Photo Products To Help You Sell on eBay

If I thought I could make a mint clearing out my garage and putting those goods up for sale on the Web, I'd do it.

A host of gear here at PMA aims to make that easier by helping to deliver professional-looking shots of my junk, er, valuable antiques.

For one, Casio is trying to entice the eBay jet set with its "For eBay" scene mode, which is included on the EX-Z600, EX-Z60, and EX-Z850 cameras (see more details on these cameras here). Truth be told, this scene mode won't raise the bids on an old pair of socks (unless someone famous wore them), but it might make it easier to see the Virgin Mary on your grilled cheese sandwich.

It appears that the setting does nothing more than choose macro mode and an optimum size for eBay. A company representative said that size was 1600 by 1200 pixels, but that seemed awfully large to us. We hope the cameras actually resize closer to what eBay suggests on its site: 330 by 440 pixels.

No matter what your camera is doing, making your collectibles look good requires good lighting. We saw quite a few portable photo studios on the convention show floor. That is, a small lighting tent made of gauzy framed fabric that diffuses light coming through it, and a couple lights.

Photo Studio in a Box?Supersized from American Recorder Technologies is a larger version of its original Photo Studio in a Box.

The new box measures 30 by 30 by 30 inches, so it's overkill if you're selling jewelry, but a good fit for larger items. This new product costs $299 and includes the lighting tent, two 250-watt quartz halogen lights on stands, and a tripod.

However, when I saw it, the camera tripod felt rickety. I wouldn't trust a heavy camera on it not to shake when I pressed the shutter.

The better bet may be the smaller box, which goes for about $99, comes with two 50-watt tungsten halogen bulbs, and collapses to fit in a thin case about the size of a briefcase. The Supersized version will be available in April.