Lighting Your Items
by A.B. Russell
eBay Staff Member

Some of you have been reading my column (in the previous version of the Community Chatter) for quite a while now. I want you to know that we plan on many more readers, so I'm going to cover some photography basics. I'm happy to have this opportunity to work with you on improving your images, and hopefully your eBay sales.

Photos - good photos - will help you sell your items and get more for them. That's why major companies pay a lot of money for professionals to photograph the things they make and sell. If you're like me, you don't have that sort of money, so I'd like to help you make better photos yourself.

One of the basic questions about photography is: "What camera should I use?"

The truly appropriate answer is also a question: "What are you going to photograph?"

I prefer film to digital. While digital has come a long way, my own needs still require film. This is because I do more than photos for eBay. I often want images that I can make very big, and hang on walls. To do something like this with digital is just too much for my budget. If you're photographing only for eBay, though, all but the very bottom end digital cameras will probably do the job.

In most cases, I recommend a 35mm single lens reflex film camera along with a scanner for digital capture. This kind of camera will usually allow you to make an image that's small enough to be scanned and put online, while still allowing you to make a nice 8x10 print if you want to photograph a child, spouse or friend. They are usually quite affordable, but be sure to get a good quality camera.

If you are only going to use your camera for eBay photos and perhaps an occasional 4x5 inch print, a medium-priced digital camera will do the job. If you want to make larger images, though, you're going to want a higher-priced digital camera.

I'm going to assume that you can operate your camera, or that you have the manual that came with it. Next time, we'll begin with some of the other things that you may want to purchase to help you make better images of your eBay items. I'm going to show you what I have done to save money and still make (at worst) better than average photos.

I'm looking forward to helping you sell your items.