GUIDE A guide to taking (and using) perfect marketplace photos

As some of you may know, I'm a photographer. In my staff duties, I sometimes have to ask that a user retake their photos, as there's an issue with them. So, I thought I'd share some tips with you for taking that perfect photo.

We're going to use a five-point workflow:

1. 
   
   
   • Lighting
   • Camera settings
   • Validation
   • Post processing
   • Hosting & inserting

If you have a short attention span, or want to go back over things later, I've marked the key points in bold text!

Lighting
The first rule of product photography - make sure your lighting is sufficient. Of course, not everyone has a studio with several strobes, soft boxes and an infinity cove. You don't need one, though! You just need to bear in mind that you need decent lighting.

You could, of course, take your photographs outside in the sunlight. This can give good results. Avoid natural light indoors - it's not going to be sufficient. In either case, I'd suggest taking a photo on full auto and seeing a) how the picture looks and b) what your settings are like (more on that later).

I would recommend shooting indoors with a lamp of some description. If you have a desk lamp, that may be sufficient. An anglepoise would be pretty good. Or you could use a halogen or LED work lamp - usually made of yellow metal. These are actually very cheap (£15-30), and you can also use them in the garage, attic etc. Somewhere between 100-500 watts (or equivalent for LED lighting) is probably what you should be considering.

I should point out here that your background is worth noting. Shooting on white can be advantageous - it will reflect the light and your camera's auto white balance shouldn't be too bad with a white background. All the photos in this guide were taken on a roll of white photo canvas draped over my sofa... but you could use a white sheet or even the back of a big poster. Consider that darker colours are going to absorb the light, rather than reflect it.... although if you are shooting a white product, you might want to use a darker colour. You want to avoid sharp corners, so drape your background in an S-shape. The important part is the curve where the background meets the floor surface. You can do the same with a sheet, but it might be worth ironing it to remove creases and pulling it fairly taught to minimize wrinkles.



Simple, no? Just consider carefully where to position your lighting. One light should be sufficient - probably above, in front of and to one side is good. You can use a second, which will help if you're photographing a large (or complex-shaped) object, and minimizes shadows.

Camera settings

This first aspect to take into consideration is the minimum focus distance of your lens. Many compact cameras (and phones) have a macro mode for close-up photography. If you need to shoot close to the object you're photographing, switch to macro mode if available. If you don't have a macro mode (e.g. SLR cameras), you'll either need to use a macro lens, or step back until the object is in focus (an SLR lens will have a minimal focus distance specified).

Make sure the item you're photographing is in focus before you take a picture. Many cameras can be focused by half pressing the shutter button - try applying light pressure and you should see/hear the lens focus. On a mobile phone, you can often tap on the object on the screen to focus.

OK, mini crash course in photography!

Three settings on a camera will affect how your image comes out. Depending on your camera, you may or may not have control of (some of) these:

ISO
The ISO is basically how sensitive the camera is to light. The higher this number, the more sensitive it is to light. High ISO photography is used in low light. However, the higher the ISO, the more noise you introduce to your photo. So we want the lowest possible ISO... but we have to consider the other two settings, too. In practice, you'll probably want to be shooting around 100-400 ISO.

Shutter speed
Fairly simple - this is usually expressed as a fraction of a second. If you've got a whole number, it's far too slow for product photography! Bear in mind the reciprocal rule where possible - when hand-holding your camera, your shutter speed should be at least the reciprocal of your focal length... but no slower than 1/50 sec! So a 50mm lens needs a shutter speed of 1/50 sec, a 100mm lens needs a shutter speed of 1/100 sec and a 35mm lens needs a shutter speed of... 1/50 sec - remember, it has to be no slower than 1/50 sec for any lens shorter than 50mm!

If you are hand-holding your camera, you'll want the shutter to be open for as short a time as possible, to minimize camera shake (and, consequently, blurry photos). If you have issues getting acceptable hand-held photos, try using a tripod. You can get a miniature tripod which is fine for compact cameras and there are even some that have phone cradles. This one takes cameras or phones, and stands on a desk or wraps around something - for $5 shipped.

Aperture
Aperture is the diameter of the lens' diaphragm. This is expressed with an F number. So a photographer may say they are "shooting at F two point eight" but it's written f/2.8. It is actually the focal length (f) divided by 2.8. The higher the number, the smaller the diaphragm. This results in a larger depth of field, so more is in shot.

Conversely, a low F number means a larger diaphragm, so more light is let into the camera. However, you have a shallower depth of field. This results in "arty" shots where the focal point is sharp, but the background is blurry. Perhaps not the best idea for product photography. I would suggest somewhere between f/4-f/7.1 if you want a shallower depth of field, and around f/7.1-f11 if you want everything sharp.

