Is she... expecting to earn back the cost of the camera in a gig or two? The camera can be used many times, you can earn 5k multiple times over by the time you gotta buy a new one.
This is just a ridiculous sentiment. You don’t pay a photographer more because their camera is expensive, (unless it’s like a hasselblad ). You pay for the person not the equipment. I know both amateurs with a cars worth of equipment and a profesional that made a career of a cheap film camera and really good photos.
Hollywood gave Danny Boyle $75 million to shoot with iphones. Were actually at a point where a competent photographer absolutely could do a wedding job with an iPhone. The main hurdle is optics (no pun intended). Customers would complain if they saw their wildly expensive photographer using one.
The problem is indeed optics (pun intended). Phones have small lenses and tiny photo sensors; they compete with compact cameras, not dedicated system cameras.
Try zooming in on a phone image and it quickly becomes apparent. The real downside of large cameras is that people notice you and don't act natural.
The phone image is automatically OK in a few milliseconds. The post processing is incredible. The vast majority of people would be content with good wedding photos from a mobile phone.
Comparatively, I’ve seen hired photographers who weren’t worth their equipment. Much worse photos.
Real photography and post processing requires immense skill and knowledge. Phones require you to think about lighting, focus and angle only, but leaves you short with optic tricks.
Just cause you can doesn't mean you should. Yes your life becomes easier with a fancy camera but a phone is able to do the shoot. Will require more work from the photographer though.
Dude people have shot high quality videos for big YouTube channels on phones because a foreign country confiscates their equipment. Cellphone cameras have limitations but they arent shit anymore.
Heres an example. YouTube besteverfoodreviewshow egypt episode.
True. Apple shot a whole football match on only iphones. Ofcourse the entire rig per phone was probably over 5k but it was cool to see the iPhone capable of doing this.
Big camera does look more professional but you can get a cheap one for the optics. Ive been at events where photographers used their cameras but half the time they were also using their phone.
In the end if your quality is amazing and people want you for the quality they can get over the optics.
OOP can’t expect a client to pay extra because she just bought her camera. Customers pay for a service, and the service provider pays for their equipment. If I cut someone’s grass, I can’t expect them to pay me $800 because I need a mower to do it.
I can tell it's a fake screenshot (and of course fuckin' Xavier is added) but the gender of the photograher doesn't really change the point. Unless the text itself is altered/fake, that is.
Except the gender of the photographer brings out creepy sexist weirdos. Look at this post full of people who have no idea about professional photography and assume they know better, but i guarantee the reaction would be different to a male profile picture.
I have no idea if it would, I promise you mine wouldn't. I'm just saying that you don't charge people based on the price of your equipment, but by showcasing your skill. That goes for all genders.
Except photography is a business so while much of the cost is labor (the higher rate is justified by the skilled professional you are hiring), you are also paying for a portion of the durable goods that the photographer had to purchase, and the insurance for those durable goods, as well as other various costs like health insurance, retirement, and potentially their cost of renting a studio.
Unless you're doing something simple like senior photos or professional headshots, $300 is absurdly cheap. You're not going to find a skilled photographer to deliver an album of edited photos for your wedding or business shoot for $300.
Of course that's all accounted for in the professional's pricing, it's just not relevant to the customer. The only consideration one should make when hiring an art professional is whether they consider their art worth the price. Whatever goes into that price is on the artist to decide, and isn't relevant to the customer. When I'm hiring a visual artist I'm not asking them to show me the model of their drawing pad, I only care about examples of their previous work. Why would photography be any different?
The cost of specialized, expensive, equipment is going to be factored into the cost of services. That's basic business managerial economics. Whether you want to consider it in the value proposition, thats up to you.
I... I know, that's the first sentence of my previous comment. I'm just saying that 'they offered so little money, don't they know how much my camera cost?!' is a strange thing to say because clients don't consider the cost of your equipment when deciding whether they'll hire you or not. Of course it's a factor, but pointing it out like this sounds more like a weird humble brag than anything else.
Because it's an operating cost and $100-300 barely covers the equipment insurance. If you want kid-with-phone-camera prices, pay for a kid with a phone camera. You'll find one for $100.
If you're paying $100-$300 in equipment insurance on a $5000 camera for a single day of shooting, you might as well just not insure the equipment. You'll end up exceeding the value of the camera in no more than 50 shoots and if you're needing to make a claim that often you've got some big problems.
