Is That A Stock Photo?

I have a couple more amps up for sale on Reverb. And, as it happens every time I post photos on Reverb, I get messaged by someone asking me if these are the “real” photos of the amp or if are they stock photos.

Reverb won’t upload stock images if the listing is for a used item. They check the EXIF data of the images. Amongst other things, the EXIF data of an image includes information that can determine whether a photo is stock or not.

What do I do to take a great product photo?

Simple.

A sheet of white paper.

The paper was taped to a wall and rolled out. The amp was placed on the sheet of paper. I used my Olympus EM1 camera mounted on a tripod. I shot the image at 1/60th of a second, f2.8 with a 50mm equivalent lens (25mm f1.8) and ISO 1600. I did not use any studio lighting for the shot. I used the existing halogen lighting that was in the room.

Brought the image into Lightroom. A little bit of colour correction. Boosted the whites. Exported it out to Pixelmator where I brushed out the remaining shadows and then I cropped out the background clutter.

And?

This is a stock photo from the Mesa Boogie website.

And my front-facing shot again:

Maybe I take too good care of my gear? My Lone Star Special is over 12 years old and still looks like new. Perhaps that is why I get people asking me if the photos of the amp are real or not. I need to rough things up a bit. Rip out some tolex. Throw some dirt on the grill cloth. Smear the control panel with grease.

Rock ‘n roll!