MichaelK81: It's really odd to see this on dpreview which is a website centered on reviews of photographic equipment.
What they are fishing for is ad impressions and clicks, and they struck gold on this one. Expect more of this distraction now that this one was such a huge success.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 29, 2012 at 03:34:48 UTC
Canomixian: I've shot weddings professionally, but opted not to as a career. Nikki's response registered as mere high-pricing rationalization, and I do feel that professional wedding photographers have a great deal of room to lower their general pricing to a level that isn't so easily labeled as abusive.
True, the CL bride ignores the skill required to produce truly good results. But many wedding photographers charge those high rates for cookie-cutter shots that are merely framed correctly, exposed and lit properly, and delivered in a slick package.
She also mis-described the time involved. Adding 4-8 hours (pre-wedding) to Nikki's 28-35 hour estimate, $3000 for a full work-week is less egregious, though still quite expensive.
Finally, Nikki's listed expenses dwindle when averaged across the many jobs that actually pay for them. Her $200 second-photographer day-rate speaks volumes for how much she values the talent portion of the charge, and seriously undermines her argument.
And back to your point about a full work week, that is exactly what it is. On the first page of this thread I made the point that a wedding generates about five days of work. So take expenses out of $600/day and you are left with somewhere between $180 to $300 per day--a reasonable middle class salary, not one that is excessive or will make you rich. It is true that price is set more by demand than by cost inputs, so what you see happening is overall quality declining in the market due to downward price pressure laid on by the recession. If people are not willing to pay what good photography costs, then overall quality in the market will decline to inexperienced newbies with Rebels and awful kit zooms who will burn out and drop from the market when they see how pointless it is to be lowest bidder, only to be replaced by the next. So sell higher or don't sell at all. I know one guy who makes a living as low bidder, and his work is awful and he offshores his editing. Not good.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 29, 2012 at 03:22:53 UTC
Canomixian: I've shot weddings professionally, but opted not to as a career. Nikki's response registered as mere high-pricing rationalization, and I do feel that professional wedding photographers have a great deal of room to lower their general pricing to a level that isn't so easily labeled as abusive.
True, the CL bride ignores the skill required to produce truly good results. But many wedding photographers charge those high rates for cookie-cutter shots that are merely framed correctly, exposed and lit properly, and delivered in a slick package.
She also mis-described the time involved. Adding 4-8 hours (pre-wedding) to Nikki's 28-35 hour estimate, $3000 for a full work-week is less egregious, though still quite expensive.
Finally, Nikki's listed expenses dwindle when averaged across the many jobs that actually pay for them. Her $200 second-photographer day-rate speaks volumes for how much she values the talent portion of the charge, and seriously undermines her argument.
In regards to $200 for the second photographer: The entire "shooting talent" (I'm counting "editing talent" as separate, because it is done later and possibly by a different person) portion of a wedding, when you break down all the business inputs, is about 20 percent. The second shooter typically only takes supplemental shots and is not operating on the same level as the primary talent, even if equally skilled (which they usually aren't), because there are clear primary/secondary duties at most key moments. Overall the second photographer does less, takes the less important shots, (typically) brings less experience, and (typically) has little and/or inferior equipment, often borrowing from the primary photographer. When you take all that into account, $200 to the second is very fair in many instances. Also, seconds almost never edit, as the primary will do all their editing for them.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 29, 2012 at 03:17:23 UTC
camerosity: ok, go ahead and hire a cheap photographer and see how you like the photos of your once-in-a-lifetime event, probably the happiest day of your life. when you get the pictures back, with poor lighting, the backs of heads, people chewing their food, and don't forget the photos you won't see, cake cutting, the toast, first dance, etc, because you wanted to save money and your cheap photographer was in the kitchen with the servers drinking straight from the champagne bottles. $3000.00 gets you 5-7 hours of High Quality Photography from a person or people with a book that is full of top quality photos they took at other weddings, and another book full of letters from their satisfied customers, many who hired them again for their second weddings. also, $3000.00 weddings get you lights and reflectors, to enhance the quality of portraits. Cheap wedding photographers show up with a flash on their "digital SLR" (usually a Canon Rebel).
