First Paid Photo Gig - DPChallenge Forums

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

01/19/2009 07:03:06 PM · #1

Soo I have been asked to shoot about 40 to 80 kids for a basketball little league, and of course I accepted. I told her im not professional but have experience with a camera and just want to get my foot in the door. She wanted to know how much I charge and said "well $100 dollars" she agreed yada yada yada.

SO here are the FACTS

40 - 80 kids grades k - 6, Wont know how many untill day of shoot.
lighting will be indoors, a gym
there uniforms will be all different solid colors.
prints will be 8x10 and 5X7

I have or will use
50d main camera/ 20d backup
50mm 1.4/ 24 - 70 2.8
580exII/ 420ex, canon off camera shoe cord v3
manfrotto tripod w/ball head, also have 3way pan and tilt.
many memory cards/ and extra batteries
and a wired remote

my main questions
1 - which lense, 50mm will be sharper but will have to move the camera to setup for each kid or just use the 24-70. Im most likely just gonna use the zoom lense.

2 - lighting should I use both flashes, 420 in slave, or just use the 580 exii for catch light in the eye? If i use both flashes im gonna need another tripod. where would i have that aimed???

3 - back drop, there will be many different color uniforms so i dont want to have to change the background for each color. I talked to one of my friends who said a blue or dark gray color should be good.

4 - pose. im thinking just having them look at the camera holding the ball under there arm.
nothing to complicated. I will use the wired remote and try to catch them off guard when my eye isnt looking through the view finder.

thats all I could think of at the moment. anything else i should know. pp is gonna be a nightmare if every kids parents want pictures, lol.

EBJones

Nikon D200

01/19/2009 07:56:44 PM · #2

Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things. :) Plan on being very busy and very tired at the end of the day.

As for the second light, I would recommend using it for fill on the side away from the main (key) light. You could forego the extra tripod by doing all the shots hand held. (Then you could use the 50mm!) I don't necessarily think you have to take them by surprise, either. The pose you mentioned should work well. You'll probably have to tell some of them to stand straight or tilt heads this way or that, but mostly they should feel comfortable. There are a couple of threads on posing for portraits here, but you likely won't have time for that. When I last did an event, (link below) I had about 30 seconds to a minute for each couple. Try and look at the shot each time, looking for goofy expressions, just started talking, eyes closed. . . Things move quickly and you don't want to have to explain to that one kid why he's the only one with his eyes closed. :)

I did all of the portraits for the Charleston, SC Submarine Birthday Ball last year (and get to do the same this year.) It's a long and tiring process, and that's before you get to the PP. The key, I've found, is consistent lighting. Get that, and then you can set up an action in Photoshop to batch edit your shots. Then, go back and fix the few that need more help It's how I processed and posted over 400 shots in one day!

After cropping, I did a batch resize in Irfanview so they were all the exact same size and then used a Photoshop batch action to get them all in the frames you see. Of course I did PP on all of them. You may want to limit yourself to just the ones that get ordered, but I like to think that more will get ordered if they see the quality image rather than a straight out of camera proof.

I think after you successfully pull this off, you're going to decide to charge more next time! The shots in the link above raised almost $1000 for the next year's Sub Ball. (And that's after I took $200 in expenses!)

Hope this was helpful!

eta: Scroll down two posts. There's the guy who's done it, and knows what he's talking about. I went a different route with the ordering process, though. I gave out a business card that I had printed with the url to the gallery on the back side. Smugmug does all the processing, printing and shipping for me. Different venues, different methods. . . :)

Message edited by author 2009-01-19 20:08:01.

Mike_Adams

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/19/2009 07:57:45 PM · #3

Well, I actually have more questions before I feel like I could give answers.

1. How much time do you have? Lots of leagues shoot before their games so your setup might be dependent on if you have 1 hour or 20 minutes.

2. How much space do you have?

3. What do you plan to charge for 8x10's and 5x7's?

4. How will you deliver the product?

5. Do you have the ability or are you willing to shoot tethered? (To a laptop so that parents can see the pictures as you take them so you don't have some parent wanting a re-shoot later.

I think if I know some of these it might help with a better overall picture of what I can answer.

Prof_Fate

01/19/2009 07:59:56 PM · #4

This is called 'sports T&I' - as in team and individual.

99% of the time you get paid nothing by the league/school. You sell packages to the parents - you need a source for products (like memory mates, key tags, trader cards, etc). You need an order form. You give copies of the form to the league about 10-14 days before the shoot day and they hand them out to the kids/parents.

On shoot day you will need a helper to take the order forms and money, organize the kids by team.
You then shoot a kid and write the image number on the form. IMPORTANT!
You then arrange the team for the group shot. Best if you have a notebook and a black sharpie - include a page with "TEAM FLACCO" on it in teh first shot, take 3 or 4 shots (blinks, etc). Then take teh page you did and atach it to the forms that belong to those kids. (big paper clip deal works).

