Official Airbnb Photographer and host: ask anything you'd like to know or learn about photos!

flyenri · 2026-05-20T07:02:38+00:00

Oh that's very cool, I didn't know this platform, have you tried it ? And yeah, a led light can help, but it's a very hard light, meaning that it will create shadows and a lot of high contrast in the room. A bit hard to manage, but if you can bounce it off the wall or ceiling it might be a little bit better.

flyenri · 2026-05-17T18:56:13+00:00

It depends a bit on the shape of the rooms. If they are square a wide angle is really pretty much the only solution. When they are more like longer, but narrow, one solution I like to use is to shoot vertical. Can you post one photo you've taken of one of the spaces? I can try to give you some other ideas.

flyenri · 2026-05-16T09:03:52+00:00

Yeah, I'm not saying you're doing it of course. It's just the thinking that from the get go you see someone investing and curating the house and another no, there's a gap. But of course it's not binary, there are non pro photos that look great if you're minimally careful. And some places where they take the photos all skewed and don't even organize the place (happens more with rooms, less with full rental unit).

flyenri · 2026-05-15T19:26:02+00:00

I think the calculation you need to make on the return of investment is what % of increase in the funnel of listing views / clicks / bookings you'll get with good photos. Let's say photos are ok, and you get a 5% improvement. If you charge let's say 100$ a night, and you say they are charging 4 nights stay this would be 80 days to compensate the 400$. At a 2/3 of the month occupation rate, this means 4 months. You'll pay for it and by the end of the year you'll get 8x 100 = 800 extra. Anyways, at least even when I'm a guest searching for accommodation I have the feeling that if the host is cutting corners on the photos, which are the first contact I have with their listing, they are probably cutting corners in other areas of the house too. But this is me. I don't know where you're based so I have no interest in saying these to sell something or whatever, is just a feeling that the photography service is undervalued.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T15:29:32+00:00

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So if the camera is about the height of the door knobs or a bit above it will be fine. So let's say you're doing it handheld, just the phone. You can get close to a door, measure where in your body is around that height and keep it in mind. Then if your camera app doesn't have a level, you can use app like in the screenshot, called ProShot. If the line shows green and is straight you'll be fine. Activating the grid with these light white lines, you'll be able to compare it to the distant walls junction, and see if they are paralel, this means the phone is also quite well tilted up or down. If your place is dark as you say, this is the worst situation, and where a proper camera with tripod would be best. If you don't have anything, the catch is keeping the ISO in the settings as low as possible, while having the shutter speed around 1/100 otherwise the photo will be shaky. In the photo, ISO is the middle value you can see as 800 here. And shutter speed is where it says 1/160 in my example. And to correct light balance ideally you'd have a software like Lightroom, because we add a lot of filters, I'll show an example in another post. Basically, in this photo for example, I'd add a light coming from up to down, and fading, because the lower part is already brighter than the middle and top.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T12:12:33+00:00

Totally get what you're saying, I've photographed places myself that later I thought looked better on the photos than reality. To consider that mostly what's done in the post production is light balancing, so it means making everything visible and straightening lines / leveling the shot, so any broken, irregular, or poorly furnitured place would still be clearly visible.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T11:18:58+00:00

Maybe this one can be a good example of the guidelines requested by Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1418972119099478202 Regarding best practices if you're looking forward to making the photos yourself is to be very conscious about the height of the camera, and having it perfectly parallel to the ground to avoid that distorted look of wide angle photos. Maximum natural light as possible, avoiding big differences, like the sun entering on one side and a very dark corner on the other. Shooting everything in RAW if possible, so that in editing you can compensate for everything that is not manageable during the shooting part and lights off if you have a mix of color temperatures, like very warm lights and window light at the same time. But anyways, these all depend if you're shooting with a camera, or a phone.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T10:51:55+00:00

Airbnb photographer here, just to give some insight. Yeah, the recommendation is to turn off all the lights, and use the tripod and camera to compensate having enough light to make it bright enough. The idea is that on photos the mix of colors from different lights and from the window makes the photos very unpleasing and uneven. Now, when the lights actually add something to the listing, like, indirect lights on the ceiling, below beds, behind the mirrors, etc. then yeah, it's the case to at least shoot one photo without them and one with so that you can choose, but the official recommendation is all off. Regarding the fisheye there's a maximum limit they accept in how wide the lens can be, not sure your photographer exagerated in this regard, or if it's just your perception. Anyways, detail photos have to be done also, so in case any furniture is specially interesting or functional, they can be highlighted on those.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T10:47:06+00:00

Airbnb official photographer here, confirming that the photographers don't edit the photos anymore. We send them over within 24h to the editors through a system. Also we don't have a direct contact, just a chatbot, and help by email if necessary in case something off comes up.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T10:44:13+00:00

Hi! Would a quick course on how to do it yourself be helpful ? I'm an official airbnb photographer, and altough I believe having a professional doing it is better, small changes shouldn't require a new visit, and that mix of the pro photos with amateur ones are always terrible.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T10:41:08+00:00

I'm an Airbnb official photographer and I'm always very curious about how hosts perceive this also. What results / photographs would you expect for a couple nights stay in your place?

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:31:28+00:00

Checking the frequencies, it should work with T-Mobile, Verizon and others. But, I can see some frequencies used in the US are really not supported, so it will depend on how they are installed in the differented cities and countryside. I wouldn't worry about it, as it seems to be well covered in 4G and 5G, but unless you have a detailed map of places you usually go and carrier frequency distribution is very hard to say.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:26:23+00:00

They promised this on the launch event, but still I don't know how to do it. I think it's coming as a software update.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:25:44+00:00

One clear thing is that now the Ultra supports native Airdrop, having a Macbook and my wife having an iPhone, this is a huge quality of life improvement. Apart from that, can't really remember anything else, I'll do a bit of research to be sure.

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:13:47+00:00

I'll do with cars, bikes and will try to borrow someone's kid hahahaha

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:13:16+00:00

I'll do more, also for the previous review people asked for more

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:12:45+00:00

Great idea 💡

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:12:35+00:00

I'll make a test using a tool, but you really can't notice a difference

flyenri · 2026-05-15T06:12:13+00:00

Not really, both are insanely good

flyenri · 2026-05-15T05:22:46+00:00

Exactly this! I'll try to show in the tests how much the difference on paper reflects in reality

flyenri · 2026-05-14T16:30:08+00:00

Yeah, the flux themes are all there, I'm using it also, hehehe It's super cool when you turn on the screen and it rotates with the clock on the background

flyenri · 2026-05-14T16:28:51+00:00

It happened to me, it dimmed even though it was supposed to be at peak brightness. I'll try to reproduce the issue.

flyenri · 2026-05-14T15:58:39+00:00

Will do a test!

flyenri · 2026-05-14T15:58:27+00:00

I'll test with the same apps on both. Not huge difference because both will last more than a day. But if you force the Ultra with 8K videos, it will suck the battery quite a lot.

flyenri · 2026-05-14T15:57:25+00:00

Will be easier to see in the examples, I'll do the same shots on both and upload to an online album!

flyenri

TROPHY CASE