Camera for selling on e-bay?

[crazymomof4]

Like most people on this forum, I'm looking for ways to save $$ for our Disney trip. I've been encouraged by all of the e-bay success stories (thanks CAnn!) on these boards so I'm going to "make the jump" and start selling. We have a digital camera that came as a "freebie" from AOL. It works but my husband says it's not good enough. He is looking at cameras that are priced in the $400. range! I would have to do a lot of selling to recoup that!! Since we are ONLY buying this camera to sell on e-bay, can anyone make some suggestions. What kind of camera is adequate w/o breaking the bank? Where did you get yours and what did you spend? I want this selling to be fun and don't want to go into w/ the pressure of having to make back what I've invested.
Thanks in advance for any input!!

 

[DMRick]

Don't rule out that camera just yet. You only need 72 DPI for selling on eBay...and that might fit the bill for now. Once you use it for awhile, you may have more of an idea of what you are looking for in a camera.

As for looking at a new camera..if you really only want if for eBay..a 1 megapixel will do fine. If you want a camera for all around use (pic's of kids etc), then you want to go higher.I use an Olympus 2020, which is 2 megapixel, and I love it.

Here is a great place to start out looking:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

then do a search once you find the camera you are interested in, on Mysimon.com and click on price, so you can find the cheapest place to buy it. Buy.com and Amazon are favorites of mine, because of their easy take back policy, and often free shipping, and since they aren't located in my state, no sales tax.

Doris

 

[crazymomof4]

Don't rule out that camera just yet.

Thanks, Doris, thats really what I wanted to hear. I think it's worth a try on the first item we list. I'm SOOOOOOOOOO cheap!


Im going to go see if I can find the DPI of that camera.

 

[C.Ann]

Mine is a Jam Cam - and I think it was actually made for kids!! Works fine because I'm not listing antiques or anything that you would have to be able to detect cracks in or things of that nature..

No snese investing a lot of money until you find out if you LIKE eBay - and if you're going to actually make any money at it..

Come on over to the other thread when you get a chance.. Loads of great advice and LOTS of enthusiasm!!

 

[DianeV]

We have a Sony Cybershot and I have had great experiences with it. I have also heard good about the Sony digital cameras. When we bought this it was on sale for $499 but I think they have gone down.

Ours uses a memory card versus some other kinds

 

[ceecee]

I started out with the Jam Cam too and did fine with it. Easy to use and super cheap! I think we paid $20.00 for it.

 

[C.Ann]

Originally posted by ceecee
I started out with the Jam Cam too and did fine with it. Easy to use and super cheap! I think we paid $20.00 for it.

---------------------

ceecee!! Get over to the classroom right now!! You have not handed in your assignment!!

Man - this being a "teacher" stuff is HARD!!!!! LOL

 

[MCazer]

I bought a FUJI MX-1200. I bought it for over $200, but they have them on ebau right now.

http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...=&ebaytag1code=0&st=&SortProperty=MetaEndSort

Not sure if that link works, if it doesn't just go to

www.ebay.com and put FUJI MX-1200 in the search box. They are less than $100 and they are a great camera!

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

I recently (well 4 months ago) bought a new camera at Walmart- $169 -I didn't buy it for ebay since I already had a camera that worked just fine. But I bought it because we were going on vacation and my other camera was a couple of years old and only took 20-25 pictures and then had to be loaded up on the computer to take more. I wanted to be able to take a LOT of pictures on our vacation- this one is a Samsung Digimax 200 and takes great pictures I think. Atleast my auction pictures turn out fine. the only problem I find with it is that I have to downsize the pictures and when it's PEOPLE (ie: like vacation pictures) it tends to make them look blurry or fuzzy just a little. Which is annoying so I have to leave the pictures big (600x800) when it's pictures of people. But for some reason with clothes and other items it doesn't warp the picture when I size it down for the auctions and such? Weird.

Anyway, it's better also because I bought more cards so now I can take like 1000 pictures atleast without having to load it up on the computer AND it doesn't run the batteries down to load them on the computer since I just take the little card out and put it in a slot that is connected to my computer. With my other camera I had to hook the camera to the computer and it would seriously drain the batteries when loading. I had to buy rechargable batteries because otherwise it was so expensive to go through so many batteries for every 20-25 pictures I took/loaded on my computer! Also it downloads immediately- the other Kodak one took forever to load up.