Follow my signature link to an extensive wedding/event portfolio. And frankly I don't update it often enough, but it's dozens more actual event photography examples than you have posted. I don't see any website in your signature or profile.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 29, 2012 at 02:56:19 UTC
camerosity: ok, go ahead and hire a cheap photographer and see how you like the photos of your once-in-a-lifetime event, probably the happiest day of your life. when you get the pictures back, with poor lighting, the backs of heads, people chewing their food, and don't forget the photos you won't see, cake cutting, the toast, first dance, etc, because you wanted to save money and your cheap photographer was in the kitchen with the servers drinking straight from the champagne bottles. $3000.00 gets you 5-7 hours of High Quality Photography from a person or people with a book that is full of top quality photos they took at other weddings, and another book full of letters from their satisfied customers, many who hired them again for their second weddings. also, $3000.00 weddings get you lights and reflectors, to enhance the quality of portraits. Cheap wedding photographers show up with a flash on their "digital SLR" (usually a Canon Rebel).
Forpetessake, you have pictures of a lamppost, a bird, and some flowers in your gallery. You have nearly zero people or event photography on display. Where is the portfolio showing that you have any clue what you are talking about? It is true that you could teach a cat how to take a picture of a stationary vase of flowers, which is something you know about. I think you need some more perspective. Doing weddings/events/news is about both getting all the shots and avoiding all the mistakes and doing it aesthetically all while under pressure. Yes, there are burnouts who operate poorly as you describe, but there are just as many who bust their a$$es every time making an honest effort with a good outcome. You're basically a flame troll at this point. In my experience, your enthusiasts have great ideas but screw up in execution way too often, which results in a low keeper rate, which means their work can't stand alone -- they make great assistant photographers.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 28, 2012 at 08:04:53 UTC
mgurantz2: Like so many people said it here, wedding photography is probably the purest form of free competition. The only barrier to entry is the cost of (1) photo equipment (camera, lenses, lights, computers, software, etc.), which can also be rented. (2) value of time (wedding time, processing time,presentation to clients). (3) in case you have to use it - the time of your assistants. Craigs list is a great place to find a photographer, and you can't find someone for less than $3,000 that will do it, it means do it yourself or shut up.
To your number 2 add sales, marketing, social media, webmastering, business administration, dealing with sales taxes and permits (where required), etc.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 at 19:24:28 UTC
abi170845: I don't understand it, a wedding is a very very special occasion, and newly weds want a bargain? It's like everybody want to be photographed for cheap or free. It is a business just like any other.
Find a cheap one then, even a high school student with a DSLR can photograph you. You get what you pay for.
You are correct that price and photographer competence don't correlate. There are many terrible photographers who excel at collecting high fees and vice versa. However, what you neglect to mention is that if you are willing to pay only $500 then you must also be willing to settle for an amateur with crappy equipment, because that's about all that $500 can sustain. Unless of course you luck into a rich hobbyist or a salaried photographer who just picks up cheap weddings on weekends. But for the most part the $500 photographers are newbies with little experience who make giant mistakes and have crappy equipment. There will always be exceptions, but good luck finding them.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 at 05:51:12 UTC
sdyue: ... the photographer did list fixed equipment totaling $13,800... it's not like he has to buy a new set for each wedding, nor for each season. 20 weddings will not wear out 2 dSLRs plus lenses in a single working season...
besides, as a BUSINESS, why can't one write-off expenses against income taxes??? it is the USA, don't they have that rule for income tax deductions?
otherwise... at $7000 net for living expenses... that's NOT much left for himself for one years profit.
