Need help with buying the right lighting kit

[jeffrey000]

I recently started selling on ebay and just using a whiteboard as a backdrop without proper lighting. Any selling vets know the right kind of lighting kit to get? 

thanks

[chapeau-noir]

Your photos are looking good already!  Since I see smaller items in your listings I would suggest starting simple and just getting a full spectrum daylight bulb and a small light fixture (I started with a metal shop fixture).  The most important is true colour and even lighting.  Work with that and your whiteboard for now.  That's how I started.

[turquoisetulips]

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@jeffrey000 wrote:

I recently started selling on ebay and just using a whiteboard as a backdrop without proper lighting. Any selling vets know the right kind of lighting kit to get? 

thanks

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I sell small jewelry items so I use a photography  box   to take the photos. I've tried many different ways  but this has worked  the best of all.  Tulips 

[richard1rst]

I use a 4 foot LED strip with a double row of "bulbs". Picked it up at Lowes. Nice white light and planty of it.

[jeffrey000]

thanks, what kind of backdrop do you use?

[chapeau-noir]

I photograph mostly large things so just the white wall of my living room and a white board where I stand the mannequins, objects, etc.  The advantage of the whiteboard at the base is that it reflects light up so you don't have those dark drop shadows.  Drop shadows are fine and can add depth, but you don't want them to drown the base of your subject.

You can try a soft box (light box) but IMHO, looking at what you're doing now,  I think a simple base whiteboard and white backboard and a daylight bulb will give you the soft box effect, and then for now work with light positioning. You can see if a soft box will help later - everyone's native lighting is so different that I always advocate a step by step approach to tailor your lighting to your space/needs.  I sometimes use a soft box (they're not expensive).

I've really been round the block with this as I live in the Pac NW, in the woods, and lighting is a real challenge. 

[richard1rst]

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@jeffrey000 wrote:

thanks, what kind of backdrop do you use?

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Well, I don't particularly like the pure white background. It makes it look like a "stock photo" which turns off many people. I use a slightly mottled off white background. Sometimes for some things I use a black streaked background (looking sort of like pavement with tire tracks) and sometimes for garden items I photograph them in the yard - therefore a grass background. Check my listings and you will see what I mean.

Yes, I know that is contrary to the alleged statement that without a white background Google will not show it. Yet I can easily find TONS of my pictures with those various "wrong" backgrounds on Google so I wonder about how obsessive they are in enforcing that.

[chapeau-noir]

Yeah, I see a lot of cluttered photos on image returns, not so much on shopping returns, though. Google down rates photos with a lot of 'noise', that 'noise' being extraneous objects, printing, etc.  that interferes with the object itself, rather than a quietly patterned background or contrasting colour, but this tends to be more on image recognition and for ad purposes.   Still, just to produce a nice image, if one uses a single background and has limited space or resources, white or pale gray is versatile. Pale gray a bit lighter than the gray card scale works really well - I just don't have room for any of that stuff myself - I just  have a wall and a little piece of floor - though sometimes I'll lay a photo over a pale gray digital background to give it more depth. My photos, unedited, are pretty scruffy - the white background knocks out the cat scratching post, tatty 70s carpet, wires everywhere and the corner of the couch.