Product Photography

My New Ring Flash

Published on by Shebley

ring-flash-adapter

One of the purchases I put on my list of equipment upgrades was a ring flash.

It’s a round flash unit that mounts on the end of your lens and syncs by a hot shoe attachment. I bought mine on eBay for about $40.00.

Mine isn’t very powerful – I don’t think any are because they are meant for ultra-closeup photos. I love it so far! They difference is very subtle but I can see it. Because I only have room currently for a two light set-up, the ring flash allows me to position them for best general lighting without losing details in the front (if I need the light to be on the sides or backs). Here’s an example of a Christmas Ornament – with and without.

ring-flash-sample Click to enlarge photo

The one on the left is without the flash, one on the right with. Notice the detail, especially on his red apron where typically the shadow darkens and obscures.

****By the way – this would never fly as a stock photo because it’s a newer, copyrighted item. (Jim Shore, Enesco). So, an item like this is not allowed to be used as stock. Just wanted to clear that up – I’m also using the ring flash to improve my eBay photos.******

My First Photos Have Been Accepted

Published on by Shebley

3-15-2015 9-26-23 AM

I debated about submitting my first photos – one didn’t have an all white background – but went ahead and uploaded a few new photos. One of the photos was not accepted by Shutterstock because of a shallow depth of field. However, the same photo was accepted by Istock.com. You can view my small, but growing collection of istock.com photos by clicking here.

 

Now that I’ve got the ball rolling, I’m pretty excited to see how this new venture pans out….

 

A Game Plan for Selling Stock Photos

Published on by Shebley

If I’m going to sell more photos to iStock.com the first thing I need to do is noodle out a few strategies for adding the extra workload. I’ll also need to run some numbers on the possible extra expenses. What I’m posting here isn’t an official Business Plan but it’s always good to have something in writing as a guideline.

Overview:

Goal: I want to increase my revenue and decrease my dependence on eBay as my main source of income.

How I  Plan to Achieve: Use the same inventory I purchase to resell. I plan to photograph the potentially stock worthy items and offer them as stock photos.

What I Know So Far: I’ve already sold a few downloads (photos) on the various stock sites.  Going forward my plan is to look at the items I’ve purchased (or about to purchase) for resale as potential stock photos. The items I think may be interesting to photo buyers I’ll shoot with more care and photo edit them for use as stock.

 Expenses:

Late last year my old Canon Rebel died and I purchased a Canon Rebel T5i – because I was thinking it was mainly for eBay photographs. It produces beautiful photos for selling online and I’m very happy with it. However, if I thought I was going to shoot stock photos I would have purchased a more professional model. So, for now I’ll use this camera, with an eye on upgrading if/when I start receiving a regular income from selling stock.

I  have lights, all the stands, boom light, softboxes and cubes,  a studio backdrop and paper for white backgrounds – no extra expenses. (space is another issue tho).

Tripod, Monopod – check – have them too.

Photo Editing Software: I have Photoshop Elements – good enough for now. Later may need to upgrade.

I did purchase a ring flash for close-ups: $50.00 (on eBay). More about it in another post.

Even more than a more professional camera – I need a better lens. The kit zoom I have isn’t that great. I do have a couple other nice lenses but they are 50mm and telephoto – not right for close-up work.  Right now I’m exploring the options of a prime or zoom wide angle lens.  I expect a good lens will cost between $450 – 700.

I’ve always wanted to learn more about PhotoShop – so as I see revenue coming in I want to take a class. Potentially cost: $250.

Other Roadblocks:

Time: Right now the biggest roadblock I see is time. The extra care and set-up of the product shot including extra cleaning (more than I do now) of the items, extra care with the lighting, special backdrop – white background and extra photo processing time starts adding up.

To cut down on time spent I’m going to implement a couple of techniques:

1) Batch photograph & edit the items I think will be useful for stock. Set them aside for once a week or bi-weekly photo shoots – so they don’t interrupt my daily listing cycle.

2) Try to up my average selling price and reduce the number of items I’m listing on EBay (a goal I’m always working on – which is easier said than done – when one has an eye on cash flow).

