I am in the middle of setting up an F1 related eBay shop but what’s the best way to take pictures of products – in the main clothing?

Thanks,
Tim

Hey Tim!

Product photography is something I could talk hours upon hours on as I’m a keen photographer myself. And product photography is also one of the most common traps online sellers get into – without great looking, clean & clear pictures it’s really difficult to maximize conversion rates. Without high conversion rates, it’s almost impossible to make decent ROI (return on investment), especially on eBay.

For some product groups (including “Clothing”), images are the main selling tool. People buy clothing with “eyes” not reading listing’s description so it’s essential to take product pictures that SELL! I have seen dramatic increase in conversion rates just by adding professional, multi-angle product images to listings.

Best advice I can give – if possible, ask your supplier for high quality, professional stock photos. This way you can get pro looking product images absolutely for free and save your time and money on taking those pictures by yourself.

However, in most cases this won’t be an option so here are 5 most important elements you have to be aware of to take high quality, pro looking product pictures:

1) Camera – luckily, we live in the 21st century and these days it’s not a problem to get a camera that takes PRO looking pictures for relatively low price. I recommend going with D-SLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera as it will give you full control over manual settings, which is very important. Cameras like Nikon D60 or Canon EOS 1000D are perfect for this! They can be bought for less than £400 so it’s a reasonable investment in your business.

Don’t forget to get a tripod as shooting products without one will be really difficult. I’m a huge fan of “Manfrotto” products but you can get any tripod really – for home use you don’t need anything fancy.

2) Background – to make your life much easier with after-processing work, you should always use a white (or black) background behind the item you shoot. For small items a light box could be a good option. For bulkier items, you’ll have to get some sort of backdrop.

3) Lighting – without a proper lighting set-up, it’s almost impossible to get good looking product pictures. The only alternative is to shoot on a sunny day in a place where you can gather lots of natural sun light.  Depending on item you shoot, you’ll need 2 to 4 continuous lights for best results.

4) Taking Pictures – place your camera on a tripod and set to Manual shooting mode – this way you can set most suitable aperture range and shutter speed and keep it that way for all products you shoot (settings won’t change because of different colour of the product for example). When shooting small items, make sure to switch to the “Macro” mode for better focusing.

5) Image processing – personally I use Adobe Photoshop for image editing but could do just well with Photoshop Elements, any free editing software or specialized product photography software. Most likely your pictures won’t look perfect straight out of camera and you’ll need some basic editing tasks – adjust lighting, colours and crop out the background.

When taking pictures of clothing you should consider buying a mannequin to better show off your items. Mannequin is a cheap alternative to hiring a model but will give your items that needed 3D look. There are number of companies in the UK selling mannequins for the retail sector – StudioMannequins.co.uk, Morplan.com and others.

In future posts I’ll talk more about each individual piece of the product photography puzzle as I really feel this is a topic many online sellers struggle with! Feel free to submit more specific questions on this topic via our contact form.