Unless your pictures come out horrible fuzzy, blurry or reddish (or other color) tinted- I bet it will work perfectly fine for ebay pictures.

 

[erinch]

there is software you can get quite inexpensively which will help you resize digital pictures and not lose the sharpness.
I like Ulead's photoimpact tremendously (and run the ebay pictures thru it too to reduce pixel size). If interested, pm me.

 

[shovelhd]

It's not so much the DPI (which is for printing) that is important but the pixel resolution. 640x480 is enough for the basics on ebay. Even at 640x480 you will have to crop and resize to accommodate the dialup users who will not wait for a 20 second picture download. The average Internet wait time is 8 seconds and dropping as broadband takes hold.

The largest dimension should be 4" tops. I use PaintShop Pro 7.1 and have been very happy with PSP for many years. YMMV. You should know that if you have a desire to take macro photos or detailed photographs of large items that the greater the resolution, the better the picture after cropping. But for the basic stuff like clothes, toys, etc. your basic 640x480 camera will do just fine. Clean the lens and experiment with lighting for the best results.

Good luck!!!

 

[Ratpack]

I bet your camera would be fine for just putting pictures on Ebay. Your husband sounds like me and is using this as a time to get a good digital camera.

 

[DMRick]

If you put your pics up through eBay or Auciton Watch, they will bring them back down small enough for people to open. However, if you put them up too big, it wil take you forever to upload them, and eBay and AW does made size suggestions to help you upload. The ones I scan (which happen to be what I opened to check the size of) are scanned at 72 dpi (which is not meant to be printed, but perfect for web, and in fact 72 DPI is the button on my scanner for web pics) and they are 370 X 387, once you click them open from the thumbnail. The picture of my grandson in my sig is scanned at 250 X 187 adn 72 DPI, and the postcard of Mickey and the Fireman is scanned at 152 X 200 and 72 DPI. When I take pics on my camera, I resize them to that amount of pixels, using Paint Shop Pro.

As was said earlier...you should do fine with that camera to start.

 

[erinch]

I like Paintshop Pro too, as well as Photoshop Elements for picture editing.

The nice thing about Ulead's Photoimpact is that in 4 clicks you can
1) crop the picture
2) resize it
3) "adjust" it for brightness, contrast and focus
then
4) "web optimizer" strips out the extra pixels by compressing it and saves it. there's a before and after window which lets you see how compression is going to affect your picture.
I've found it to be the quickest of the 3 listed. You can set it up to batch process your photos.
But the basic point is that a few moments with each picture can vastly improve how quickly it loads and how it looks.

 

[crazymomof4]

Thanks for all the help! I'm copying all the info. and saving for reference for when we post our first item for sale.

originally post by ratpack:

I bet your camera would be fine for just putting pictures on Ebay. Your husband sounds like me and is using this as a time to get a good digital camera.

You are SOOO right! BTW my brother lives in Waxhaw, NC. He owns a custom woodworking shop (furniture, kitchens) and his work is unbelievable! PM me if you are ever interested.

 

[Ratpack]

Thanks,
I may just take you up on that one day.

 

[shovelhd]

DMRick,

I wasn't clear regarding DPI. Any decent digital image editing package will let you adjust the image by DPI, pixel resolution, size, compression, or a combination of these things. Printers are dumb and really only understand DPI. The only exception I can think of are the direct media printers such as the HP Photosmart which let you print from the digital media card w/o your computer and its associated printer driver.

 

[jjct1]

Visit FatWallet.com. I found a deal on Amazon for a Nikon Coolpix 2000 for $199 - $50 rebate=$149 and a Smart Media card for $34. We can take up to 525 picture without deleting any.

Latest camera deal from FatWallet:

Olympus D520 $135+Tax in officedepot.com online and in store, Original price is $210. $50 price drops this week. $160-$25off100 coupon=$135+tax. 3X optic zoom, 2 MP. Nice camera for the price. $25 off coupon. Coupon code 51691973

Have fun, and don't everyone get hooked on FatWallet. It is easy to burn through that Disney money after you see these deals.

-jjct

 

[DMRick]

That's a great price for that Olympus. I got that camera for a couple of my kids for Christmas. Thanks for sharing that.