As you can see, to get your optimal settings, you need to bear in mind all of the above. Having too fast a shutter speed, too narrow an aperture or too low an ISO will result in dark images (or washed out images in the opposite case). Let's have an example:



If you do find your images are too dark, do one of the following:

1. Increase your lighting - move it nearer the object, or use a second lamp.
2. Increase your ISO (so long as it won't deteriorate your pictures.
3. Try widening your aperture or decreasing your shutter speed, if it won't adversely affect the image with blur.
4. Use your flash.

It's worth noting that some cameras (and phones) have exposure control. You can usually dial in up to +2.0 or down to -2.0. This is worth experimenting with if your images are slightly too dark, or too light.

Let's look at the settings for the above image. It was taken at 800 ISO, 1/200 sec at f/6.3. Despite using an expensive camera, I don't really want to increase the ISO - 800 is already higher than I'd like. As I'm using a 200mm lens, I can't really decrease the shutter speed without blur unless I tripod mount. So I'd have to widen the aperture. That's fine, but the resulting image will have a shallow depth of field. With this camera, I also have the luxury of being able to switch to a shorter lens and shooting faster. So let's just see what happens if I use flash...



Much nicer! There's less shadow as a result, too. (With an SLR, I could also shoot in RAW and adjust the exposure.)

Now, for fairness, let's try using some more average cameras.

iPhone 3GS


Not bad... albeit slightly blurry. Let's see why. Well, the 3GS is only a 3 megapixel camera. The photo was taken at 125 ISO - that's fine. The aperture was f/2.8 - that should be sharp, but probably with a shallow depth of field. The focal length is 4mm - actually, that's short enough for it to fisheye, although the picture looks OK. And the shutter speed was 1/17 sec. Ah. Whilst that's above the reciprocal, it's slower than 1/50 sec. As the phone doesn't let us change the settings, we would have to either increase the light and see if it sorts itself out, or mount it on a tripod. Or make do! ;-)

Let's try an even older camera...

Fuji FinePix A610


Pretty good for a 6.3 megapixel cheap-and-cheerful compact from 2007! Let's see what we did right. Well, it was on full auto, so the lighting was key here. The focal length is 7mm and it selected 400 ISO, f/3 and 1/60 sec. So, the camera handled things very well here - we just gave it enough light and it allowed the photo to be shot hand-held pretty capably. We could perhaps have used a narrower aperture to have a greater depth of field and get everything sharp, but it's perfectly acceptable.

OK, how about a modern phone?

Samsung Galaxy S5


Well, that's pretty good, too! In fact, it shows that you CAN get good images from a modern mobile phone (not surprising for a 16 megapixel sensor) but similar results from an 8 year old budget compact camera! Let's look at those settings. The focal length was 5mm. Auto ISO setting gave us 80 ISO at f/2.2 with 1/33 sec shutter speed. I used Centre Weighted Average metering. All good, although the shutter speed should have been a bit faster. It's impressive that it coped with that so well. Again, if it's an issue, a tripod might help.

I then tried using spot metering, as it might help brighten things up. As it turned out, it did that a bit too well, so I dialled in -1.0 exposure.



Maybe a touch bright, but quite detailed, albeit with a relatively shallow depth of field. Auto ISO had jumped up to 250 ISO, which perhaps didn't help, but should be OK. We're still at f/2.2 and 1/33 sec - maybe they're fixed values. And 5mm again.

Validation

Everybody who is posting a for sale thread should know the marketplace rules, and hence should know that their posts require validation on a piece of paper in the photo with:

• 
  
  
  • Your forum name.
  • The name of the forum.
  • The date.

Some people think we're super fussy and want validation in every photo. You're welcome to do this, but it's not essential. If you're listing multiple items, it's fine to have one photo with everything in it, and your validation.... so long as all the items are legible.

Let's do this, then....



I took this image in my bathroom with the fluorescent light on right above the games. My first attempt was a little shaky, so I used flash. As the games have reflective cases, I angled the shot to minimize glare. If you shoot straight on, you're going to get reflections from the flash. The biro isn't very legible - I'd recommend a felt tip pen or print with a bold font.

(The Multi-Mega and PlayStation games are not for sale - sorry!)

Post processing

I'm only going to cover the basics here. Most people don't have Photoshop. You could use another editor, like Paint Shop Pro or the free GIMP. However, I quite like the online Pixlr Editor. It looks a lot like Photoshop, and has most of the basic features.

You might want to tweak your photo slightly. In most cases, Brightness & Contrast on the Adjustments drop-down menu should be sufficient. You could try Exposure instead.

