This blog doesn’t provide tips on how you can find a great camera on eBay. Rather, it provides advice on what features to look for in a camera you plan to use to photograph items to sell on eBay.
If you have ever utilized the popular Internet auction site you know how important it is to have a high quality photo to illustrate your wares. Bottom line: The better the photo the better your chance of selling your item.
Thankfully, advances in technology drastically reduce your need to have expert photography skills. These days most (if not all) digital cameras come equipped with a litany of automated features, which make taking professional looking photos a snap.
In selecting an ideal camera to photograph items you wish to sell on eBay you want to examine a few key features. Today I’m focusing on resolution.
What many first time eBay sellers don’t realize is that you do not need extreme high-resolution pictures to place on the auction site. In fact, eBay managers consider high-resolution photos undesirable because they take a long time to download when a potential buyer wants to further examine your item on the site.
The experts at eBay recommend that photo file sizes be limited to 50 kilobytes. But, you can go up to 64 kilobytes with no problem. Sixty-four kilobytes (64kb) is the size most digital camera manufacturers dub as the “email setting.” Therefore, when you are shopping around for a camera to shoot items you want to display on eBay look for a camera that features a low resolution or “email setting.” You won’t have a hard time finding cameras with this function since the feature is considered “standard” on most models made in the last two years.
If you plan to use the “email” option you should know that while it is a desired setting for most eBay photos, if you plan to crop your shots you will compromise the clarity (somewhat) and lose detail. This is important to keep in mind especially if you are selling a product with a intricate details. If that’s the case then you’ll want to shoot at a higher resolution (I would say at least 1 or 2 Megapixels) and crop or resize the photo on your computer to get down to 65KB. Shooting at this higher resolution will preserve the detail when you crop or resize.
In my next blog I will discuss the importance of Macro Setting and Auto Focus.
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