Posted on December 18, 2009 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Remember when digital cameras were new? and photos on eBay auctions were optional? Not any more. You need good photos to clearly describe what it is your selling. The clearer and better your photos are, the more money you will make with your auctions.

I’m coming back to photography after a long hiatus of about oh, ten years. I haven’t really picked up a camera in months. I also haven’t made,or sold much stuff on eBay, as most of my positive feedback over the years has been as a buyer more than a seller.

So, 31 days ago I whipped out the camera, grabbed a handful of stuff and started both blogging about my auctions but also started to sell some stuff. The problem was, my photos still sucked. I knew I could do better.

Now I’m using a Nikon D300 and some off camera flash but you can get just as good photos using window light too. I’ll show examples of both.

First, my fancy setup:

As you can see, I’m using two umbrellas and two flashes and the umbrellas are opposing each other. This gives the benefit of soft light. The
umbrellas diffuse the light and light your object evenly from both sides.

For a background, I used 8×11 office paper. Yup, straight out of my printer. I then tossed the cables on the paper and got some nice clean photos for my ebay auctions. These were one frame wonders. I overexposed one f-stop because that white background fools the camera’s meter into thinking there’s enough light, when really there isn’t. You want the item to be properly exposed. And by doing so, the background disappears. Like this:

or this:

(in this photo, there’s almost too much detail. I had these on the carpet and you can see the carpet fibres)

But what if you don’t have all the fancy flashes and umbrellas?

You can get great photos with pretty much any camera using good old natural light:

For the photo above, I used window light, and just placed my cable on the windowsill. If the item is too big, place it on a chair or table near the window. Today was cloudy here so the sun was not harsh and the light was even. If it’s sunny day, you’ll need to diffuse the light first somehow. A bedsheet works wonders, or if the item is small even a plain old piece of office paper to diffuse the sunshine some will work too.

The trick to using window light is to turn the flash on your camera off and use the light from the window instead.

That’s it. The goal is clear and well and evenly lit objects for your ebay auctions. The more detail your photos can provide about the item you’re selling, there’s a good chance your ending bid will be higher. The goal is to make more money with your eBay auctions.

Sacrifice of the Day.

Today’s sacrifice is a Monster Cable THX certified S-video cable 1.m. I bought this when I had a home theater and used it sparingly. I doubt I’ll see much from the auction. My cables aren’t exactly knocking anybody over with high bids yet. I think it’s the shipping. I’d offer free shipping but then I end up losing money on the deal which kindof defeats the whole purpose.

Updates.
Sold that harmony remote for about $30 (a little under). I think I paid close to $100 for this a few years back, so somebody got a bargain. Total ebay sales are just shy of $1000 since I started.

More Bad News

1. The eBay Auctions Continue. Day 42
2. eBay Blowout Day. Day 41
3. I’m a Professional Photographer