Essential The Official Photography Thread

[FruitOfTheVale]

Pricing is a topic I see tons of people asking about online and it’s a tough one.
There’s so many things that factor into a price that make it difficult to give hard figures for someone to follow for their own pricing strategy.

Doing research in your local area helps...but at the same time, the quotes you’ll get will often be miles apart in terms of price and end up leaving you just as lost.

What I’ve found in about 2.5 years of doing videography, photography, and audio recording professionally full time is that in the beginning you HAVE to do A LOT of free work to build a portfolio and start to build your reputation. Even with a decent portfolio of high level recognizable clients I was still (and a lot of times still am) under pricing myself. The idea has always been to get repeat business at a low price point but I’ve found that the clients that pay the least ALWAYS demand the most. You’d think people would be grateful but unfortunately that often isn’t the case.

I can go on and on all day about it but if I could give a piece of advice that I think would be the most helpful is...
When you come up with a quote, ALWAYS consider the hours you’ll have to work to get the project done. Ask yourself “what’s an hourly rate I would be happy with and not end up regretting half way through a project”. What ever that number is, DOUBLE IT, because if you do things the RIGHT way, you’ll need to set aside about 40% of your money for taxes. So I you say “I’d be happy making $20 an hour doing photography” you NEED to charge a MINIMUM of $40 an hour. Your rate of $135 is decent. I’ve charged as little as $75 an hour and as much as $700 an hour. The price varies based on doing business with mom and pops vs government contracts.

Facts

If you're ever charging for something at the beginning of building your portfolio, you should focus on charging money for the purpose of covering production fees (i.e. studio rental, prop rental, etc.) that raise the perceived production value of your work. Lenses and camera body matter to an extent, what matters more to score bigger gigs though is your ability to bring a vision to life and that your vision is bigger than the client's. Another way of putting that is to invest the time and money in preproduction... If your preproduction results in a pedestrian concept their ig photographer cousin could have come up with, it doesn't matter that you used a $5,000 lens and their cousin would've used an iphone. From the client's perspective, they just paid x amount of money for a couple more pixels, which doesn't cement why you're the professional and not their cousin. Creativity - and thorough preproduction to streamline your creative process to where it is repeatable and dependable - is your biggest weapon in this field period. The better you are at exceeding your clients' vision, the more money you'll make.

 

[shutterguy]

damn y'all abandoned canon and nikon

Still reppin FF and crop-body Canon's over here.

 

[MikelArteta]

Still reppin FF and crop-body Canon's over here.

My brehda

seems everyone here is Sony


Ima cop this eos r and one day hopefully the r5

 

[shutterguy]

Can I get some help on self photography?

What camera body are you using? I would shoot anywhere from f/8 to f/11.

 

[shutterguy]

My brehda

seems everyone here is Sony


Ima cop this eos r and one day hopefully the r5

Yea I noticed that myself.

I want the R5 myself to have incase I don't feel like carrying the 5DM4 around. I did some reading on it, it has a lot of nice features.

 

[Majestyx]

I've been charging 135/hr. That includes the time it take to scout, plan, edit etc.

I've done a few album covers and other shyt and now other photographers come to me talking about pricing.

And I think the starting rate is around 500 or 1k a day.

I fukk with those prices, but it blows my mind hearing people charge those rates only makes 38 to 70k a year.

Are full time. Photographers not being as aggressive on their booking and owning their right for lucrative projects.

An album cover for a marginally big artist can get you 10k for a shot

Coli. Experts put me on game.

its cuz people dont wanna pay for photography. budgets have been cut by corporations when it comes to photo. the maket is saturated with people with a camera. most of them arent good, but people dont give a fukk.

BUT i learned that dudes who do make cake get a lot of bread off of usage rights for their photos. its almost like getting royalties every time a company uses your photo.

My brehda

seems everyone here is Sony


Ima cop this eos r and one day hopefully the r5

using a fuji. one breh in hee shooting with the nikon z6. it doesnt matter all these cameras excluding canon got te same sensors in them

 

[Majestyx]

double

 

[CreepyMcCreeperson]

What camera body are you using? I would shoot anywhere from f/8 to f/11.

I was using Canon 4000D, but I ordered a T7i today, so I can use a remote shutter, because the camera connect app is really slow. And I checked the focus on manual focus, and they were blurry to the point I couldn’t even see myself. I’m going to keep trying, but so far, manual has not been my friend.