Other than that, the only other tool you'd need is the crop tool. It's the top-left icon. I would recommend changing the Constraint setting (top bar) to Output Size, then entering an output value. You don't need huge photos - especially if you're embedding them in the post. Where detail is necessary, you can use larger photos, but host them externally. I would recommend 800px wide if you're embedding.

Hosting & inserting

As of June 2016, all images in a sales thread must be uploaded to the site.

You may still hotlink images in other parts of the forums. Instructions on how to do so have been moved here.

DO NOT HOTLINK IMAGES IN THE MARKETPLACE!

 

Needs to be stickied

now it's sticky

 

This is great information. Thank you for taking the time to write it all out. It will really help me out. Thanks again!

 

I recently got a Nikon 5200 and have been playing around with photography. It's nice to see a guide geared towards good photos of gaming items, or any small subjects really. Thanks retro!

 

*whistles off key tune*

 

You've got the advantage of being able to change all the key settings and then some with an SLR. The disadvantage is that you'll either need a bit of distance between you and the item you're photographing, or a macro lens. If you're not using a DX lens, you also need to think about the crop factor. If you got it with the 18-55mm VR II kit lens, it has vibration reduction, which is a plus, and it has a pretty close minimum focus distance of 28cm (just under a foot).

 

Somehow I just now read this. Well written.

 

UPDATED TO REFLECT THE JUNE 2016 RULE THAT ALL IMAGES MUST BE UPLOADED TO THE SITE.

Please remember NOT to hotlink images externally for a sale. You may, however, currently do so in other posts. Consequently, I have moved my guide to hosting here. The following is for reference elsewhere on the forums - DO NOT HOTLINK IMAGES IN THE MARKETPLACE!

Hosting & inserting

OK, let's get this straight. The embedding feature on the forums really sucks. Don't embed photos in your post! You'll save space on the server and bandwidth for starters. You make things easier for us - embedded images have been known to mess up when we have to move, delete or edit posts. Even more importantly, though, you'll have more control over how the image is displayed if you use a good image host.

You'll probably want a host that allows hotlinking. It's handy if the host provides a BBCode link. Also handy is an auto resize feature - either when uploading, or to give you a resized image that you click for the full-sized photo. You might want a service that allows you to make directories and share a link to them.

If you're using several photos in one big sales thread, it would be really helpful if you could embed your validation image, then link to the others. That way, moderators won't have to wade through dozens of photos to find your validation.

Here are a few image hosts:

Dropbox
www.dropbox.com

• Account required.
• Syncs easily from phone or computer - just add to your Dropbox public folder (or share on phone).
• Very limited sharing options - only links to full image.
• No BBCode generation.

Example (I would only recommend using for links with the URL tag, as your images may well be large):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42167374/DSC_9112.JPG

Flickr
www.flickr.com

• Account required.
• Uses Yahoo! account, which you may well have already.
• Easy upload process, including features such as tagging.
• Folder creation possible.
• Sharing with groups possible.
• Variety of rights attribution options, privacy and download restrictions.
• Variety of sharing methods including shortcode links and BBCode, including several thumbnail sizes.
• Ability to share EXIF information (if you want to show what you did right)!

Example (small 2):
DSC_9112 by concertographer, on Flickr

Imgur
www.imgur.com

• Account optional.
• Variety of easy upload methods.
• Folder creation possible - a few presentation options for folders.
• Privacy options.
• Large images can be uploaded in hi-res, or a faster option.
• Variety of sharing methods including shortcode links and BBCode, including several thumbnail sizes.

Example (medium thumbnail):

...and here's an album

Photobucket
www.photobucket.com

• Requires account.
• Easy upload method.
• Folder creation possible.
• Privacy options.
• Limited sharing options including thumbnailed BBCode - fixed size thumbnail.
• Ads starting to get more obtrusive - has option to pay to disable them.

Example:


TinyPic
www.tinypic.com

• Account optional.
• Easy upload method, including a variety of resize options.
• Will resize photos to maximum width/height of 1600 pixels - handy if you upload large files.
• Limited sharing options - no thumbnailed BBCode, only full-sized photo!

Example (I would only recommend using links unless you resized on upload):
http://i62.tinypic.com/vgixpi.jpg

I used to use ImageShack, but they stopped allowing anonymous uploads, made you sign in, then told you after 30 days that your free trial had ended and you'd need to upgrade to get certain features back. Even if you could live with a free account, they make the upgrade reminders really intrusive. So they can get lost. Any other image host (e.g. Instagram) has more than likely been deliberately excluded for not being suitable.

My personal recommendations would be either Flickr or Imgur.

When you go to place your images in your post, use the BBCode links provided. These will start either with a URL tag (thumbnailed) or an IMG tag (direct link, probably full size). As mentioned before, hotlink your validation photos. You can then either URL link your other photos, or use small thumbnails.