10 Tips for Photographing Your RV to Sell or Show off on Social Media

Whether you’re taking photos to show off your latest RV renovation or just want to show off your rig on social media, you want to do it right.

The tips listed here will help you show off your RV as well as any influencer!

1. Use Natural Lighting

Natural lighting is the best lighting to show off your RV, whether you’re listing it for sale or just to post on social media. 

Photos taken using a flash or at night never look as good as photos taken using natural lighting from the sun. RV’s typically have a lot of windows, and if all of them appear black in your photos, they will harshly contrast with the beautiful interior you’re trying to highlight.

If you are taking photos with natural light and it still seems too dim, turning on additional interior lights is recommended.

When taking photos with natural light, you want to be careful that the sunlight isn’t so bright that it washes out the photo or causes any glares. 

You can do this in two ways: either by using indirect sunlight or filtered sunlight. 

Indirect sunlight is when lighting coming in and illuminating the room or area, but the sun isn’t shining directly on anything in the photo.

Filtered sunlight is sunlight being filtered through something, typically a sheer curtain. Filtering diffuses harsh, direct sunlight and creates a more aesthetically pleasing photo. 

Using natural lighting for your RV photos creates a bright and airy look and makes the interior space feel larger.

If you are having trouble with your photos appearing too dark even when you have plenty of daylight in the room, you can enhance the natural daylight in your photos by editing them with the free Adobe Lightroom phone app. You can even purchase “light and airy” presets for this app to make it easy to edit your photos with one click.

The default Photos app on an iPhone can also do a pretty good job, though. Below you can see the “before” and “after” of a photo I edited using the Photos app:

To achieve this look, I adjusted the following settings:

• Increased brightness a lot
• Increased contrast a little
• Increased saturation a little
• Increased exposure a little
• Increased warmth a tiny bit

2. #NoFilter

Don’t use filters when taking photos of your RV when listing it for sale or social media. Filters are pretty obvious to people these days. Using a filter on your photos may even be interpreted as you trying to hide something, or make it look better than it really is. 

With ample natural lighting and by following the rest of these tips, you won’t even feel the need to use a filter!

3. Hide Clutter and Eliminate Distracting Elements

When you set up your shot, you want to make sure that everything in it is intentional. Hide clutter, personal items, and anything else that is out of place or looks distracting.

This might include shoes, electronic cables, water bottles, or anything else that doesn’t really belong. Be sure to check the edges of your photo for out-of-place elements that may be peeking in from the corners.

The idea here is to simplify the scene and be intentional with what you’re portraying with your photo. 

Other than bad lighting, clutter is one of the biggest turn-offs RV sale photo listings. 

4. Take Photos That Show the Whole Room

Rooms in RVs are typically small spaces, and because of that, they can be hard to photograph. Many RV listings will show just a portion of a room, or a shot that’s taken at way too close of a range, making it difficult to figure out the floor plan of the RV.

In your photos, you want to be sure to be far enough away to get a shot of the entire room. Or at least as much of the room as possible. 

Whether that means standing in the doorway or backing yourself into a corner as far as you can, try to show everything you can in one shot.

Wide angle lenses can be helpful with this, and many smartphones have built-in wide angle options these days. But, even if you don’t have a wide angle option, try not to make your photo feel too cramped. 

There will likely be features you want to highlight up close, like the kitchen sink or stove. And you definitely should! But also include photos from farther back to get the whole kitchen in one shot. 

You want people to be able to get a feel for the room or space as a whole. This means also taking photos of doors, hallways, and glimpses of adjacent spaces. This will help the viewer understand where the space they’re looking at is located in relation to other rooms or spaces in the photos. 

You’ll also want to include photos of boring things like closets in addition to decorative elements, because these are the practical considerations people will have when thinking about what it will be like to live or travel in the RV.

Here’s a video that shows exactly what we mean:

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A post shared by Casie Igor – RV Renovators (@tomaz_coast_to_coast)

5. Set Your Camera on a Stable Surface

Setting your camera on a stable surface such as a counter, shelf, or tripod will help the quality of your image. In addition to preventing blurry images, setting your camera on another surface can actually help you capture more of the room. 

You may not be able to get your body flat up against the wall, but if there is a shelf or counter there, your camera can get the shot on its own. 

6. Check Vertical Alignment

Taking photos of your RV to show people what the space looks like is not the time to be “artsy”.

You don’t want viewers to have to tilt their heads to understand what they’re looking at! 

Vertical alignment simply means making sure your photo is straight. If you’re using a smartphone, many phone cameras have grid lines so you can see if your photo is properly aligned.

You can do this by lining up a door frame or corner with your camera or camera phone gridlines. Or you can edit your photo after the fact and rotate it so that it is as straight as it is in real life.

7. Don’t Aim Too High or Too Low

You want your photos to be taken from the perspective of eye or face height. When you’re taking photos to show off your RV or sell it, you want to convey an image that will help the viewer get a feel for the space as if they were physically there looking at it.

Be sure that your camera is not tilted upwards or downwards and instead is pointed straight ahead, looking at the room or space. If there is something towards the ceiling or floor that you would like to feature, take a separate photo for it. 

8. Take Both Horizontal and Vertical Photos

Taking both horizontal and vertical photos will not only make it easier for you to capture certain spaces (like a bathroom vs an entire living area), it will also provide a better experience for the viewer. 

Horizontal photos can catch a much wider shot and can be enlarged to the full screen width of a laptop or desktop computer, while vertical photos will look better on a phone or tablet. (Also, the featured image for your listing at RenovatedRVsForSale.com needs to be horizontal to fill the top of the page.)

Take a horizontal shot and a vertical shot of every room or area in the RV that you capture. This will make sure the viewer gets a good feel for the space no matter what device they are using. 

9. No Screenshots of Photos

This seems like common sense, but it’s actually very common to see low-resolution screenshots of photos from a camera roll or computer in RV sale listings and on social media.

Not only do screenshots have a much lower image quality, they can actually come across as a scam by making people think you don’t have access to the original photos.

Post original photos directly from your camera or phone camera roll so you can be sure that your photos not only seem authentic, but also have a much higher image quality. 

10. Keep Family Photos Personal

If you have pets or people around when shooting photos of your RV, it is best to keep them out of the shot.

Photos that don’t show people or pets are much better for showing off your RV renovation or listing it for sale. The focus should be on the RV, not the people (or the super adorable and lovable pets) in the RV. This also gives people the opportunity to imagine themselves in the RV!

Keep It Simple When Photographing Your RV

Using the tips listed here will help you produce the best photos possible, whether you’re showing off your RV renovation or listing it for sale. 

Always use natural light to the best of your ability, get lots of straight and clear photos of everything, eliminate clutter and use unfiltered original photos for the best quality listing.