Digital Camera For Ebay Usage

What is a good camera to use for just taking a few pics monthly for my ebay listings? Needs to be under $150, possibly under $100.

Thanks!!!

If your listings are stamps etc a scanner would be better than a camera. Much better. You can get a reconditioned Epson printer scanner combo probably for that money. To take good photos for ebay You need more than the camera, you need a tripod, stage, lighting, either softboxes or something improvised like white shower curtain stretched over a frame. You can improvise all that actually. Tripods are easy to find at thrift stores for instance. If you're set on a camera I'd look for one of the earlier Sony alpha Nex 3s used with a guarantee. That will run about 50-75 bucks. without a lens. You can get adapters to use just about any lens on them. Have an old SLR film camera? grab the lens off that.

Scanners provide larger and clearer detail, which is what buys want.

Purchase a scanner and you won't look back.
Use mine every day.

ebay? some in Oz for example under $100 US

Try and get a "Flatbed Scanner" in preference
I am not experienced in other types.
My choice would be Epson

The most basic would be (I think) the V39
road test here

If it's only a few pictures monthly today's newest smartphones take some great pictures. My wife sells a few things on ebay and the pictures from our phones are easily as good, sometimes better, then the digital cameras we have. Sometimes we need to retake because the pictures are so clear they show every speck of dust. For stamps scans are better.

I use a scanner. A camera tends to have an off-axis point-of-view which makes a flat, rectangular thing (ie: stamp) look non-rectangular and sometimes non-flat. I use a Lighthouse brand stamp 'card' - black background with a clear 'flap' hinged to the background at the bottom -- and the stamp goes in there, is held flat by it, and I put that in the scanner and then scan it.

The big advantage with a scanner is that it shows the stamp as flat and straight-on. You DON'T want a scanner that 'feeds' paper to be scanned, but a flatbed type of scanner. You don't want to feed your stamps to a machine!

If you were trying to sell coins, or beanie-babies, or anything else that isn't paper-thin and flat, I'd say get a camera. For stamps? A scanner is the way to go. A good-enough one can be had for under $100. Amazon. ebay. Office Depot.

Although it's nice to have a scanner with 1,200 and/or 600 dpi, a 300 dpi scanner takes great scans of stamps. There must be a few inexpensive models out there.

A flatbed scanner is the most perfect. 400dpi is more than enough to get good clear scans. Even a full page scan at 400dpi is already a little too big to post on ebay so full pages only need 300dpi.
I use a Canon Lide 110 paid less than $60. Installation is very easy. download the driver supplied with the scanner or from the internet.
After downloading the driver, search in the internet for the free program MP Navigator + your scanner name and type number and download that program. MP navigator is a very easy management program to manage your scanner and transfer your scans

I use this scanner, too. I would prefer greater DPI, but for ebay, it is just fine. I had an old (20 year old) scanner that finally gave up the ghost - it was expensive and I could get 1200 dpi out of it. I love to scan my early USA, and do my plating by zooming in on the details. That's where you need a higher dpi scanner. But not for ebay.

I also believe the LIDE 110 flatbed scanner is ideal for philatelic purposes. It is powered by USB (no power cord) which makes it very portable. You can get great deals on this model by shopping around. I have been using it for years...

John

Having used both photo and scanning methods I would highly recommend a flat bed scanner. Currently, I use the LIDE 300 from Canon and scan at 600 dpi. Original cost was sub $100. The unit is small enough to fit into a briefcase so you can scan pretty much anywhere. Formerly I used a digital camera and a tripod with a black board background for contrast. I tried to get a functioning light box setup but was not successful and usually just relied on good light with the macro camera lens setting. Very limiting as to the time available and location to do photos. No such constraint with a flat bed scanner powered by USB.

You will want some sort of image editing capability(same with a camera) as doing multiple stamps on a stock sheet at one time is a time saver. Picasa was very handy for this but it was phased out by Google. I researched a bunch of image editing options and discovered that most did way too much so I ended up writing some small "programs"(Mac Finder functions) to do the basics... duplicate, crop, rotate, straighten(by degree as I can never get the stamps straight on the stocksheet), downsize and watermark. Another scanner advantage is that the color does not end up being all over the place(trying to get a good image in natural light was a real bear). The scanner color rendering may not be perfect but it is alot closer than what I could get with my camera setup.

Bob

I think I prefer using a camera for what I do; I can get a used Canon for under $100 on ebay and may go that way. For stamps, pages etc I can still use scans.

Thanks to all!!