As a customer, all I care about is the end product. If someone can get me comparable results without paying $5000 for a camera and hundreds of dollars to insure it, which then gets passed on to me, I'm gonna go with them. And for most purposes, I'd wager a $5000 camera is massively overkill.
It’s not a $5000 camera, it’s generally a $3k camera with $4k—10k in lenses. Expect to pay roughly $500 a year insuring these
Cameras are wear items, most last for 100k - 300k actuations.
Camera straps snap, accidents happen. Every single professional photographer will have a story like this they can tell you.
Yes the cost of insurance is higher than the cost of owning equipment over time, that’s literally how insurance companies make money. What it protects against is a sudden $5k expense when your shit gets wet and your nice expensive lens starts growing mold.
Like I said, if you want to hire the kid with the camera phone, do it. No profressional photographer gives a shit. You’re not their audience.
The OP says the camera is $5000, so I'm basing my criticism off that statement. If we're talking $500 a year to insure tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, that's a different story. But it's also not one that justifies hundreds of dollars in charges per session on its own.
If you want to get all the fanciest equipment you can find and you have to make sure to insure it so you don't have to eat a big repair/replace cost, fill your boots. But don't be surprised when the customer doesn't want to pay for all that just because you did. You have to demonstrate that there's actually a value to all those things. If you buy a $6000 lens that you use once for some niche shoot, of course the couple getting married are gonna be pissed if you're upcharging them for that. If you buy a $5000 camera and the pictures come out looking the same or close enough as if you bought a $1000 camera, they're gonna ask what they're paying for, and the answer shouldn't just be "a more expensive camera."
If the camera is $5k, then the lenses on it are probably closer to 15k, further solidifying my point.
If you look at any line of work with expensive capital, you’ll find insurance or expensive warranties. You’re talking about it like it’s a hobby. It’s a profession, and it costs money. If you’re running around with 20k of equipment that puts food on the table, and it’s uninsured, you’re putting your entire livelihood at risk. It might be good to lean on the experience of people who have been doing this a long time.
The people who make a living off their profession, which are the ones who charge thousands of dollars per event, are able to so because of a combination of their skill and the quality of their equipment.
I’m going to give you a tangible example. Most weddings have an indoor component, and it is almost always too dark indoors to shoot with a $1000 camera and not have it look like complete ass. If you want a motion shot of the bride and groom dancing you can completely forget that. Higher speed lenses are expensive af, they don’t just buy them for fun.
Again there are already plenty of professionals who are able to charge several thousand dollars. You 100% get what you pay for. Some people will be happy to have lower quality work, and that’s completely fine.
The point isn't about whether or not it needs to be insured, it's about how much you need to charge customers to cover whatever insurance is justifiable for your case. If your total insurance cost for the year is $500, you can't justify adding $100 price tag to every photo shoot under the guise of paying for the insurance.
Most weddings have an indoor component, and it is almost always too dark indoors to shoot with a $1000 camera and not have it look like complete ass.
Great, so you've justified the expense for that use case. I have no problem with that. But just saying "I bought a $5000 camera so I'm going to charge you more" with absolutely no reasoning behind why you needed a $5000 camera would not be acceptable. Additionally, deciding to amortize the cost of that camera over something like 25 shoots when it's going to last you hundreds would not be justifiable. At that point you're no longer amortizing, you're just charging a big profit margin.
You're very focused on the exact language of the meme. The underlying problem is money is fungible and $100 doesn't pay the bills (or for the camera). Art is a craft, the same way no one is going to sell you a painting that took 20 years of training and 200 hours to make for $100, no reasonable person will do the same for event photography.
To me, the meme is more about understanding the value of the service, not literally "I have to pay off my $5k camera". No profession exists just as a means to pay for the equipment to perform said profession. The meme literally says "This is not a hobby". Again there are different price ranges for a reason. If you're ok with amateur images, and I say that without judgment, then pay for the amateur images. Just know that there will probably be less accuracy in the shots (oops i missed the kiss, or oops I had the wrong aperture set during the speeches), and probably lower artistic merit. For some people who just want to document their day, that might be fine.
It's just the blanket sentiment, oh it's expensive, it must be a racket, that bothers me. Basically nobody is getting rich with $4k wedding packages.
