mini three Pro can shoot vertical video instead of just horizontal video.

My Mavi three Pro can't do that. I have to crop, but that's fine. Um, so a lot of agents are looking for that right now, and you're like, why don't you just crop it in post-process? It doesn't, doesn't look the same. It, it just doesn't. And so, You're gonna want an entry level camera with a 16 millimeter equivalent lens, either a full frame, um, 16 millimeter, or a crop, which is 12 millimeter or equivalent, uh, is a 12 millimeter on a crop sensor.

Uh, you're gonna want a sturdy tripod. You don't wanna put your investment of a couple hundred dollars on a cheap Amazon tripod. That's just not something smart to do. I have my webcam on a tripod right now, but my [00:06:00] webcam, if it falls over, I'm not scared that it's going to break and I lose my business because of it.

Is there a

John Dickow: particular license you need either when it comes to just flying a drone in general or specific to real estate

Dominic Wilkerson: photography? You need your part 1 0 7. So your part 1 0 7 is your license that you need to be able to fly legally as a business for commercial use. You can do it without you, without doing commercial stuff.

You can fly, um, you do have to do, uh, certain tests online before you fly if you weren't gonna do it for a business. But as a business, you need to have a part 1 0 7 on top of that. Um, That's gonna help you study, um, learn airports, um, reading maps, understanding natam s um, figuring out what happens whenever the wind starts blowing.

Why you shouldn't fly your drone during the ice cold Because the condensation and frost build up, that's just going to make your drone crash. Your battery loses power. It teaches you a lot of different things. And don't be scared. You can do the [00:07:00] Drone Launch Academy. Um, Part 1 0 7 tests, which all my employees, while contractors have done and they've all passed and they weren't tech savvy before.

Not tech savvy, but more of with my military background, I knew how to read maps like this. I can pinpoint anything on that map like there was no other. Mm-hmm. But the study guides really, really help out and so that's what you need is a part 1 0 7. Every two years you gotta do a refresher online for free.

John Dickow: Any other tips you would have for somebody who wants to start out in real estate photography having to do with

Dominic Wilkerson: drones? So your biggest thing, if you want to start building your portfolio, you want to try to maybe find a real estate photographer who doesn't offer drones. So say like, if you only want to focus on drones, you team yourself up with a photographer who.

Needs that service added to their thing. So then you work with them and they'll make your little schedule, like whenever houses are available and everything. I have one local lady who's [00:08:00] actually really good at photography, but she just says, apply drones. And so she has a couple drum guys. Uh, bigot Pain point last year for me was actually finding part 1 0 7 pilots to hire.

I could teach anyone this job, but I can't go take the test for them. And so unless they were taking the test and actually getting certified, I could not use 'em and I could not send them out with to go do drone photography. And, um, I think a good 75 to 80% of my houses that I shoot out here all have drone added to it.

So I wasn't giving them much work at all. One person went off and did a whole nother job like they work at Costco now because I wasn't able to pay them enough. And you know, I feel bad, but they should have got their license. And so that's one big thing. Another thing too is probably getting your social media right.

And so you probably will want to start growing around your community that you wanna work in and you wanna start taking photos of either community highlights, like here in Gig Harbor, Washington, we have a [00:09:00] beautiful harbor, actually. We got several like harbors and inlets and everything around here. We got wells, we got dolphins, we got, um, Otters and seals that we can all take pictures of.

We have huge mountains over here. Mount Rainier is just beautiful. I even have a tattoo of Mount Rainier. That's how much I like it. Um, but it's a very beautiful place. So showcasing that and posting that to your social media, either in picture form, you can post it to your stories, to your timeline, whichever.

Or you can make a little video out of it, like a community highlight video, or you can do reviews of things and agents eat that stuff up. Why do I say that? Because they're always looking for new footage to separate themselves from everybody else, because who do you think they're coming to to come get media right now?

They're coming to me. And if I hand out that one photo to 10 different agents, now all the agents have the same photo. Who, how are you gonna differentiate yourself as an agent? You hire someone else who [00:10:00] is taking a different picture or you actually get hired to go take a different picture, which I've done before.

Mm-hmm. And so like people are like, Hey, do you have any backup footage? I'm like, Nope, but I'll go take some. That's why I had to move here because I was so busy in coming back here all the time. And so that's a big thing. Your Instagram is your definitely biggest way to gain clients for free without ever having to pay you a simple ad.

Perfect. Well,

John Dickow: Dom, this is, this was great. I mean, you have a lot of knowledge in this. You, you have firsthand experience in this. Um, Dom Wilkerson, you can catch his, uh, work on his website. Dom does media.com. Mm-hmm. In the meantime, you can submit your own drone questions@ydqa.io. We'll get them answered for you.

Uh, until then, we'll see you in the sky.