Speaking as a photog, you typically turn over (depreciate) your DSLR bodies every 2 to 3 years to stay current, and you typically own 3 to 4 bodies to have 2 in service and at least one spare. Owning only 2 is risky. If you shoot the $5k range pro bodies, you can depreciate two of them for $140 to $200 per month, depending on how good you are at reselling them when you're done with them.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 at 05:44:43 UTC
For those of you who don't understand the response, what it comes down to is this: A typical wedding generates five days of actual work for the photographer. If you don't believe that, try starting a wedding business, and you'll know it's true. $600/day, and 50 to 70 percent of that (depending on how many weddings per year you shoot) will end up just paying expenses. That leaves you with somewhere between $180 to $300 per day in post expense salary, out of which you have to pay both regular income taxes and the self employment tax. The respondents tax figure was actually inflated, because she calculated her taxes prior to her expenses. There is no way she would end up actually paying $15k in tax after all expenses taken out. But in any case it does not leave you with a "crazy" profit. It leaves you with a very middle class profit. And like the respondent said, you take on other types of jobs to balance out. The solution for the bride is to hire an amateur if she doesn't want a pro.
Direct link |
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 at 05:42:29 UTC
as 298th comment
.... Continued from last post: So when you say that your technicians can easily detect a "bad lens" but not distinguish among the acceptable "variations" in your chart, I think you are conveniently omitting cases in which the lens may be within the acceptable variation at the test point within the frame (or even on average) and yet be yielding images which are to some degree easily detectable as of asymmetrical quality to the naked eye. I bring up this omission because it is the primary mode of failure that I believe reasonable people can easily spot without going so far as Imatest or even charts.
Direct link |
Posted on Nov 27, 2011 at 17:18:06 UTC
as 41st comment
| 1 reply
Dear Roger - Thanks for this new piece in your series. I enjoyed the new information contained here. However, I have one bit of constructive criticism. You go briefly into the aspect of visible decentering (i.e. you mention the phenomenon of some lenses being off target), but you did not go into the obvious effect this has on focus. I am concerned that you downplay this a bit in that this is one of the focus effects that can make a huge visible difference to a working photographer, and it happens more often than any of us would like in lenses like the Nikon 70-200 VR2. The issue is that when an element is notably off center you will get extremely sharp focus in one part of the intended focal zone and dull focus in another part of intended focal zone. Another way of putting this is that the focus zone is skewed rather than perpendicular. Often this reproduces with the lens on multiple camera bodies, i.e. is a true lens issue and can't simply be blamed on lens/body "combination." Cont...
Direct link |
Posted on Nov 27, 2011 at 17:14:14 UTC
as 42nd comment
Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA, United States
MichaelK81: It's really odd to see this on dpreview which is a website centered on reviews of photographic equipment.
What they are fishing for is ad impressions and clicks, and they struck gold on this one. Expect more of this distraction now that this one was such a huge success.
Canomixian: I've shot weddings professionally, but opted not to as a career. Nikki's response registered as mere high-pricing rationalization, and I do feel that professional wedding photographers have a great deal of room to lower their general pricing to a level that isn't so easily labeled as abusive.
True, the CL bride ignores the skill required to produce truly good results. But many wedding photographers charge those high rates for cookie-cutter shots that are merely framed correctly, exposed and lit properly, and delivered in a slick package.
She also mis-described the time involved. Adding 4-8 hours (pre-wedding) to Nikki's 28-35 hour estimate, $3000 for a full work-week is less egregious, though still quite expensive.
Finally, Nikki's listed expenses dwindle when averaged across the many jobs that actually pay for them. Her $200 second-photographer day-rate speaks volumes for how much she values the talent portion of the charge, and seriously undermines her argument.
And back to your point about a full work week, that is exactly what it is. On the first page of this thread I made the point that a wedding generates about five days of work. So take expenses out of $600/day and you are left with somewhere between $180 to $300 per day--a reasonable middle class salary, not one that is excessive or will make you rich. It is true that price is set more by demand than by cost inputs, so what you see happening is overall quality declining in the market due to downward price pressure laid on by the recession. If people are not willing to pay what good photography costs, then overall quality in the market will decline to inexperienced newbies with Rebels and awful kit zooms who will burn out and drop from the market when they see how pointless it is to be lowest bidder, only to be replaced by the next. So sell higher or don't sell at all. I know one guy who makes a living as low bidder, and his work is awful and he offshores his editing. Not good.