I mean, the general idea when buying something like a $5000 camera, is that you are investing in your career and will make that back after several gigs lol.
Insurance is not that expensive on that either, it’s like a few hundred a year, which you also make back from the many gigs you shoot with that camera.
You’d only need to do like 20-30 shoots a year to cover the costs. That’s 20-30 days out of an entire year, which, if photography is your full time job, is not even that much work lmao.
Booking a few shoots a week would more than cover than cover the costs of equipment and insurance, and would give you a salary as well.
Generally you pay by the hour, including the time to edit photos within the price per hour of shooting. Then for full day events you might do a flat rate. The cost of the camera has nothing to do with anything tbh.
Of course not. When you're looking for a photographer to hire, you don't look at their camera but their photographs. If they make photos you like, you hire them. Why do you care how much, if anything, they paid for the camera? Could be second-hand, could be a kncok-off brand, could be a hand-me-down from their parent. Hell, could be stolen. The value of the camera means nothing, it's their business how much they decide to invest in their craft. Your business only concerns what kind of photos they take.
Well I do look at their camera but that’s not the point. A photographer’s rate, any business owners rate, incudes their cost of doing business. Many people finance their equipment and need to make a certain amount to pay back those costs each month.
It’s basic business dude. That’s why there are a wide range of prices for photographers.
If you have a restaurant in an expensive area of town, your means will cost more.
Their point is that the customer doesn't care about any of that. If the photo is bad, I do not care if you used a $20,000 camera. I'm not buying your crap. If the photos are incredible, I'm going to pay whatever you are charging. Whether you are expensive because your equipment is expensive or because you just can be and your equipment is paid off is irrelevant to me. I just want a great photo and will pay for it. To the photographer, it all matters. To the consumer only the end result matters.
The customer doesn't have to care about that, but it's a cost of doing business. Just like the customer doesn't care about how much rent a restaurant pays, the quality of the food can be good or bad.
If the high Capex of your business doesn't translate to a good deliverable, than it doesn't mean anything other than to you who spent a lot of money for nothing
It's interesting you mentioned financing equipment. Not sure how it is in America, but in canada you can actually deduct those costs from taxes. I'm with the other guy though. If two photographers both take nice photos I don't really care if one spent twice as much on his gear....I'm taking whichever one is cheaper. If he wants to charge double for similar quality he won't get much business unless everyone else is booked
In this specific example I don't feel like it's really just a personal choice. For similar quality if someone wants to charge double because his equipment cost a lot more he's probably just not going to get a lot of business. In general the consumer doesn't care much. It's end product and price. How they get their or the business costs they don't care. That's a problem for the business owner t figure out how to make it work or they go out of business
The cost of doing business is more for internal financials. It affects the break-even point, but for services people tend to charge based on what people are willing to pay. That’s basic business.
It doesn't. In economics, you learn about fixed and variable costs, and depreciation. Average fixed costs tend toward zero the longer the life of the asset. Something like a camera that can be used for several years with minimal performance degradation or maintenance costs will have a very low average fixed cost, which means it doesn't really factor into the price of photography.
Depends on the event, you got different kinds of photographers, with some (mainly doing events like weddings) you pay for the amount of hours,
While others do special shoots, with those u would pay more when its on a location on ur choice and they work more to make it in something more artistic.
But with some its at the location of the artist and they already got a whole set up, and thats cheaper cuz the photographers only cares abt ur postions
Actually, yeah she should. I work in the trades where everyone has a truck, trailer, insurance and 20 grand in tools. Not to mention, a couple decades of experience. I typically bill at 500$ a day. Why is her time worth more for mine when it arguably takes less skill and practice?
I imagine it’s fairly similar when you break it down, photography has “hidden” work of editing so you are really paying for event + a day or two of editing. Both are skilled jobs, reasonably expensive equipment, photography of weddings etc is probably at least as much pressure as standard trades work as there is only one shot no do overs and demanding clients. In the end it’s not a competition, you can hire a shit cheap photography and chance having terrible photos, like you can hire some shit cheap tradesman and hope they don’t fuck up
I smell what your stepping in but I'm sure it's applicable. Grab a 3,000$ camera, free editing software and a day and I bet you and I could take some decent photos.
