Capture guide
Twenty minutes of care.
A tour that holds up.
The tour can only be as good as the footage. Follow this guide once and you'll know it by heart.
Before you start
Get the house
camera-ready.
Ten minutes of preparation saves a reshoot. The same steps you'd take for listing photos, plus a few for 3D.
- Turn on every light, including lamps and under-cabinet lights.
- Open blinds and curtains. Avoid filming straight into bright sun.
- Open interior doors you want visitors to walk through, and keep them open.
- Put away personal photos, mail, documents, and anything with a name on it.
- Move pets, people, and cars out of view. Anything that moves blurs.
- Clean mirrors and glass. Reflections are the hardest thing to rebuild.
Video walkthrough · recommended
Walk slowly.
Then slower.
A video sees each surface from many positions, which is exactly what 3D needs. It gives the most complete, most walkable tour.
- Record in 4K at 30 frames per second if your phone offers it. 1080p works.
- Hold the phone upright at chest height with both hands, and keep it steady.
- Walk at half your normal pace. Slow is the single biggest quality lever.
- In each room, walk a loop along the walls, pointing the camera toward the middle of the room.
- Then cross the room once while slowly turning, so each wall is seen from two distances.
- Film doorways and hallways on the way through. They are what connect rooms.
- Record one continuous take per floor if you can. Pausing is fine; cutting is not.
Photos
Overlap
everything.
Photos work when neighboring shots share plenty of the same view. Listing photos alone are usually too few and too far apart.
- Take 20 to 40 photos per room, more for large rooms. More overlap, better tour.
- Stand in 3 or 4 spots per room and turn in small steps, about a third of the frame at a time.
- Keep the same zoom level for every photo. Don't use portrait or wide-angle modes.
- Shoot the doorways between rooms from both sides.
- Keep the camera level and at the same height, roughly chest height.
360° camera
Above your head,
out of the shot.
360° video gives a full tour quickly. Single 360° stills give a tour that looks best near where each shot was taken.
- 360° video: mount the camera on a stick above head height and follow the video walkthrough path.
- 360° stills: take one in the middle of each room plus one in each doorway.
- Upload the equirectangular (2:1) export, not the camera's own project format.
- Hide or step out of the shot. The camera sees everything around it.
Common mistakes
What causes
a reshoot.
Almost every weak tour traces back to one of these.
- Walking at normal speed. Motion blur ruins frames.
- Pointing the camera at the floor or a blank wall for long stretches.
- Turning quickly on the spot. Turn while walking, slowly.
- Skipping hallways and stairs. Rooms can't be joined without them.
- Filming at night with only some lights on.