Photographing Items for Sale

Sian: A growth area for photography over the last few years has been the explosion of sites such as ebay, where sellers showing photos of their items for sale. For our critics lot this time, we thought we take a detailed look at some product shots and offer some pointers on what to do and what not to do. Now professional photographer Dave Marrit is our critic this time. Now Dave started his photography career back in 1972, first working for newspapers before going freelance in 1991. His products have been varied, from the London Eye to Ferrari, where his jetting off to later. So okay Dave, let’s have a look at the first image. Now we’ve got a sort of ebay style image that you might find if you were searching through. Dave: Yes. Sian: So what’s your opinion on this picture? Dave: Well first of all, you got to look at this picture and so, what are we trying sell, the image is there, but you can't really see it. It’s on a very busy background which isn’t what you want. The important thing with an ebay image is to see it, not everything around it. So, that is a waste of time, you didn’t what that was, so we get rid of that one. Sian: Okay, so I saw a better one here. Dave: Yep, this one’s a lot cleaner, the photographer’s taken it little bit more thought, but unfortunately we got such a dark shadow on this long black lens, you can't even see what that is either. Better, clean background, that’s important. See the camera body bit better, but the lens I’m afraid is wasted. Sian: So how have they improved it then in this picture? Dave: This one here is obviously your, she has used some extra lighting so we can see that there is a lens, you got highlight on the lens here, we can see it, we can see the lens, we can see the focusing barrel, everything else. The aperture which is important to some people, I don’t even know what it is, and how it’s fixed to the body and there’s no nasty shadows. Sian: No. Dave: So, that would look better out of the three. Sian: Yes. Dave: You saw that, well that you saw, this one looks quite nice. Someone’s taking care of it. We’re going for that. But the big problem for this, what are they trying to sell? Sian: Exactly, I was gonna say, yeah. With ebay, you gotta be careful, people wanna see what’s for sale, and in this case, it is actually the camera, not the lens. Dave: Oh really. Sian: So there’s the camera. Dave: Oh there’s the camera, yeah, without the lens, so. Obviously all those three we’ve look at we discard. Sian: Yes. Dave: Was a waste of time, this one’s, this is better nice and clean. He’s cut the edges off, wanna keep it a bit, you know, leave a little bit space around it, so we can see it. Important it’s nice and sharp, you can see all the detail, how will it look after, it’s nice and clean. No nasty dents and bangs and things. Yeah, much better. Sian: And then we’ve just got some more views of it, which I think is important as well. Dave: Yep, overall view. Front, you got the top, you got the front. Once again, you can see a nice lens mount here, no damage. That’s important, if somebody’s gonna buy a camera, this is obviously an old camera, film camera in fact. Not even digital. Sian: No. Dave: So, can we still buy that stuff? Yeah, on ebay you can. No, this is important when people buying this sort of camera, they wanna know it’s been looked after. Sian: Definitely. Dave: You know, they’re gonna, they can't go in and do shopping in ebay and pick it up and look at it. They got to see it from your picture, so the pictures do really tell the story. Sian: Absolutely. Dave: And this has all big notch down here and across it… Sian: No. Dave: Not gonna buy one. But that looks a nice… Sian: Yeah. And again, that’s just from the back. Dave: And yeah, once again, nice… there’s no scruffs across here, where you had it bash against another camera over your shoulder and all that. That’s fine, that’s very nice. Yeah. Sian: So overall, what are the top tips then for getting it right? Dave: Top tips. Probably most important is your background. Sian: Yeah. Dave: Which sounds really crazy isn’t it. You know, you’re not selling your background. But if the background is clean and tidy, the image you got on there will stand out from it. So once you’ve got that, that’s fine. Depending on what color it is, it’s no good putting a black camera body on a black background. Sian: No. Dave: So, you know, and that sounds common sense. But a lot of people don’t think of that. Oh put it in there, bang, that’s it. Black camera body, bit of silver, glaze us a nice white or bright background for it. Next of all, get some lighting in there. Sian: Yeah. Dave: If you got cameras with flash guns on them. Bounce it off the ceiling. It will soften the light down for you. If you got some old white card, drape it out over something, you know, put a box on the table, put some card on there. Put some white card in at the sides. All that helps put light back in, and prevents all these nasty shadows and gives you a nice soft image which is much better to see. So there we go, I mean it’s important also that you do show detail. Sian: Oh, yeah. Dave: So the one here where we said about, that one’s nice, but this one here with the top show this detail and show that it isn’t damaged. Sian: Definitely. Dave: You know, you want good money for this camera, show it’s not damaged. Sian: I think the main point is take your time. Make sure you got everything in them. Maybe clean the camera up a bit. Get a decent photo, clear the surface and you’re gonna get more people looking at it. Dave: Sure you are, I mean, if a photographer’s gonna buy a camera, he wants to buy a good one. Sian: Absolutely. Dave: And he will know what he’s looking at. But that’s on anything, it doesn’t matter, you know, you could be selling this cups on ebay. Sian: Yeah. Dave: You know, you could have them selling cups, this is a very nice cup is it. We could have this and yours there, nice close up. Sian: Yeah. Dave: Make sure we can see the handle. You know, don’t just stand there, oh click, bang, that’s it. Think about it, come in nice and low, have the white background up here, or a nice color background. Show the handle. Do one from the top, show the size of the top, show the actual image. So when you look at it, only, they’re nice mugs. Sian: Yeah. Dave: We’ll have them, rather just an out of focus. Sian: Rubbish picture. Dave: Rubbish picture. Sian: Yeah, that everyone will ignore. Dave: Sell them the table. Sian: Well, some wise words there from Dave. Thank you very much. Now on part three, Chris is gonna take us to the purchase of lenses and John Gray talks about lighting.