 

[shutterguy]

I was using Canon 4000D, but I ordered a T7i today, so I can use a remote shutter, because the camera connect app is really slow. And I checked the focus on manual focus, and they were blurry to the point I couldn’t even see myself. I’m going to keep trying, but so far, manual has not been my friend.

Okay, you should have much better luck with the T7i, I just checked it has Wifi/NFC/BT functions. Using NFC with the Canon app is pretty simple and works quickly ( I just tried it with my Galaxy 8 and 5D Mark IV), you can live shoot, adjust settings, focus and shoot from your phone screen with your camera on tripod across the room. All you have to do is turn on NFC on your phone and camera, then hold the 2 together and they will beep and make the connection. You should be able to get perfect selfies this way. Only other thing is you are using an 85mm a crop body which works out to be around 127-129mm range, that is a hell of distance for a selfie, especially if you are shooting indoors. I would grab a 50mm f/1.8 prime, (80mm on a crop body) much shorter focal length and tack sharp for the money ($100).

 

[CreepyMcCreeperson]

Okay, you should have much better luck with the T7i, I just checked it has Wifi/NFC/BT functions. Using NFC with the Canon app is pretty simple and works quickly ( I just tried it with my Galaxy 8 and 5D Mark IV), you can live shoot, adjust settings, focus and shoot from your phone screen with your camera on tripod across the room. All you have to do is turn on NFC on your phone and camera, then hold the 2 together and they will beep and make the connection. You should be able to get perfect selfies this way. Only other thing is you are using an 85mm a crop body which works out to be around 127-129mm range, that is a hell of distance for a selfie, especially if you are shooting indoors. I would grab a 50mm f/1.8 prime, (80mm on a crop body) much shorter focal length and tack sharp for the money ($100).

Yeah, I’ve been using the 50MM.

I think I may have the problem of trying to get a clear waist up pic indoors with a 50MM, and the 85MM is needs to be too far back for the space.

Is there a lens I can do full body indoors with the seamless paper?

 

[shutterguy]

Yeah, I’ve been using the 50MM.

I think I may have the problem of trying to get a clear waist up pic indoors with a 50MM, and the 85MM is needs to be too far back for the space.

Is there a lens I can do full body indoors with the seamless paper?

The space issue is because of the crop body, any lens you put on a Canon crop for example you have to muitiply by 1.6.

Kit lenses will work fine indoor from 18-55mm, I used them for years doing indoor photography like the setup you have on seamless paper. If you want primes, 24mm, 35mm, and 40mm would work as well.

Let me recommend a great alternative to the kit lens, the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS lens, I have it and it is outstanding, if it had weatherproofing it would be considered part of Canon's L lens line.

Sample photo's of it in the thread below:

Canon EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 IS USM

Click that and check out the last few pages.

It's $600 right now with the instant rebate, you can find them on the used market as well

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens

 

[CreepyMcCreeperson]

The space issue is because of the crop body, any lens you put on a Canon crop for example you have to muitiply by 1.6.

Kit lenses will work fine indoor from 18-55mm, I used them for years doing indoor photography like the setup you have on seamless paper. If you want primes, 24mm, 35mm, and 40mm would work as well.

Let me recommend a great alternative to the kit lens, the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS lens, I have it and it is outstanding, if it had weatherproofing it would be considered part of Canon's L lens line.

Sample photo's of it in the thread below:

Canon EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 IS USM

Click that and check out the last few pages.

It's $600 right now with the instant rebate, you can find them on the used market as well

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens

Thanks!

 

[G-Zeus]

So.. i wanna upgrade my t5i

The a7iii is right now 300 off .. but this might mean a7iv dropping soon....

What do u guy think? Wait a few months and get possibly 10 bit video recording?

I am into video recording.

 

[Pressure]

So.. i wanna upgrade my t5i

The a7iii is right now 300 off .. but this might mean a7iv dropping soon....

What do u guy think? Wait a few months and get possibly 10 bit video recording?

I am into video recording.

I'd get the a7iii and invest in some good glass.

If the 4 offers something you really NEED I'd sell the 3 and purchase the 4.

 

[G-Zeus]

I'd get the a7iii and invest in some good glass.

If the 4 offers something you really NEED I'd sell the 3 and purchase the 4.

I am not a huge believer in glass tho

It used to mean something u til autofocus took steroids

Not only will lightroom glass profiles fixe their issues....but what used to add value to those expensive glasses was minimized with DPAF and eye focus.

If ur not a pro who wants close to 100% reliability..u will do away with decent glasses.


But i am weighting ur point heavy tho...will let u know if i cop it.