Where are the medium and large images in Amazon's product advertising API?

Question

The API is returning a LargeImage node with an image that is 110px by 110px for this product: http://www.amazon.com/Syma-X5C-Exlorers-2-4G-Quadcopter/dp/B00OCFMVHE Where are the larger sizes of the image?

For real, What am I supposed to do? I can't use 110px by 110px images on a website, those are not even thumbnail size

This is the XML response:

<ImageSets>
    <ImageSet Category="primary">
        <SwatchImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL._SL30_.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">30</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">30</Width>
        </SwatchImage>
        <SmallImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL._SL75_.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">75</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">75</Width>
        </SmallImage>
        <ThumbnailImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL._SL75_.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">75</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">75</Width>
        </ThumbnailImage>
        <TinyImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL._SL110_.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">110</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">110</Width>
        </TinyImage>
        <MediumImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL._SL160_.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">110</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">110</Width>
        </MediumImage>
        <LargeImage>
            <URL>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11JVpyImvdL.jpg</URL>
            <Height Units="pixels">110</Height>
            <Width Units="pixels">110</Width>
        </LargeImage>
    </ImageSet>
</ImageSets>

This image I found on the item's page: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E4oeAVKtL.SX522.jpg It's much bigger! What can I do to get a similar image from the API?

Answer 1

The reason for having the different image sizes is for page optimization. Amazon could easily have a single image that is 500px wide and 500px high and then you simply limit the size of the image tag to suit your layout but that is still a large image file to download to the browser when it isn't needed. Best practice with images for websites is to make the source image on your server the size you intend to display on the website which makes sure only the smallest bandwidth required to download the image is actually used.

As for the sizes Amazon has chosen to show through the API even the smallest size (30px) is suitable for a thumbnail in something like a table or data grid. It is up to you as the designer to decide which image size suites your site the best.