Good product photography is essential for elevating your eBay listings above the competition. As visitors explore carefully in search of their chosen item, the initial picture on the product’s page will grab their attention. Indeed, eBay states that high-quality product photos are 5% more likely to sell than low-quality product photos. That’s fantastic! But how do you go about doing so?
In a recent piece, we discussed the several guidelines you should keep in mind while taking eBay product photography. We explored everything from various perspectives to light dispersion. Here, we’ll take a more in-depth look at the many pieces of equipment you should be employing to attract those purchasers’ attention truly!
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Using your smartphone’s built-in camera is useful in a hurry, particularly if you don’t intend to sell many items on eBay, to begin with, but when compared to a shot taken with a high-quality camera, a mobile’s camera typically falls short. If you plan on doing a lot of product photography or selling on eBay, investing in a nice camera is the ideal first step.Cameras are not cheap, but even a nice digital camera purchased from Argos or Amazon (or even eBay while you’re there!) will outperform your smartphone. Purchasing a low-cost zoom camera, like this Sony Cybershot, is an excellent place to start. Or, if you have access to a high-quality DSLR camera, then better!However, even though it isn’t the finest solution, your phone will do if you’re on a tight budget or don’t intend to sell many products.
If you have access to a DSLR camera, you may be thinking about which lens is ideal for product photography. The answer is that if you want to get the greatest results, you’ll need to move between a prime lens and a zoom lens.Because of their fixed focal length, prime lenses are excellent for photographing motionless subjects. Because of the lens, the camera captures a limited depth of focus, separating the subject from its surroundings. This produces a crisp picture with your product plainly visible. Because of the short depth of field, the environment will not distract from the product, maintaining all focus on what you’re attempting to sell.This lens will be used for most images since they will most likely be static objects from various perspectives, such as the rear or 45-degree angles.The zoom lens is useful for macro photography. Of course, the prime lens’ fixed focal length produces such a crisp and focused picture, but you can’t zoom in! You may capture precise aspects of your goods by switching to a zoom or macro lens at this stage. This might be a logo, a pattern, or simply the texture of the cloth of a handbag. A macro lens has a magnification value of 1x or 1:1, which means you can zoom in as much as your lens permits without compromising any quality.When perusing things online, you’ll notice that most professionally photographed items include at least one macro image. It’s great to do the same!
It seems that no matter what guide we write, the tripod always finds its way into the list. Of course, there’s a simple explanation for this: the advantages are priceless.Consider this. You’re searching for a certain product on eBay, and all you see are fuzzy photographs from weird angles all the way down until you come across a clean-looking photograph with all of the product’s borders and features clearly visible. Aren’t you more inclined to investigate that product than the others? The majority of folks will.When it comes to product photography, tripods are definitely a gift from the gods. It is worth their low cost to be able to spend time working on a decent angle, concentrating on your subject, and capturing a clean image without the chance of a blurry or unappealing outcome.The tripod will also keep your camera in place, so any modifications you make to your product, such as adjusting the angle at which it faces the camera, will not be captured from a different angle. This results in more professional-looking pictures and greater quality and sales. Not to mention the different perspectives you may try, such as the top shot.
If you’ve been keeping up with our posts, you’ll know that employing soft, diffused lighting in product photography is essential. Any bright light will make your product seem edgy, coated in hard shadows that obscure sections of your product, and overall unappealing.Furthermore, camera users should be able to maintain picture quality by utilizing an ISO of 100 while still shooting at modest apertures. Your product must be brightly lighted to compensate for the restricted quantity of light.Using two or three professional studio lights (or speedlights if you’re on a tight budget) can ensure that your product is properly lit. If you have a limited quantity of light or are having difficulty diffusing the light, you might explore utilizing various surfaces, reflectors, or umbrellas to boost your light creation.
White backgrounds are ideal for a variety of reasons. For starters, they provide a professional appearance, which means more consumers will feel at ease while shopping from your store.Second, a white background isn’t cluttered or detailed, so there’s nothing to detract from your goods.Finally, like a lightbox, a white background reflects any light that passes through your product back at it, making it look brighter.These characteristics together generate a considerably better-looking product picture while enhancing the community impression of your shop, raising not just the likelihood that people will buy your goods but also the likelihood that they will return.
No matter how fantastic you believe, your product photography is, post-production is always necessary to ensure that your final picture is as nice as possible.You may erase every flaw in your picture, from color correction to lighting corrections. This is simple to do using free editing tools such as Adobe Lightroom. Making post-production tweaks to your picture assures a beautiful final image, which may increase your eBay sales by up to 5%.Of course, learning how to edit with Lightroom might be difficult at first. If you don’t want to take on the task but still want a great finish, autoRetouch provides inexpensive and economical picture touch-ups starting at £0.25 per photo.
With that, you should have a better idea of what equipment you should consider employing to capture the greatest eBay product photography possible.Most of the things on this list are inexpensive and reusable, making them an excellent investment for folks who want to sell on their page regularly. The more you practice product photography and the more you sell, the more options for photographic equipment and approaches you will have.
