This post will outline the work we did to provide complete visuals package to promote a private residence for sale in Tokyo. We spent a day making a Matterport virtual tour/digital twin while also taking photos and video from the ground, and also the air from our drone. This is a large, almost 750 m2 house, so at the end I will explain how we managed to shoot this in a day.
In this section I will talk about the Matterport tour part of visuals we made for this 5 storey residence in Tokyo. First up, what is a Matterport tour? A Matterport virtual tour allows the viewer to navigate intuitively around an immersive 360 degree representation of the property from their mobile device or computer browser. Essentially, it allows someone interested in the property to have a virutal walk around and explore the space from anywhere. The experience is similar to google street view.
Matterport tours can be taken with recent iPhones with LiDAR sensors, but are best taken with specialist proprietry cameras from Matterport. We used the Matterport 3 Pro. The 3 Pro was released in later 2022 and the big advantage it has over the previous Pro 2 is the inclusion of a LiDAR sensor, allowing not only spaces inside but also spaces outside to be scanned. This residence also had a lawn and barbecue area, as well as an entrance with steps so the Matterport Pro 3 was the perfect camera.
The Matterport software is very adept at linking all the scans into a tour but the key is to make sure that each scan area can be “seen” from an another scan. The software has to recognise similar points in each scan so they can be linked together. As part of that, once the scanning starts things shouldn’t be moved, and that includes keeping doors open or closed as they were. It is generally good practice to keep doors open (although this can be tricky with small rooms if the open door obstructs the view of the room) so that the software can link up with scans in the next room.
Our usual equipment to film video of properties, whether commercial or private, is to use the Canon R5 C camera and film in 8K RAW 60p, mounting the camera on the Ronin RSC 3 gimbal, paired with the Canon 15-35mm f2.8 RF lens. Filming in 60p allows this to be slowed down to half speed in post for very smooth shots (the stabilization on the lens also helps, as does walking stealthily with the gimbal!) while RAW means that many highlights and shadows can be retrived and any funky lighting colours can be easily be balanced in post.
4K is more than enough resolution so there is no need to go 8K but the R5C is the only full frame Canon camera to do 60p RAW. The Canon C70 which we also have could also be a good option but that is only a super 35 sized sensor so doesnt allow us to get wide enough on the 15-25mm lens to really show off the space. 60P RAW 8K means a lot of data - we ended filming about 45 minutes for a total of around 900 GB.
Things to keep in mind when framing up the shots and moving the camera is to think of how the space flows spatially and to try and present the space as if a person was walking around exploring it. This usually means slow push in shots, some slight pans to the left or right to reveal something works well, plus the odd sideways shot. This is a big property so most shots were kept wide to show this off, but we put some in more closeup abstract shots to focus on for example how the sunlight lights up the garden and the stairwell.
As well as the main video of the property below, we also put together a shorter montage of shots that will be looped at the top of the property sale site.
Although we haven’t done many residences, we have photographed a lot of commercial properties throughout Japan and the scale of the residence meant that is was more similar to a commercial property. We photographed on the Canon R5, using the Canon 24mm and 17mm tilt shift lens, often used for architectural photography to correct for perspective distortion. Incidentally, the Canon R5 C also has identical photography specs as the R5 so we could have used the same R5 C for both photo and video but as we were swapping between both to work around the owner, and also to catch the best light in the rooms, we keep the R5 C mounted on the gimbal for video and used the R5 for photos.
In this section I will discuss the procedures we followed for this drone flight in Yoyogi, central Tokyo.
Flying drones in the middle of Tokyo is restricted. An obvious point but obtaining the correct permissions can be surprisingly easy. The large caveat to this is though the permission of all the land owners that will be flown over is required. That, in effect, means that no sweeping shots over the city are possible and that all flights are restricted to the usually narrow area above the property.
With the correct permissions obtained we were able to get some overhead shots of the residence from above and some shots over Yoyogi park to the city to give a sense of the location. We also got a few inside the building, in the central atrium, although as these were inside no permissions were needed for these ones. We flew the Mavic 3 Pro Cine, filming in ProRes.
Although not requested, we also photographed a 360 panorama shot from the air. The Mavic 3 drone stitches about 25 photos together automatically for a really immersive experience with a headset like the Metaquest and even an expansive view of the area on a device.
With photos, video and a Matterport tour all being taken on the day in the same space, we decided that person A would start the making the tour in the garage basement, while person B tidied up the rooms on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors. We wanted to keep a homely welcoming feel to the house so tidying was essentially just a matter of tucking away distracting cables, clearing the tables of books left out and cleaning up fallen leaves on the pathways outside. The owner was also working in one of the rooms so we helped him transfer to another room.
After person B had made sure the house was looking ground, they started on video inside on the ground floor, while person A finished up the Matterport tour of the garage and then moved to the entrance and other outside areas. Person B then continued filming video outside while person A continued the Matterport tour inside on the first floor. We then continued moving up the house, filming the drone shots inside and outside the house before lunch. The Matterport tour was finished around 4pm and the photos and video soon after that, with person B staying on until sunset to get some evening photo and video shots.
