Ecommerce Experiment

We’re just starting up Eliot Turner which means we must keep our costs down, therefore this requires us to use the best camera we can get our hands on. Chris kindly volunteered his SONY DSC-T300 touch screen digital camera with 10.1 mega pixels and a 5x optical zoom.

This is great for the time being, however as we progress and develop further we have a couple of options ahead of us;

1. to invest in the latest SLR camera
2. bring in a professional photographer

I took it upon myself to photograph the stock for Eliot Turner as I love photography and am never happy with just one photograph. One of the most important factors on an eCommerce website is making sure that the photography of the products is perfect. Looking at it from a customers perspective, when buying jewellery, the first most important factor is what the product looks like. The photography must portray the product perfectly in order for it to sell which includes the detail, pattern and colour. Bad photography will repel customers forcing them to look elsewhere therefore losing an important sale.

A few tips when photographing your stock:

Make sure the lighting is correct

You don’t want to end up with a dark image where customers will not be able to distinguish what it is. I use a piece of white card with a bend so that you can’t see the crease line in the background. The light will bounce off the card and onto the stock more effectively.

Balance between light and shade

A good photographer will ensure that the lighting is perfect for their specific product and also the shade so that it is pointing in the right direction.

Use the macro mode

When you have a product as intricate and detailed as jewellery is, you really want to capture its detail at its best and to do so you can turn the Macro mode on (the flower). This ensures the photograph is crisp. You can also add extra focus on the detail compared to a normal focus. When using the macro mode you will find that it will be harder to focus on the product and if you get too close, the camera will not be able to focus on the product at all. There is no harm in experimenting first either on your hand so you know the distance at which it starts to get out of focus or another product which is a similar size.

Composition

Don’t be afraid to use different angles and different heights to photograph your stock, that way you will have more than one option to choose from.

Don’t fall in love with your first photograph

Try different angles, different heights. If you are photographing more than one product, try displaying them in different ways; it is all about trial and error.

A little technique that I use when photographing is taking a breath right just before I take the shot. The reason being to stop your hands from shaking and producing a blurry photograph.

If you take all these tips into consideration you will find yourself with some great photographs for your eCommerce shop.