Photographing a reel so a buyer can price it
Five frames per reel answer almost every question a buying desk has, and most lots arrive with twenty photographs that show nothing readable. Here is the set worth taking.
Reels on racking, photographed before restacking
A buyer quotes from what can be seen, and a photograph is the only way to show a reel sitting in a storehouse two hundred miles away. Most lots we review arrive as a phone gallery and a short list, and the offers that come back quickly are the ones where the pictures answered the obvious questions before anyone had to ask them. The rest arrive as forty frames of the same flange from the same distance.
Five frames cover most reels: the flange with the tag square on, the jacket print close enough to read, the conductor end, one wide frame of the storage, and something for scale. The rest of this guide is about taking those five properly, with a phone, in the light you actually have on the day you are standing there. None of it needs a studio.
At a glance
- Frames per reel
- Four, plus one for scale
- Light
- Daylight or open shade
- Must read
- Tag, print and cut end
- Avoid
- Filters and digital zoom
Start with the flange and the tag, square on
The flange carries the tag, and the tag is the closest thing a reel has to a document. Stand directly in front of it, fill the frame with the flange, and let the camera settle its focus on the print. Most tag photographs we receive are taken from a ladder at an angle, and they prove that a tag exists without showing anything written on it. Kneel if the reel is small and step back if the lens will not focus close.
Take one frame of the flange as a whole and a second closer frame of the tag if the print is small. Turn the reel if the tag faces the wall; the reel will be moved anyway. Where the tag is damaged or half torn away, photograph what remains and write down what is missing rather than filling the gap from memory. A buyer can work with a partial tag once they know which part of it has gone.
While the camera is out, take the flange edge and the bolts. Cracks, rot and missing bolts all show at the rim, and that rim is the first thing we look at when a list claims the reel has been inside since it arrived. Photograph both flanges if the reel has spent time in a yard, because water sits against one side of a standing reel far more than the other.
Get close enough that the jacket print reads
Cable jackets carry a repeating print: size, voltage class, insulation and jacket type, temperature rating and often the standard the cable was made to. That print is the second document on the reel. Photograph a section where the characters repeat cleanly, and get close enough that they are legible on a laptop screen without zooming. Two frames from different points on the wrap beat one perfect frame of a single line.
Wipe the jacket first. Dust, chalk and dried mud all settle into the lettering. On a black jacket, angle the camera slightly so the light rakes across the surface, which lifts the print out of the sheen. Keep the flash off a glossy jacket, since it turns the characters into a white band, and shoot across the cable rather than along it so that the text sits square in the frame.
If the print is worn, photograph the clearest section rather than the nearest one, and note in the list that it is partial. Half a line naming the size and the insulation type is worth more than a sharp frame of unmarked jacket. Where the print has gone entirely, the flange measurement and the conductor end are the two things left that can identify the reel. Photograph both of those even when the print looks hopeless.
Show the conductor end and the strand
The cut end tells a buyer what the cable is made of and whether water has reached the strands. Photograph it square on and close, with the strands visible: copper or aluminum color, strand count and shape, insulation wall, and any shielding, bedding or armor layers in the construction. One frame that shows the whole section saves a dozen questions about what the cable actually is. Get the camera close enough that the strand shapes are distinct rather than a blur.
If the end is capped or taped, photograph the cap as it stands. Do not cut a sealed end open for a photograph. Note that the end is sealed and let the buyer ask for it to be opened during the review, by which point the reel will be handled under proper conditions rather than in a hurry on a Friday afternoon. Cutting a seal to prove a point usually costs more than the point is worth.
Water in an end shows as dark strand, corrosion product, or a white bloom on aluminum. If you find it, photograph it and say so in the list. It is a small deduction taken early and a larger one taken late, and buyers are not sympathetic to a surprise found after loading. Photographing the fault is how a seller keeps control of the conversation about it. A wet end disclosed before the visit is a shorter reel; the same end found afterwards is a renegotiation.
One wide frame for storage, one for scale
A wide frame from the aisle shows how the reels have been kept and roughly how much is there. It also shows access, which matters as much as condition: whether a forklift can reach the reel, whether it sits behind a machine, whether the rack is loaded to the roof beam and the reel must come down before it can be moved. Take it from the doorway or the end of the row rather than from beside the reel.
Something for scale beats the phrase large reel. A boot beside the flange, a pallet corner, a tape measure held across the diameter, or a person standing next to the drum. Keep the same object in the same position through the set so the frames can be compared with one another, and say in the list what the object is, since a buyer who has never seen your boots cannot read them as a reference.
Phone practicalities, since most of this will be shot on one. Turn off filters and portrait blur, use the normal lens rather than a zoom, shoot in daylight or open shade, and steady the phone against a rack upright when the light is low. A horizontal frame reads better on the laptop where the buyer is sitting. Send the originals rather than screenshots, which lose exactly the detail the exercise is about.
- Four frames per reel, five with a scale reference
- Tag square on, then close enough to read
- Jacket print legible at full size on a screen
- Cut end in focus, no flash on a black jacket
- One wide frame of the storage area
Questions about photographs
How many photographs do you need for each reel?
Four will usually do it: the flange with the tag, a close frame of the jacket print, the cut end, and one wide frame showing the reel in place. Add a fifth with something for scale if the reel is large. For a run of identical reels, photograph one properly and then a wide frame of the group with the count stated in the list.
Why is a photograph of the tag better than a typed description?
Because the tag shows the whole record at once, including footage, size, construction and any mill markings, and it shows whether the tag is original, faded, overwritten or absent. A typed description is only a claim about the tag. Buyers price claims differently from evidence, and the difference appears in the offer rather than in the conversation that follows it.
Do phone photographs work, or do you need a proper camera?
A recent phone is fine, and most of what we receive comes from one. The limits are light and distance rather than resolution. Shoot in daylight, stand close enough to fill the frame, avoid digital zoom, and turn off filters and portrait mode. If the tag is small, take two frames and let the camera focus properly on each of them.
What if the reel tag has gone missing?
Photograph the jacket print instead, in two places and at close range, so that size and construction can be read from the cable itself. Measure the flange diameter and photograph a tape across it. Write down what is known and what is not. A reel with no tag but a good print is still identifiable; one with neither has become recovery material.
Other seller guides
- Reading a reel tagWhat the markings on a flange actually tell a buyer
- Footage by weightTurning a weighed reel into a defensible length
- Copper and aluminumTwo conductor metals, and how to tell them apart
- ACSR and AAACSteel-cored and all-alloy overhead conductor
- High voltage safetyWhat not to touch before the clearance is issued
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Ready to send the reel list?
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Reels ready for photographs?
Send four frames per reel and one wide frame of the storage area, and we will read the lot from those.
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