One Day, Three Cameras, in This Order

Three cameras came off the truck for this one. A Nikon Z6 for the stills, a Nikon ZR for the video, a DJI Mavic 2 Pro for the aerials. All of it in a single visit, in a specific order, and the order is the part worth explaining.

What the House Actually Is

A one-story in Woodstock. Light blue siding, corner lot, lawn on three sides. Inside it is clean and straightforward: kitchen open to the family room, built-in bookcases, first-floor living, a finished lower level with a bar.

But the thing people will remember is outside. There is a screened gazebo off the back patio, octagonal, full railing, trimmed to match the siding down to the color. That is not a kit from a big box store. Somebody had it built.

Once you know that, the shoot plans itself. The gazebo gets an aerial that shows where it sits on the lot. It gets a frame from outside and a frame from inside looking out through the screens. And it gets real time in the video instead of a two-second pass.

10:58 to 11:54 — Stills

325 raw frames in 56 minutes, which came down to 38 delivered interior and exterior photographs.

That is a fast pace, and it is not rushing. It is what happens when the house is ready when we arrive — counters clear, blinds up, beds made. Every minute not spent moving a toaster off a counter is a minute spent on the frame.

1:09 to 1:42 — Video

Shot vertical, natively. The Nikon ZR recorded 3024 by 5376 at 60 frames a second, and the delivered files came out at 2160 by 3840.

That matters more than it sounds. A lot of vertical real estate video is a horizontal video cropped down the middle, which throws away most of the sensor and usually cuts the top off a ceiling or the bottom off a floor. Shooting vertical from the start means the frame you composed is the frame that gets delivered.

Two pieces came out of that half hour: a cinematic property video and a full walkthrough.

1:55 to 2:01 — Drone, Last

Five aerial stills plus the aerial video, flown at the end of the day rather than the start.

The order is deliberate. Interiors want soft, even light coming through the windows, before the sun is high enough to blow out one side of a room and leave the other in shadow. Aerials want the opposite — enough sun on the ground to separate the lawn from the tree line and give the lot some shape.

You cannot have both at the same hour. So interiors run late morning, video follows while the light indoors is still workable, and the drone goes up when the sun is finally doing the aerials a favor instead of fighting them.

Mavic 2 Pro, Hasselblad L1D-20c, 28mm equivalent on a one-inch sensor. ISO 100 on every frame, f/4.5 to f/5.6.

What We Left Out

Two of the best exterior frames in this set are not on social and never will be.

They are the driveway shot and the straight-on garage shot, the two cleanest frontal views of the house. In both of them the house number reads perfectly clearly above the garage door.

Those go to the MLS, where the address is the entire point. They do not go on Instagram, where the post stays up long after the listing comes down and the sellers are still living there.

The fix cost about four minutes: walk twenty feet left and shoot the house from the lawn instead. That frame is in the set, and it is the one you will see.

What Was Delivered

43 edited photographs, 38 interior and exterior and 5 drone.

A cinematic property video and a full walkthrough, both vertical.

Floor plans for both levels, with and without dimensions.

Questions We Get

Can you do photos, video and drone in one visit?

Yes, and usually we do. What matters is the order, not the number of trips. Interiors first while the window light is even, video next, drone last once the sun is high enough to shape the ground.

Why vertical video instead of widescreen?

Because that is where it gets watched. Shooting vertical from the start keeps the full frame instead of cropping a horizontal one and losing the ceiling.

How long does a shoot like this take?

This one ran about three hours on site including the drone. A photos-only listing is closer to an hour.

How fast do you deliver?

Photos within 24 hours, video within 48.

Do you shoot in Woodstock and McHenry County?

Yes. We are based in Mount Prospect and shoot across Chicagoland, including Woodstock, Crystal Lake, Huntley, Algonquin and the northwest suburbs.

See packages and book a shoot at ogioptics.com/real-estate-services