As any eBay, Etsy or Shopify seller will tell you, if you’re selling stuff online, photography is up there with the top most important parts of your sales listing. And yet, there’s a load of sellers who are great at making doo-dahs, gizmos and wotsits but who post photos that are, frankly, embarrassing. Orangemonkie fixes that with smart and easy-to-use lightboxes and turntables, making photography fool-proof for online sellers.
How important is it? Very. In fact, Shopify itself is including Orangemonkie’s Foldio in its Stockroom — the company’s collection of products “to help you start your business.”
Orangemonkie’s Foldio360 is a Bluetooth-driven turntable controlled via a smartphone app. You can either use the smartphone itself to take the photos, or a supported SLR camera. Given how good smartphones are these days and how tremendously easy to use Orangemonkie’s app is, it hardly seems worth it to bother with the fancier cameras.
The one exception I can think of is if you prefer to use studio flashes or a strobist-style photography setup. If you do have a hankering for a bit of SLR action, you’ve got to admire the company’s solution. Triggering the camera is done via the IR receiver used for the remote control on most cameras. The turntable itself has an IR transmitter and the app tells the turntable which signals to send. Ingenious, because it means the company can add additional camera compatibility with a software update.
Foldio360 is available for pre-order now on its own for $119, or for $194 including the additional softbox/lighting kit. It was originally a half-million-dollar Kickstarter campaign, and Daniel Kim, the company’s marketing manager, assures me that the Kickstarter backers are receiving their turntables in the post as we speak. For orders placed now, the company expects to ship later this month.
Foldio2, Orangemonkie’s softbox, is available to order now for $75.

