Buying and Selling on eBay: Tips, Tricks, Problems & Questions - Page 76

Looks like a pretty good deal to me. Probably a bit chinsy, but....at that price what would you expect.

I think it would probably be fine for shoes and anything you will be shooting at fairly close range, like pants on a whiteboard. If you are putting a suit on a mannequin, you might have to use a tripod for the camera. Depends on how steady your hands are. A weak light source matters a lot less if you use a tripod. You just have to make sure you don't have another light source nearby that can mess up the color balance. (A pro strobe system would just overpower any existing ambient light.)

You won't be able to vary the power output with a dial, but you can just move one light further back. If you double the distance, you cut the effective brightness by 1/4.

 

It does not say on the envelope, but measures to about 9.5 x 12.  The seller had it originally listed BIN for several hundred and then put it up for auction where I was the only bidder, so this might be an FU for my getting his Canali sportcoat for $40.

That package doesn't appear to contain a sport coat which has been rolled into a ball. Properly folded, and judging by the appearance of that bag it is properly folded, a jacket will arrive in better condition in that envelope than it would in a Priority Mail 1095 or Flat Rate Medium box because the boxes are too large, allowing the jacket to move around and be jammed against one end.

1.  Very much was rolled into a ball and crammed in the envelope. 

 

2.  You are the master when it comes to shipping sportcoats and suits, but ones I've received in boxes have come through much nicer than this one did. 

Just to beat a dead horse a little more, here are pics of a properly folded blazer on top of and inside a 12 x 15.5 Tyvek envelope. There is no advantage to putting it into a box instead, because this will travel perfectly. It is not stuffed in but it fills the space. That said, the envelope your seller used is a bit small IMO.

Why wouldn't you put it in a box? It costs the exact same and provides extra protection.

1. I do put sport coats in a box, but only because I think a buyer would think that it is improperly packed if in an envelope. I do not agree, but there is no point in fighting that perception with my buyers.

2. It doesn't cost the same. The Tyvek envelope is about 6.5 ounces lighter than the USPS 1095 box. Both ship by weight, in one pound increments. So the box will put the shipped weight over the next pound increment about 40% of the time compared to the envelope.

3. The box is easier to cut or puncture and it absorbs moisture. The perception may be that it provides more protection, but I disagree.

Regional rate a box. I put it in a bag in the box, not just in the box bare.

 

I would not use compact fluorescent bulbs in lighting photographs. You won't get true color representation.  

Even though they're "daylight balanced?" What kind of lighting would you use?

 

Fluorescent lights don't produce a full-spectrum of light, just bands of frequencies. Incandescent produce a more even spectrum weighted to a cooler temperature (warmer color) than natural light.

 

Here's a compact fluorescent spectrum:

 

 

 

Here's an incandescent spectrum:

 

The holes in the fluorescent spectrum will lead to certain colors being under-represented and it's not really fixable in processing

 

I would use a flash, natural light, or studio lights. Flash or studio lights are the easiest to control. 

Thanks, Grendel. I completely forgot about that. They call them 6500K lights because they average 6500K, even if there are holes in their spectrum.

Incandescent lights get hot, so there are compromises with always-on lights. You give up something if you use lights that aren't flash/strobes.

Are there better lights I could buy that would be relatively affordable? I need at least a couple, preferably three to do 3-point lighting, and don't want to spend more than $100 or so if I can help it. I don't have a flash, and for the foreseeable future will be shooting with either a very basic point-and-shoot with limited manual capabilities or my iPhone 5 (which does all right as long as you give it enough light).

I'd look for a Vivitar 285 on eBay... Should be doable for around $40. Get a hotshoe adapter with a cable port and a long cable. You don't need 3 lights. I light all of mine with one Vivitar flash on a stand pointed at the wall / ceiling, but you could try setting the flash on a table or counter pointed in the right direction.