Need tips to take better pictures

[rocketscollectibles]

I bought a new smartphone a few months ago because i wanted a better camera but i'm struggling to get clean and stable photos over the time with it. Its a mid range phone and apparentely not the best camera (sadly realized it too late), so i'm wondering if it's my phone or the way i'm taking the pictures that is bad... I find my brightness is too different from one to another picture. And very often my focus is not the same too, i got blurry spots sometimes. Sometimes pictures looks awesome but most of the time not

For now i'm using a white cardboard sheet on a table close to a window most of the time, but the sun just need a cloud to change the whole look. It can change the way the pictures look from one day to another so it's not really good. Do you have a set up with lights? I got white light bulbs at home and i bought a tripod actually i'm gonna try to create a set up. But i just wonder what's your personal method to get the best pictures? Clean and stable over the time. Do you think having a top tier camera is a must?

I got a galaxy A31, i won't pay 1000$ for a phone but from what i understand, any mid range phone i compare with it have a better camera... So i'm thinking about changing it

[rocketscollectibles]

I'm surprised you seems to think my picture doesnt look good, the one of the face to me looks top

To me either neutral background or flat does not give good results, i experimented those for hundred hours this is what i used before. If you check my last post upper you can see how terrible was a 2D white background compared of the ones i just shared

Also the problem with black is that it's doing a contrast with the whitening around the edge of the cards, white looks more white because it's white on black, so cards looks in worse condition than they are. White background doing the opposite, card whitening seems hidden by the white background like a camouflage, cards looks in better condition than they are

Vertical 3D with a non neutral background is really whats gave me the best results so far, card looks natural and defects looks the most close to when the cards are in your hands. Maybe i'll change the seestar but having a unique thing in the picture i think is important to be noticed and not just looks like the majority in searchs. We're are so many cards seller

For the white balance i'm using a google pixel 3A and the camera has really no settings at all, the app is doing all the work, i don't touch anything there's really nothing. I really need to find a ''manual'' way to minimize the effect, with my environement. I remember my previous phone used to do the same thing even with ISO at 200. I have a bunch of listings still with black blackground too i checked and it does a similar effect. Problem seems to come either from the blue of the card or my lightning, it's maybe impossible to avoid the phone to do that too idk

[ricarmic]

The "problems" the neutral backgrounds are causing makes sense, and I understand the reasons you are avoiding black and white.

I also agree 100% that doing something to make your listings "pop" or stick out as compared to others is a very very good thing to do, anything that catches a buyers eye when they're scrolling through 100s of items is a definite advantage.

I try to do this myself with my "groups" of stamps, I have a couple "styles" I've used for many years, they seem to continue to work well so far at least.

Experimenting is the most important thing to do*, it will eventually pay off! 

PS I looked at the camera settings on my own phone and I have no idea how to adjust the AWB on it... makes me even more convinced to stick with my poor aged "regular" camera!

*The only caveat to that is you'll need to control the experiments, don't change too many things at once or you won't know what had the positive/negative effect/result, you'll also need to let the experiments run a while, things don't generally happen fast anymore...

[hlmacdon]

Godox make an excellent line (LED Mini Photography Studio) of LED light tents that are much better than the usual generic ones. For the typical small to medium size item they are ideal if you want consistent photos from image to image. If you sell flat items and sell enough to justify the cost, a copy stand is a lifesaver and a better way to go.  Kaiser makes some nice, if pricey ones.

Shoot AWB in RAW mode (if your camera/phone support) then use Adobe Lightroom to tweak exposure, color, etc. A simple neutral grey reference card simplifies that process. For the average user, getting a good constant light source and learning the basics of editing an image in Lightroom will make more of a difference than buying more gear.