Canomixian: I've shot weddings professionally, but opted not to as a career. Nikki's response registered as mere high-pricing rationalization, and I do feel that professional wedding photographers have a great deal of room to lower their general pricing to a level that isn't so easily labeled as abusive.
True, the CL bride ignores the skill required to produce truly good results. But many wedding photographers charge those high rates for cookie-cutter shots that are merely framed correctly, exposed and lit properly, and delivered in a slick package.
She also mis-described the time involved. Adding 4-8 hours (pre-wedding) to Nikki's 28-35 hour estimate, $3000 for a full work-week is less egregious, though still quite expensive.
Finally, Nikki's listed expenses dwindle when averaged across the many jobs that actually pay for them. Her $200 second-photographer day-rate speaks volumes for how much she values the talent portion of the charge, and seriously undermines her argument.
In regards to $200 for the second photographer: The entire "shooting talent" (I'm counting "editing talent" as separate, because it is done later and possibly by a different person) portion of a wedding, when you break down all the business inputs, is about 20 percent. The second shooter typically only takes supplemental shots and is not operating on the same level as the primary talent, even if equally skilled (which they usually aren't), because there are clear primary/secondary duties at most key moments. Overall the second photographer does less, takes the less important shots, (typically) brings less experience, and (typically) has little and/or inferior equipment, often borrowing from the primary photographer. When you take all that into account, $200 to the second is very fair in many instances. Also, seconds almost never edit, as the primary will do all their editing for them.
camerosity: ok, go ahead and hire a cheap photographer and see how you like the photos of your once-in-a-lifetime event, probably the happiest day of your life. when you get the pictures back, with poor lighting, the backs of heads, people chewing their food, and don't forget the photos you won't see, cake cutting, the toast, first dance, etc, because you wanted to save money and your cheap photographer was in the kitchen with the servers drinking straight from the champagne bottles. $3000.00 gets you 5-7 hours of High Quality Photography from a person or people with a book that is full of top quality photos they took at other weddings, and another book full of letters from their satisfied customers, many who hired them again for their second weddings. also, $3000.00 weddings get you lights and reflectors, to enhance the quality of portraits. Cheap wedding photographers show up with a flash on their "digital SLR" (usually a Canon Rebel).
Follow my signature link to an extensive wedding/event portfolio. And frankly I don't update it often enough, but it's dozens more actual event photography examples than you have posted. I don't see any website in your signature or profile.
camerosity: ok, go ahead and hire a cheap photographer and see how you like the photos of your once-in-a-lifetime event, probably the happiest day of your life. when you get the pictures back, with poor lighting, the backs of heads, people chewing their food, and don't forget the photos you won't see, cake cutting, the toast, first dance, etc, because you wanted to save money and your cheap photographer was in the kitchen with the servers drinking straight from the champagne bottles. $3000.00 gets you 5-7 hours of High Quality Photography from a person or people with a book that is full of top quality photos they took at other weddings, and another book full of letters from their satisfied customers, many who hired them again for their second weddings. also, $3000.00 weddings get you lights and reflectors, to enhance the quality of portraits. Cheap wedding photographers show up with a flash on their "digital SLR" (usually a Canon Rebel).
Forpetessake, you have pictures of a lamppost, a bird, and some flowers in your gallery. You have nearly zero people or event photography on display. Where is the portfolio showing that you have any clue what you are talking about? It is true that you could teach a cat how to take a picture of a stationary vase of flowers, which is something you know about. I think you need some more perspective. Doing weddings/events/news is about both getting all the shots and avoiding all the mistakes and doing it aesthetically all while under pressure. Yes, there are burnouts who operate poorly as you describe, but there are just as many who bust their a$$es every time making an honest effort with a good outcome. You're basically a flame troll at this point. In my experience, your enthusiasts have great ideas but screw up in execution way too often, which results in a low keeper rate, which means their work can't stand alone -- they make great assistant photographers.
mgurantz2: Like so many people said it here, wedding photography is probably the purest form of free competition. The only barrier to entry is the cost of (1) photo equipment (camera, lenses, lights, computers, software, etc.), which can also be rented. (2) value of time (wedding time, processing time,presentation to clients). (3) in case you have to use it - the time of your assistants.