Space:

Space in my home based business is always an issue. My partner is adamant about not renting outside space. No storage units, no storefront, no studio space. I have to agree with her – but it does mean space here is tight.

Over the last several months I’ve been working on re-organizing our storage spaces, moving out dead stock and generally trying to buy fewer items. My goal is to buy better – higher selling price items or items with lower margins that sell quickly. The reward: I’m starting to see a little floor space.

Conclusion:

Moving forward I’ll need a better lens, to budget my time for this new project, and watch storage space.  We’ll see how I do as these posts progress.

 

Rekindling an old Love

Published on by Shebley

Every small business person needs to see the tides of change. They should be agile enough to set sail in a new direction before the tsunami hits.

The trick is to know what changes are small ripples and which ones turn into mega waves…..

But, this post isn’t about business metaphors it’s about how I’m trying to keep up a steady stream of income. What my next business steps are going to be.

Currently my eBay store is my main source of income. And the tides of change seem to be coming. So, let me get to the point.

I’ve been very concerned about the upcoming PayPal and eBay split. That, combined with a very ho-hum Christmas selling season, has finally pushed me out of my eBay comfort zone.

I’m really not sure that eBay will get it’s MoJo back as my friend Cliff Enico writes (although I am hopeful).

To stay ahead of the changes I’ve decided to look at other online venues.  So far here’s what I explored.

Step One:

I started with Bonanza. Earlier in 2014 I experienced a few days where sales were flooding in from Bonanza. Then it stopped. Shortly there after I received an email from them promoting a new upgraded service/subscription. It seems that flood of sales was linked to their buying Search Engine Placement.  I didn’t take them up on the upgrade right away. Maybe I should have? Instead, I decided to upgrade my Bonanza booth in December when I downgraded my eBay store subscription. I decided to use the extra funds from the eBay downgrade to fund the Bonanza upgrade. I figured I’d give Bonanza a trail – one quarter – to see how/if sales improved. So far, they haven’t. In fact this quarter is down (for sales) on Bonanza compared to last year at this time (while my eBay sales are up year compared to last year at this time).

Step Two:

Next, I’m going to give Etsy another try. But, to be honest, I’m not sure the sales will be there either. To do Etsy correctly I’ll need to rethink my photos and rethink what to source to sell. Not that I’m opposed to it, if I see the reward of more sales. From what I’ve seen so far Etsy has a younger buyer – with fewer funds and slightly different tastes in collectibles. With a younger, less monied, buyer things seem to go for less compared to eBay. So – the question for me is: Will I have to work harder to sell more at a lower price?

Step Three:

What about Amazon, you say? I’m always on the hunt for products to list in the Amazon catalog – that will never change. The trick is finding items I can buy so cheaply that I can afford to pay Amazon’s stiff listing fees. (Which, by the way, is one of my major concerns for the future of eBay.  EBay is starting the split with all of PayPal’s debut – I’m sure the sellers are in for fee increases from both companies). Currently, with the way I product source, I find very few products that are profitable to sell on Amazon. Perhaps I need to lower my earning expectations?

Moving In A Different Direction:

All that said and done…. I still don’t feel I’m moving in the right direction. I don’t think following the crowd to Amazon FBA – or the heard of eBay naysayers to unheard of platforms or my own website is the right move for me.

So, after thought, and a look at my passions – I’ve decided to try moving in a slightly different direction.

One such love is photography. A few years ago, when I thought I had more time than I did, I started submitting some of my photos to a few online stock photography sites. I enrolled, uploaded a few to the photos, and then sort of forgot about it. Over the last few years I’ve gotten payments into my PayPal account fairly regularly.  On top of that, a couple of the photos have been published in books – and I’ve gotten the photo credit. To me – that’s the ultimate!

With that kind of success with very little effort (or what felt like it because I enjoy photography so much) – I thought that if I put a little more time/effort into it – that Stock Photography could be a plan B – if anything happens to my main source of income.

Over the next few weeks, months, I thought I’d post about my new venture – mostly as notes to myself – but also to share if anyone is interested.

In the next post, I’ll start with a basic outline or simple business plan on how I think I will  make it work.

Please feel free to follow along.