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Home » Marketing Articles » Lights Camera Ebay Taking Pictures That Sell

Lights, Camera, Ebay - Taking Pictures That Sell

Worth a Thousand Words

One of the biggest things you can do to build potential eBay buyers' confidence is to accent your listings with good, quality photos. Shoppers may not believe something just because you say it, but they will believe it if they see it with their own eyes. Showing them the condition of your item is just as important as telling them about it.

The Right Equipment

While it's not necessary to run out and buy the fanciest camera, there are a few features that can help you take pictures that let your customers know precisely what they're buying. These may be worth investing in:

•Macro Capability for Close-Ups. For extremely large items—your Buick, for example—a zoom feature that lets you focus from 10 or 12 inches is sufficient. But for smaller items, like jewelry or stamps, where you need to capture details, you should be able to focus from ½ an inch to 2 inches away. If you focus from closer than your camera's rated for, your pictures won't turn out, so measure the distance you're shooting.

•Aperture Priority (also called Aperture Value). This allows you to control and extend which parts of the photo—from foreground to background—are in focus. You may need to have more than one plane in focus, such as the mount and the item sitting on it. You should be able to check the spec sheet or the manufacturer's website to see if a camera has this feature. Or you can go to http://DPReview.com, and look in their camera section under the brand and model specifications.

•Manual White-Balance. All light has color—house lights, sunlight, reflector lights, it doesn't matter. This color shows up in photos, which is why you often see pictures where everything seems to have a green, red, or blue cast to it. A white balance lets your camera read and adjust to whatever light you're in, so your photos give an accurate representation of your item's appearance.

Shedding Some Light

Lighting your object well is essential to having clear, detailed pictures. You don't have to buy an expensive lighting kit, reflectors, and soft-boxes. According to Daniel Grotta and Sally Weiner-Grotta, contributing editors of PC Magazine and authors of Shooting for Dollars—Simple Photo Techniques for Greater EBay Profit, you can set up your whole studio on a shoestring budget. Says Grotta, "We set up a studio in our laundry room for under twenty dollars. It was just a background cloth with two clamps and two reflector lights that we bought in a hardware store."

Getting great pictures for your listings isn't hard. Lighting your photos sounds very complicated. But assures Weiner-Grotta, "In essence all you have to do is flood an [object] with light to make sure it's well-illuminated...Just play around with placing the lights at different angles, and see how that affects things. After a day of experimenting, you should have control over it."

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Real Estate Investing -- Motivated Buyer?

What's the first image that comes to mind when you hear the term -- motivated seller?

You probably think of someone who is desperate to sell his property, as quickly as possible, for well below the market price - right?

Well, sometimes that's true but often it's not.

There are many reasons, other than desperation, that motivate a person to put their property on the market.

Maybe needed repairs are too costly for the property owner or perhaps the owner is relocating to a different area. Maybe the owner, for various reasons, is trying to avoid the pressure of waiting to the last minute to sell his property so time isn't always a consideration.

Whatever the reason a motivated seller puts his property on the market, the opportunity to make a better than average deal is greatly increased and that means more profit for you.

It's important to remember however, no matter how motivated a seller is, nobody wants to give away the farm (so to speak). A house represents a great deal of money and there will be limitations on how far a seller is willing to go to sell his property.

Enter the motivated buyer!

A motivated buyer is, first and foremost, a salesman and his product is himself. A seller needs to know that he's dealing with someone who is knowledgeable, that has a creative solution to his Real Estate problem and, more importantly, that he's dealing with someone that can be trusted (and, of course, you can be trusted).

Creating an emotional connection with the seller will get you through the front door far easier than spouting off a flood of meaningless facts and figures. He's really not interested that you know 50 different ways to buy a house. He's interested in you as a reliable Real Estate expert and how you can satisfy HIS needs right now.

Makes sense, right?

A motivated seller doesn't need to seek out buyers. If a seller is willing to offer his property at a better than market value price, buyers will find him. What he does need to know is that he's dealing with a Real Estate professional -- someone he can trust, someone who understands his position and someone who will make him an attractive and fair offer.

Your greatest assets as a motivated buyer are to be able to understand the seller's needs, have viable and yet profitable solutions to his needs and to have the ability to instill the seller's trust in you as a Real Estate expert -- a win, win situation.

Happy investing from http://www.thelearntocenter.com.

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