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How do you take auction photos?
 

Do you use a photo tent? White wall?

Camera phone? DSLR camera?

How do you deal with the TEDIOUS task of taking photos of your items?

I use my Nokia Lumia 720 for pictures on my deck with lighting for most items. Some of the more expensive items I have a DSLR (Sony) that I use.

If you have decent indoor lighting then use that, otherwise outside with the sun. (if you're cheap) Decent camera, most new phones have 1 good enough.

If you want to make stock photos (pro looking) light tent and a GOOD camera.

The most important things are lighting, angle and detail (quality of your camera + the settings its on). The more life-like colors the better.

You can always re-use photos if you sell the same items over and over.

Multiple backgrounds, Multiple angles.

Lighting tent and iPhone 5 camera

I take pictures during the day light hours if I can because there is nothing better then natural light for me.

I do have a set up in my garage, office and at my warehouse for pictures with the garage and warehouse having standing flip over backgrounds with different colors etc.

I dont like the photo tents that are being sold at all.

I have never had luck with light tent setup
 

I shelled out for a $800 photo box a while ago and I'm happy with results.

The problem with light tent is that they distort colors when you take pictures of any shiny metal surface, so if you take taking pics of colored plastic things, light tent might be good enough.

Cheap light tent & 2 tiny photo lamps for $30 on EB. Camera is SS Galaxy SIII or Kodak Easyshare 14mp on EB for $7 seriously. Works just awesome for my needs. Used to use the inside of a white box, sunlight & a piece of poster board. Just depends what your product & market is.

Lots of different backgrounds. Hardwood floors, multiple bed spreads and sheets, different colored carpet in different rooms. Basically any new background I can find where the pics come out decent I will use it.

I also take about 3-4 pictures of each and angle and view for each item. Then try to pick the best ones from the bunch to actually post on eBay. Lots of resizing images with paint.


Also I have had the same Olympus camera for 8 years now. Have probably taken literally 20 thousand or more pictures. I is crazy. Use it almost every day. Thought about buying anew camera multiple times but it has been so good to me I am worried about bad Karma.

Use an Olympus 16mp camera.

Do 95% of pictures outside. Sunlight seems to be best light for my needs.

Have different color tablecloths that I use as a backdrop. Always use color that compliments yet is in contrast to item being pictured.

Usually take about 10 pictures of each item all at different angles.

Start by not regarding the job as tedious.

Have pride in making your photos better than others.

I prefer DSLR. My items need close-up images.

I enjoy the end results of my work.

:typing:

AuctionsDenied has it right for you OP - start with an Olympus camera and just keep activity minimum since you see it as 'tedious'. As you gain experience, you can move to higher-end equipment.

All the best

Thought you preferred Canon?


:juggle:

I do but AuctionsDenied mentioned Olympus - I have one of those - a small mobile camera, quality is alright - easy to work with - not my preferred but let's keep it simple for the OP :thumb:

I use an older Canon, and it does me well.
However, I've found over and over, that my images turn out so much better when I use the flash. Natural light just seems to wash my pictures out all the time. So, I do most of my photo taking in the evening, in the garage, where the light is low, and the flash is used. The images come out stunning...almost too good.

I've just started using a Smart Phone, running Andriod, that I load Dropbox on. That way, as I take pictures, my phone auto uploads them to my PC, such that when I go to my PC, they are already there. That's real slick.

But, I've found the tedious part to be the attaching each image to the listing.
I can upload in a batch, but attaching each image to the listing, is sooooo tedious.

I wish there was some software out there that allowed me to feed it a CSV file. In this CSV file, along with all the other listing data, I could gave a SKU number, like A400. Then, when I upload the CSV file, it would grab A400-1.jpg, A400-2.jpg, A400-3.jpg, from my hard drive, and upload those too.

Auctiva and Turbolister allow us to feed them CSV files, but neither supports the auto upload of my local pictures.