By David Gewirtz
If you sell things on eBay, you know that physically small items often sell for good money, especially if they're collectable. You also know that displaying a picture of what you're selling is an important tactic, since the photo (or photos) gives buyers a much better sense of the actual item you're selling.
Most modern digital cameras have what's called "macro" mode. This is a feature of the camera that lets you take close-up pictures, like the one shown in Figure A.
FIGURE A
If I wanted to sell my cherished Hot Wheels car, I'd need to get a close-up shot. (click for larger image)
The lens has to have some special attributes to allow you to get close to the image and get a tight shot. The picture shown above was taken with a macro lens.
But what if you don't have a macro lens or a camera that's got a close-up or macro mode? Sure, you could just go out and buy another camera, but even if you've just got a regular snapshot lens, you can still take pictures of small objects and post them on eBay.
The secret is megapixels
As with many digital photography tricks, the secret is knowing that your camera can take a much larger picture than you will likely need to post on eBay. For example, the macro-shot picture shown above is 640 pixels across, more than enough for an eBay posting.
Let's talk about lenses again. With a macro lens, you put your camera just inches away from the subject and shoot the picture. The entire photo captured to your memory card is of your subject. But without a macro lense, you've generally got to be at least two or three feet away from your subject to get a good, clean shot.
Nearly all cameras take pictures whose final size is well more than 640 pixels across. For example, my wife has a Casio camera that shoots at 6 megapixels. Most cameras you'd buy today will shoot pictures that are, at least, 4 megapixels. You can even do what I'm about to show you with an older 2 megapixel camera.
To understand this very simple process, take a look at Figure B.
FIGURE B
This is the same layout as the previous picture, just taken from about 4 feet away. (click for larger image)
What you're looking at is the same layout as the previous picture, just taken from about 4 feet away. To be easily viewable by you, dear reader, I've reduced the image to 640 pixels across. But the thing to really understand is that the image was originally 3,072 pixels across by 2,048 pixels down.
Since the typical monitor is about 1,280 pixels across, the original image is three times too big to see at once, even if you wanted to fill the full screen. And, since the typical eBay picture is much smaller, you need to only grab a small part of the picture, as shown in Figure C, to post online.
FIGURE C
Once the picture's taken, I just cropped it in Photoshop. (click for larger image)
As you can see, since I don't need nearly the pixel resolution the camera's capable of, I can shoot the picture and discard the bulk of the excess material. The result, suitable for eBay posting, is Figure D.
FIGURE D
This picture was not taken with a macro lens. (click for larger image)
As you can see, the image is adequate for our purposes. It shows what the car looks like to a prospective buyer. It's not the best picture you'll get, but it's usable.
Let's look at the two images together, as shown in Figure E.
FIGURE E
Here's a comparison of the two images. (click for larger image)
The top image is the macro photo, the bottom is the cropped, distance photo. There are some things you might notice. First, the lighting on the non-macro shot isn't as good as the lighting from the macro shot -- even though both were taken with the exact same lighting setup. That's because I used a diffused flash on both, and less of the diffused light reached the object at the distance I was shooting.
In practice, you'd want to play around with different shots to get the best lighting. I didn't, both because I didn't really feel like taking the extra time and because this helps illustrate some of the differences in these two photo styles.
Another thing you'll notice is that you can see the clarity of the decals much better in the macro image. You might be able to kick up the quality a little more by hand-focusing and taking a bunch of pictures, but you're just not going to get the same level of detail as you would with an actual macro lens.
Without a doubt, if you can shoot small objects with a macro lens, do so. But if you just can't afford to go out and buy a new camera or a new lens, here's a good technique that might help you sell enough so you can save up for that great new camera.