Proud Photography Blog

A successful online sale usually includes a good photograph too.  Once you have all your sale items ready its time to set some time to do your photographs – making your items look good is simpler than you think!

The basic equipment you need is:

1.    Camera and Lens (or a good quality compact with a macro function)
2.    Background
3.    Window Light

This is the kit at its most basic – using just your camera, natural light and a plain background.  The background is very important as it will make your pictures look professional as if they were taken in a studio.

Choose a white background ideally – this is the most neutral colour but you can also try using black or if necessary bold colours like blue or red.  However, do not use patterns – these are just too distracting for an auction picture.

You can use white paper, white card, a white sheet, wrapping paper – anything that you want to get the result you need.  Don’t forget you will need something like clamps or sticky tape – something to hold the background up.

If you are just photographing flat items then you can lay the paper down on the floor, but if you are photographing upright items (like a vase, or a teddy bear etc.) it looks better vertical – therefore you need to suspend the background.

Macro is important – most of the time you may need to focus on a detail so make sure your macro function is available but the most important image is one of the overall product.

Other items which are useful to have include:

1.    A tripod
2.    A light cube or tent
3.    Simple studio lights (daylight adjusted)

If you are doing lots of shots, a tripod means you can keep the camera in the same place and just put the item in the correct area – this streamlines the process.  A light cube is also an affordable buy these days and it means you can put your item inside and take the photo.

A cube means you get even soft lighting without harsh lines or hotspots and a background included.  There are different sizes depending on what you want to sell – usually a 50cm x 50cm cube is good for small to medium sized objects but you can get a bigger one if you need to hang, say, clothes from a rail.
The advantage of taking pictures with studio lights or lamps is that you can work in the evening or when the light is just not strong enough to get your images nicely lit.  You can buy tabletop lighting kits for less than $200 which come with small lights and a light cube (with some backgrounds) to get started and you can even use this kit later on for other kinds of photography.  Well worth the investment if you know you will be selling items consistently.