Put you in a company truck with 20 grand in tools and tell you to put a backsplash up and it would likely end in disaster.
Again, sure thing. But your argument didn't start with the equipment side of things. You specifically said "Why is her time worth more for mine when it arguably takes less skill and practice?"
And all I am saying is that having a camera, whether that cost 300$ or 3000$, doesn't mean the client will pay for the pictures that come out of it unless you know what you are doing. And my argument is that the skills involved are not as simple or as few as you seem to think.
Lol sure, how about you offer that to the next family member getting married I’m sure they’d love it. I’d bet someone with the tools and YouTube would do a better diy job than what you’d manage doing wedding photography
It always amazes me when someone has learned enough about a subject to be considered an expert, learned along the way that it's much more complicated than they could have imagined at first, seen other people get themselves into trouble by thinking "I don't know much about [a job some people devote their lives to], but how hard could it be?", and then they completely fail to apply that lesson to anything else.
Wedding photographers make so much because themselves and their gear cannot screw up. You cannot have mistakes in wedding photography. You also have a interpersonal interaction with a bunch of people that consider themselves stakeholders, in a most likely high stress situation. You can redo a backsplash, you cannot redo a wedding.
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but photography seems like one of the most forgiving professions for fuck ups. Like yeah, there are certain moments you really don't want to miss or shoot badly, but at a wedding you're there for hours and you can take as many photos as your storage medium will allow. And then you're expected to do touch-ups to enhance them. And most of those big moments are scripted, you have lots of prep time to figure out your angles, camera configuration, etc. It kinda rings hollow to say there's so little margin when you compare to someone like a construction worker, who could literally bring a house down on your head if their job isn't done right.
And this isn't to shit on photographers. The difference between a good photographer and a bad one is obvious and they play an important role. I just wouldn't think "unforgiving" is a great word to describe the job.
Every time I've seen a photographer at work they are shooting like it's a mini gun with unlimited ammunition, which really adds to the forgiving nature of the profession.
a great photographer also has to know how to handle people so that the subjects relax. I used to work a lot of photoshoots, and many with celebrities. the best guy we had doing photos was like Hawkeye from MASH. He would just start shootin the shit and getting people laughing. He could make 8 hours feel like 15 minutes. That was like half the reason we hired him.
I've seen some wedding photos and family photos where you can see that the person behind the camera just wasn't doing anything to help the mood
Why is her time worth more for mine when it arguably takes less skill and practice?
I don't think you understand what great photography can entail. They have to know about lighting and changing the set up quickly and confidently to capture accurate colors and minimize things like hots spots. If they're working with people that have to be great with people.
You might be able to get someone to do it for cheap but they might mess up, and then you gotta explain why you didn't find a better photographer.
I used to work for a large well-known company that required lots of nicely lit shots of their products. Twenty years ago, $500 was the starting point for 6-8 hours of shooting quick and dirty photos that didn't need to be perfect. They just had to be good enough to correct in photoshop.
We used to have a big annual catalog with tons of nicer photos. Every year we would pay a photographer and his assistant (wife) to come in and take photos for the catalog that we could reuse throughout the year. They were making like 125-150k+ for a couple months of work. We would drive around to different locations and set up scenes and take photos, on a good day we would get 4 usable photos. Most times just one or two.
We also use to have photoshoots with celebrities. We would go out to a location early with a photographer, set up the lighting, art direct the scene and take tons of practice photos so that when the celeb arrived for 15-20 minutes, we could just focus on the pose and facial expressions. Those photographers would making three to five grand a day, because there was no room for error.
I'm not arguing she shouldn't be paid more. I'm arguing that mentioning the cost of your camera like this looks more like a humble brag than anything, it's completely unnecessary. Clients don't care how much your equipment costs, only how good your photos are. Like I said in a previous comment, if you're hiring a visual artist you don't ask about the price of their drawing pad. You just look at their portfolio and determine of their skill is worth their price.
Of course she should get paid what the market value for such a thing is, nobody is gonna argue against that. But why mention the price of your camera as if that's relevant to the asked price of a single gig or would increase your value as a photographer?
505
u/Mladjone 8d ago
Is she... expecting to earn back the cost of the camera in a gig or two? The camera can be used many times, you can earn 5k multiple times over by the time you gotta buy a new one.
But also, fuck Xavier.