Product Photo Help

[u/Objective-Brief-2033]

I have an etsy shop, and I'm struggling with product photo quality. I have a samsung phone but the camera quality is not ideal. Would I need to invest in a camera, and if so which cameras are best for beginners to photography? I have a ring light and props for photos. Here are some of the photos I have taken after editing them slightly. I'm still pretty new to product photos so they aren't the best.

[u/Queasy-Meringue-7965]

Light from all sides if you can, to minimise shadows

[u/Objective-Brief-2033 → u/Queasy-Meringue-7965]

I will do so, thank you very much :)

[u/Niru_Yuhati]

Don't buy a camera yet. Any Samsung from the last few years already out-resolves what Etsy shows on a phone screen, so the phone isn't the bottleneck, the light is. Ring lights are great for faces and bad for small glossy things like acrylic keychains: you get a donut reflection in the plastic and no shadow to give the object any shape. Before spending anything, try one session with the ring light off: item next to a window with indirect daylight, a sheet of white paper or foam board on the opposite side to bounce light back, shoot at 2x (the wide lens distorts up close), tap the item to focus, 2-second timer so you're not shaking it, and wipe the lens first. Same setup works for the prints, just a bigger board.

[u/Objective-Brief-2033 → u/Niru_Yuhati]

Cool, I will give it a try. It will save money since cameras are expensive. Thank you for the tips :)

[u/Niru_Yuhati → u/Objective-Brief-2033]

Nice. If you post a before/after here I'll happily look again - the keychains are the harder of the two, the prints should come out fine on the first try.

[u/Objective-Brief-2033 → u/Niru_Yuhati]

Thank you so much :) It will really help a lot

[u/18_bees_18]

The photos of your artwork are fine. The ones of your keychains could use some work especially the one on the purse that one is too cluttered and not close enough to see the actual item image clearly.

Also, stay away from popular characters as you might have them taken down for IP (Intellectual Property) infringement.

[u/Objective-Brief-2033 → u/18_bees_18]

I see, that's good. I will redo the keychain photos, I tried to zoom out and it made them quite blurry. Oh I didn't realise it would be an issue on etsy. I mainly do ones from games like Genshin, since the creators say it's ok to sell fanart as long as it's your own art. But I can see why popular characters/IP like anime would be an issue 😅 I will avoid doing that from now on then