Sellers: What kind of camera do you use?

General
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Do you have some sort of professional camera to list your cards, or do you just use the one on your phone?

I’m basically asking as these are my 2 options: Upgrading phone or just buying a good quality digital camera. I had one, but I’ve lost it about a year ago and I have a cheap Chinese(Huawei) outdated phone that is a blurry mess when it comes to pictures.

I don’t like scanning, because it’s too high res and I can’t really quite show card surface and holo scratches and such. I also just tried scanning some graded cards and it picked up literally every single fingerprint or tiny pieces of dust,etc… which are not visible to the naked eye and were probably there since purchase as I only took them out of their sleeves once. Not ideal. I don’t want people thinking there’s some white dots or odd damage all over my cards.

Another question: Do you clean your cases when it’s time to sell and if so what’s the best method? Just a link would be really helpful. Cheers efour. :blush:

Your forum n00b.

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iPhone 7+ camera. It’s actually really solid.

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It sounds like upgrading your phone would be the most cost-effective solution plus phone cameras are really good these days.
I polish every card I get and then sleeve them after. Use a plastic polish and a microfiber cloth. Once polished and in a sleeve the cards will stay clean as long as you don’t leave them out for extended periods of time. If the sleeve gets scratched or dirty after time you can rip it off and use another one since they are so cheap.

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iPhone X

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Iphone 6 works fine for me. My issue is lighting. I’m a pretty low level seller (<$1000 / month) so I haven’t invested in anything yet, but I’ve been considering a light box. Sometimes finding good light to take pics is difficult.

Something like this you can get for less than $50:

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Great answer and info.

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I think I bought that exact light box and set up. The tripod is trash, and the lights are horrible. Also they get extremely hot within a few minutes.

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that’s why I didn’t list an amazon link so as to not appear to be an endorsement since I have no experience with them. I just pulled a stock picture for what I was imagining.

Have you used any that don’t suck? I’d really like to get something, pictures on my listings currently are pretty terrible.

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My setup for photos are just a simple dark background with good lightening and shot with my Galaxy Note 8.

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Not new but works well

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Lighting is the most important thing, you can have the best camera in the world but poor lighting will yield poor results.

I should know. I do it for a living :wink:

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I personally use this item (linked below) along with an iPhone 6s.

www.amazon.ca/Photography-Foldable-Portable-Studio-Lighting/dp/B075C8YZDM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1513829131&sr=8-4&keywords=light+box

It yields mixed results based on the cards appearances, however with a little brightness adjustments (easily made from a smartphone) you can get some great looking photos.

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My Galaxy S7

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iPhone camera works amazingly as long as you have proper lighting. A few friends have Samsung phones and their photos look terrible in comparison. If you plan to upgrade to an iPhone I’d say that’s more than enough but not sure what type of device you intended to buy. A digital camera might be substantially better than some of those other options. (shameless iphone plug)

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I don’t know much about other lights at all, but I’m considering on buying a few of the umbrella looking lights. I’m sure they have a name but I don’t feel like researching them right now.

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I still use a iphone 5 :blush: and I get asked if my pictures are made with scanned images all the time.

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I use my iPhone 7 Plus and I try to only take pictures in natural light.

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For all my photo’s I use either my Motorola Play X 2015 or a Nikon Coolpix. 99% of the time I take out my phone.

With the camera in any phone it’s all about lighting. You can eliminate many blurry results by just having the card well lid so it’s able to focus and go into a low ISO (100-400) mode. Blurry photo’s are caused by the phone trying to auto focus etc. with bad lighting and your natural body vibrations.

Also, put the card on a flat service so it’s not your body vibration on both the card and phone you’re holding =)

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Thanks a lot guys. @genosha You don’t understand… My phone is probably as old as that camera @garyis2000 posted. :grin:

All joking aside, that’s what I was thinking too. I’ve had no reason to upgrade the phone as I’m more of a caller, I’m not texting or on social media/internet all day with it. I pay something like $15/month and my provider keeps bugging me to get a new one for $0(with a $60+/monthly package). I’ll probably look for a cheap unlocked phone during boxing day.

@zap2 or any of you guys. What kind of plastic polish do you recommend for PSA cases?

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I do understand. My Motorola’s camera has been reviewed as ‘not the best’ and ‘terrible with bad lighting’ yet with proper lighting it produces good photo’s. When it was released my phone was just 299€ so far from being high end. Really; try it out with some good lighting if that really doesn’t work I suggest buying a Coolpix, Lumix or Powershot camera. I use my dad’s Coolpix or my sisters Lumix quiet often for taking photo’s of non-card items (like video games, that need extra zooming) and for those 100€ camera’s they do a great job.

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