Craigs list is a great place to find a photographer, and you can't find someone for less than $3,000 that will do it, it means do it yourself or shut up.
To your number 2 add sales, marketing, social media, webmastering, business administration, dealing with sales taxes and permits (where required), etc.
abi170845: I don't understand it, a wedding is a very very special occasion, and newly weds want a bargain? It's like everybody want to be photographed for cheap or free. It is a business just like any other.
Find a cheap one then, even a high school student with a DSLR can photograph you. You get what you pay for.
You are correct that price and photographer competence don't correlate. There are many terrible photographers who excel at collecting high fees and vice versa. However, what you neglect to mention is that if you are willing to pay only $500 then you must also be willing to settle for an amateur with crappy equipment, because that's about all that $500 can sustain. Unless of course you luck into a rich hobbyist or a salaried photographer who just picks up cheap weddings on weekends. But for the most part the $500 photographers are newbies with little experience who make giant mistakes and have crappy equipment. There will always be exceptions, but good luck finding them.
sdyue: ... the photographer did list fixed equipment totaling $13,800... it's not like he has to buy a new set for each wedding, nor for each season.
20 weddings will not wear out 2 dSLRs plus lenses in a single working season...
besides, as a BUSINESS, why can't one write-off expenses against income taxes??? it is the USA, don't they have that rule for income tax deductions?
otherwise... at $7000 net for living expenses... that's NOT much left for himself for one years profit.
Speaking as a photog, you typically turn over (depreciate) your DSLR bodies every 2 to 3 years to stay current, and you typically own 3 to 4 bodies to have 2 in service and at least one spare. Owning only 2 is risky. If you shoot the $5k range pro bodies, you can depreciate two of them for $140 to $200 per month, depending on how good you are at reselling them when you're done with them.
For those of you who don't understand the response, what it comes down to is this: A typical wedding generates five days of actual work for the photographer. If you don't believe that, try starting a wedding business, and you'll know it's true. $600/day, and 50 to 70 percent of that (depending on how many weddings per year you shoot) will end up just paying expenses. That leaves you with somewhere between $180 to $300 per day in post expense salary, out of which you have to pay both regular income taxes and the self employment tax. The respondents tax figure was actually inflated, because she calculated her taxes prior to her expenses. There is no way she would end up actually paying $15k in tax after all expenses taken out. But in any case it does not leave you with a "crazy" profit. It leaves you with a very middle class profit. And like the respondent said, you take on other types of jobs to balance out. The solution for the bride is to hire an amateur if she doesn't want a pro.
.... Continued from last post: So when you say that your technicians can easily detect a "bad lens" but not distinguish among the acceptable "variations" in your chart, I think you are conveniently omitting cases in which the lens may be within the acceptable variation at the test point within the frame (or even on average) and yet be yielding images which are to some degree easily detectable as of asymmetrical quality to the naked eye. I bring up this omission because it is the primary mode of failure that I believe reasonable people can easily spot without going so far as Imatest or even charts.
Dear Roger - Thanks for this new piece in your series. I enjoyed the new information contained here. However, I have one bit of constructive criticism. You go briefly into the aspect of visible decentering (i.e. you mention the phenomenon of some lenses being off target), but you did not go into the obvious effect this has on focus. I am concerned that you downplay this a bit in that this is one of the focus effects that can make a huge visible difference to a working photographer, and it happens more often than any of us would like in lenses like the Nikon 70-200 VR2. The issue is that when an element is notably off center you will get extremely sharp focus in one part of the intended focal zone and dull focus in another part of intended focal zone. Another way of putting this is that the focus zone is skewed rather than perpendicular. Often this reproduces with the lens on multiple camera bodies, i.e. is a true lens issue and can't simply be blamed on lens/body "combination." Cont...