I learned something yesterday about light tents and cameras...

Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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I was at our farm yesterday, my other half runs it primarily as a horse charity and raises funds by buying and selling horsy bits on Ebay, very successfully.
Yesterday, I saw for the first time how she actually takes her photos.

Long story short, for the first time ever, I have to say that one of those horrible light cubes is the right way of taking quick pictures that are good enough for her purpose!

And her choice of camera is perfect too, it's a hopelessly poor quality digicam with a tiny sensor, but good enough for her Ebay listings. Point is, that because of the tiny sensor, the DOF is almost endless, which is what she needs for items that have a lot of depth - there's no way that a full frame DSLR with a tilt shift lens would be better for her.
 
My partner does much the same.. Its funny in that there seems to be no logic to eBay buyers, once I would say you can buy an item take a good set of photos, great text/wording added with embedded images and relist said item to make a profit, however of late I have had no more success using my 5D3 to image items that are then listed on eBay over those that are half assed efforts taken with my phone and given two or three word descriptions, I even sold a flash gun the other day and only took a picture of the box, it still sold for more than you can buy one new?? (430ex ii) Guess it depends on the type of market too, bikers seem not bothered most of the time whereas photographers like to know the in's and out's of an item (other than my flash gun). However I am with you 100% in that sometimes the KISS rule works best, simple clear images with a simple description.. Its hard to work out the rights and wrongs of selling when in my experience it seems to swing from one extreme to another. eBay, its a strange place to trade.
 
I'm no expert on this but it seems to me that when selling second hand items at least, good photos and good descriptions sometimes work against the seller, making it all look too professional.

Her listings certainly don't look slick, she uses oversized type, poor formatting and poor photos, and it works very well for her.

The point though is that although without a doubt, good photography and good lighting makes a huge difference when selling new items, for her purpose a light tent and a cheap camera provides the best results, and does it in the shortest time.
 
I agree, sounds like she is doing well. Sometimes as you say too much info puts the sale down, leaving somethings to the imagination is a good thing, short descriptions often work best. I am one of these people as you may be able to tell that goes on far too long haha, I give reasons for sale, what I plan to do with the money, include reasons why I'd not buy said item and so on...lol I kind of kill my own sales.
Good luck to your partner, hope she continues to do well.
 
It's down to the psychology of buyers and they can be annoyingly illogical at times, I'd also be willing to bet it depends on what market we're talking about.

My personal opinion is being ruthlessly thorough on details is the best approach but that's painfully time intensive.
 
arthurbikemad said:
I agree, sounds like she is doing well. Sometimes as you say too much info puts the sale down, leaving somethings to the imagination is a good thing, short descriptions often work best. I am one of these people as you may be able to tell that goes on far too long haha, I give reasons for sale, what I plan to do with the money, include reasons why I'd not buy said item and so on...lol I kind of kill my own sales.
Good luck to your partner, hope she continues to do well.
Click to expand...

Me too, I'm learning slowly to stem the information outflow!
 
I buy loads of stuff from ebay and I very rarely choose by looking at the ebay presentation quality. First (obviously) is the right item, next is price, third is seller history. If I want more details I will ask, photos, font, spelling never really put me off.

Just as an aside I have found photography gear to be my worst ebay expereinces to the point where I have stopped buying second hand gear from there. It has always been described as being in much better condition than it actually is, over priced and the sellers seem difficult and unresponsive.
 
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