Seller guide · Published November 2026
Photographing a reel for review
Most reels are reviewed from photographs and never seen. Eight frames, taken in the same order every time, answer the questions a buyer would otherwise have to ask on the phone.
Why the order matters
The set is built to answer the review in the sequence it happens. Context first, because a reader needs to know what they are looking at and how big it is. Identity next, because construction decides everything downstream. Condition after that, and the cut end last, when the reader knows what the cable is supposed to be.
Taken in that order, one reel takes about four minutes with a phone. Taken in no order, the same eight photographs arrive as a scatter and half of them are unusable because the tag is in shade or the end is soft.
The eight frames
Hold the phone level, fill the frame with the subject, and put the reel number in shot wherever it does not cover information.
| # | Frame | What it has to prove |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The reel in its setting | Size, access, how it stands, what is beside it |
| 2 | The tag, square and flat | Maker, size, stranding, voltage class, footage |
| 3 | The stencil or second tag | Reel number, tare, mill marks, second identification |
| 4 | The whole flange face | Wrap intact, wind sound, outer end tied off |
| 5 | The barrel, square on | Layers, gaps, slack wraps, crushing, water marks |
| 6 | The cut end, with a rule | Metal, stranding, diameter, jacket and shield build |
| 7 | The jacket print, raking light | The legend repeats, so identity is not a guess |
| 8 | The row of reels | Quantity on the ground, spacing, how a trailer reaches them |
Frames two and six carry the review. If a reel has to be photographed in a hurry, take those two, then go back for the rest.
The three mistakes that cost the most
Glare on the tag. A laminated or foil tag under a direct flash returns a white rectangle. Shade it with your body, turn the flash off, and shoot from an angle rather than square on. A tag that cannot be read is the same as no tag, and the reader has no way to know which one they are looking at.
No scale reference at the cut end. A close-up of strands tells a reader nothing about size. Put a steel rule across the cut, or a tape measure with the end visible, and take the frame square on so the diameter can be read rather than estimated from perspective.
The cut end out of focus. Automatic focus locks on the nearest high-contrast edge, which is usually the flange, not the cable two feet away. Tap the screen on the end, wait for the lock, then shoot. Take two frames in case one is soft.
- A single photograph of the tag with no barrel. The tag says what was wound; the barrel says how much is left.
- Shooting into the sun, or with the reel in the shadow of a building and the sky in frame.
- Rain or condensation on the tag or the print. Wipe it, or wait.
- Wide-angle distortion at close range, which bows the straight lines of a tag until the figures are hard to read.
- Images sent as screenshots or re-compressed by a messaging app, which turns small print into grey mush.
- Forty near-identical frames of the same flange, and none of the end.
Light, scale and file handling
Open shade is the best light available in a yard: the north side of a building, or the shadow of a trailer. Direct sun blows out the highlights on a jacket and puts the tag in contrast it cannot survive. For the jacket print, light the surface from a low angle so the embossed or printed legend casts a small shadow and the letters separate.
Carry two items: a steel rule with fine divisions for the cut end, and a small card with the reel number written on it. The rule gives scale. The card removes any doubt about which reel a photograph belongs to when twenty of them arrive in one folder.
Send originals, at full resolution, named to match the manifest line — 048-03-tag, 048-06-end. Screenshots and messaging-app copies lose exactly the detail the photographs were taken for. If files are too large to send together, send them in batches rather than shrinking them.
What not to photograph
Do not photograph people who are not part of the material, and do not photograph anything that identifies a customer, a project or a security arrangement unless the releasing party has cleared it. A tag often carries a purchase order, a project code or a plant name that has nothing to do with the cable and should not travel with it.
Do not stage the reel. Cable that has been restacked for a photograph, re-wrapped, or wound tight by hand to hide a slack layer will be seen when it is unloaded, and the difference between what was shown and what arrived is the only thing anyone remembers.
Questions on this guide
How many photographs is too many?
There is no upper limit that matters, as long as each frame adds something. Eight per reel is the working set; add close-ups where condition is in question.
Can video replace the set?
It can supplement it, particularly for the barrel and the end. It cannot replace a square, in-focus frame of a tag, because frames from video are soft and the print cannot be read.
The reel is outdoors and it is raining. Wait?
Wait, or shoot under cover. Water on a tag ruins the only frame that identifies the reel, and it reads as damage even when there is none.
Send the reel list, not the weight ticket
Construction, footage and condition decide a review. Photographs of tags and cut ends answer the rest.