Required Angle Sets by Category

Angle dimension definitions

An angle set is a fixed list of camera positions rather than a collection of attractive pictures. Six positions cover the whole catalogue on this desk: square-on front, square-on back, three-quarter at forty-five degrees, macro at ten centimetres, raking light at about fifteen degrees from the surface, and a scale frame with a card or ruler in shot. Each position answers a different question, and a set missing one leaves that question open. Naming positions by number also makes a request answerable, since a seller can tick six items off a list.

Square-on frames settle symmetry. They let a reader compare left against right and upper against lower on one optical axis, which is the only way a lean or a drift can be measured instead of sensed. A three-quarter frame adds depth and shows how a panel sits against its neighbour, but it compresses the far side of the item and cannot be used for symmetry at all. Using the wrong frame for the question is the most common reading error the desk sees, and it stays invisible in the conclusion because the conclusion still sounds specific.

Macro frames answer questions about material and construction. At ten centimetres with a handset camera, a frame roughly eight centimetres wide resolves individual stitches, pore structure and the thickness of edge paint. Raking frames answer questions about flatness, because a surface lit from a shallow angle throws a shadow along the exact line where a bond has lifted or a panel has warped. Neither frame needs a tripod, and both need the item held still against a plain background so the frame edge is not competing with a tabletop.

The scale frame is the one readers skip and the one that decides arguments. Include a bank card, a coin or a ruler laid against the part being judged, then photograph both together at the same distance. Without it, a tear reading fifteen millimetres in one frame and five in another cannot be resolved, and the exchange becomes a dispute about perception rather than about the item. A card is better than a coin, because its dimensions are standard across every country a parcel might travel through.

Category by category grid

Footwear needs all six positions, with the raking frame aimed along the outsole edge where bonding fails first. Add a heel-counter frame taken from directly behind at the shoe midline, since a counter that folds under thumb pressure usually shows a matching break in the silhouette from that view. Box and label frames belong in the same set whenever a code match forms part of the decision. That is seven frames in total, the largest set the desk asks for in any category, and it carries the highest return because shoe failures cluster in the two places the raking and rear frames cover.

Bags reduce to five positions in most cases. Front and back square, three-quarter with the strap hanging free, macro on the hardware where plating and engraving are read, and a raking frame along the corner where edge paint meets the panel. Interior lining needs its own macro frame, taken with the bag open and the light source outside the mouth so the lining is not shadowed. The strap should be photographed loaded rather than lying flat, because a load point that will pull shows only under tension.

Watches are the one category where macro work decides almost everything. The dial frame should be square with the camera centred on the crown, so index alignment can be measured against the printed track on both sides. A bracelet frame on a flat surface shows end-link gaps. Caseback and clasp each need a separate macro shot under light arriving across the engraving rather than down onto it. A dial photographed at an angle shows a centred index as off-centre, which is why the centring instruction belongs in the request rather than in the reading.

Jerseys, outerwear, accessories and electronics share a shorter list. Jerseys need a flat-laid square frame plus the chest measurement taken with a tape in shot, because tag size and measured chest diverge often enough to matter. Outerwear adds a baffle frame. Accessories add a print-registration frame. Electronics add a serial frame and a port frame at macro distance, since socket fit cannot be judged from any wider view. Four categories, four additions, and each one answers a question no other frame in the set can reach.

Reading each column

A column is read the same way in every category. Ask what the frame is meant to exclude, then check whether it excludes it. A square-on front frame excludes depth, so a reader who uses it to judge how a panel sits against its neighbour has gone outside the frame's scope and the conclusion is unsupported. Naming the exclusion is faster than naming the inclusion, and it produces a shorter list. Most reading errors are not misjudgements of what is visible; they are judgements about something the frame never recorded.

Three frames of the same position beat one frame of three positions. Repetition exposes reflections, sensor artefacts and motion blur, all of which resemble defects in a single capture. When a mark holds the same position and length across three captures taken within a minute, it is on the item. When it moves or disappears, the capture produced it. Asking for repeats is also the cheapest request available, since it costs the seller nothing beyond a few seconds of holding still.

Compare within a set before comparing across sets. Two photographs from one session share light, distance and white balance, so differences between them are differences in the item. Two photographs from different sessions share none of those, so a difference between them may be method. The desk treats cross-session comparison as a lead rather than as a finding. Where a cross-session difference is the only evidence available, it is filed with both dates attached so a later reader can see how far apart the frames were taken.

Note what a frame cannot answer as carefully as what it answers. A macro frame of a stitch line says nothing about whether the seam follows the intended curve. A distanced frame says nothing about thread count. Reading each column for its limits prevents the common failure in which one good photograph is used to settle four unrelated questions at once. The practical form of this is a limit written beside each finding: two frames read, three questions still open, and the finding carries only what those two frames support.

Browse the partner catalogue

Choosing angles for your item

Start from the failure mode that matters for the specific purchase. Where an item will be worn daily and the category has a known bonding weakness, order the raking frame first. Where the purchase is aimed at resale, order identity frames first: serial, stamp, box label. The rest of the set can follow in any order once the decisive frame has been read. Ordering the request is not a courtesy to the seller; it decides which questions get answered when only two of five frames come back.

Budget frames by cost rather than by count. Two sellers each asked for six frames will usually supply four careful ones and two hasty ones; the same sellers asked for three named frames will usually supply all three. Naming the three, in the order they will be read, produces better evidence than requesting a full set and sorting it afterwards. A short list also survives translation better, since a numbered request can be answered without a conversation about what a raking angle means.

Scale the request to the value at stake. Below about fifty dollars the desk asks for macro plus scale only, because the cost of a full set exceeds the value at risk. Above three hundred dollars the full six apply, together with a dated frame of the packaging, since identity questions become the expensive ones at that level. Between those two figures the choice is made per item, and the deciding factor is usually whether the purchase can be returned cheaply from the destination country.

Keep a standing request template per category and reuse it. Sellers who receive the same three-position list on a second order tend to supply the frames unprompted, so the second order's evidence arrives without a negotiation. The saved round trip is the real return on writing the template down once. The protocol page carries the desk's own rules for sequencing a set when all six frames do arrive together, including which frame ends the reading early and which one is never worth arguing about.