Keeping organized is CRITICAL.

You go home and pic the best one of each kid/team and place the order per your supplier's site/instructions/etc. Hopefully they will bag for you (by kid then by team). All you do when it arrives is put in your material reagarding reorders, mistakes, etc and then hand it to the league.

I average about $15 per kid after product costs, and I have to pay for my help of course. Other folks do $11 that I've talked to - packages start at $15 and go up. My average sale is $25/kid. Costs for products are high. My lab charges $.50 to bag each kid - and that includes the bag, well worth it.

Exposure is exposure, so igrnore the skin tones or colors of uniforms, etc. You NEED studio lights (monolights). IF you care about what the pics look like that is. And therefore you will need a light meter. YOu need ot get the flash 3 or more stops over the ambient light or else EVERY picture will be a different color. Do to efficiency shoot JPG for everything - so you MUST get the color right (and exposure) at capture time. Gym lights suck for color - it shifts every 1/60th of a second, per light - so each light is different colors all the time. On camera flash will suck. IF your lab can handle color correction you MIGHT be ok - but when it's my butt on the line I'm not trusting it to a 'maybe we can - lets see the pics first' cause then it's too late.

sharpness does not matter - nobody is pixel peeping. get the shots in focus is all you need. You should be shooting at F4-5.6 for indivudual, 5.6 to 8 for group. With a crop body no more is needed.

You need backups for EVERYTHING. I've had just about everything fail at some point and you cannot say 'wait, let me run to bestbuy for ...'. Not gonna happen.

You can make great money at this, especially for time involved. I shot a soccer team last year - 7 am to 2 pm, 440 kids, 2 photogs and a money man - $9300 in sales. I've done 2 smaller leagues since and signed up a 300+ baseball league for may this year. They want pics outside -that's a different thing alltogether.

I STRONGLY STRONGLY STRONGLY (did you get my emphasis) that you have insurance - kid run, shit gets knocked over, falls just because, etc. Hurt a kid and you will be living in a box under a bridge before you can say "i'm sorry little johnny got hit by the hot light that fell on his head"

Doesn't happen you say? I got the one wrestling league cause the photog last year ended up wtih one kid wiht a broken arm and another had to get stitches.

Have fun!

And no, the pics need not be boring. My first ones were then I said, NO, I will make art!

from the soccer shoot in May (in a gym)

From the wrestling league in November, also in a gym - one league so no 'teams', but one group shot. I liked the sepia look. Shot with 24-70 at 24mm. No bleachers in the 'practice gym' so we used the stage. Curtain was black, so i put a light up there to make it not as black

and an individual wrestler. I chose to use the gym wall as the BG. 24-70 at 70 or so and 4 or 4.5, Used 2 300ws monolights w/ 60" umbrellas, one as main and one has kicker (see side of his head). Much more interesting thatn the soccer shots, huh?

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D

01/19/2009 08:19:06 PM · #5

Originally posted by Mike_Adams:

1 - the mother i know is one of the people in charge of the league. they already setup the times for each team, so the first day is from 6:30 to 9pm. second day 8:15 - 9:30pm.

2 - It will be in my old school that i went to so i know i will probably set up in the corner of the gym

3 - im not charging per prints. i went to a local place i use and got the price per 8x10 and 5x7. i told the mother how much it cost and gave her an idea of how much to charge for a package. based on how many people pay that day determines how much money she puts towards the school fund raiser later in the year. anyway i told here to charge between 10 and 15 dollars to cover the cost of prints and the hundred dollars i asked for.

4- i told her we would need some sort of envelope. nothing fancy. she will be taking names and collecting money in the order that pictures will be taken.

5 - unfortunately i sold my "good" laptop a while back before i got more interested in photography. I do have a laptop from work but its a company laptop. not gonna happen.

kaiser_chief

Nikon D90

01/19/2009 08:27:16 PM · #6

Hope that Prof_Fate hasn't scared you out of this.

Have done plenty of this type of thing with a Mate of mine. The key is to be organised, better yet, overorganised. Then you can deal with anything that comes up.

We always use Envelopes for ordering forms. These we have printed up on the computer for the child's name, team and they mark what they are ordering. Money goes inside. Person helping the photographer writes the shots taken of the kid on the envelope and also keeps the envelopes in order they were taken in, just in case. Worst thing is trying to work out which kid is which if it all gets mixed up. If all you are doing is putting the forms in order (and not writing shots on) it only takes you to drop the pile and you have no idea which kid it was.......

Getting the Lighting correct is vital, as is it being consistant. Then you can batch Process which cuts down plenty of time.

Hope all goes well

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/19/2009 08:55:50 PM · #7

ok i have some one helping me to stay organized with the order the pictures are taken.
now my main concern is lighting, as pro fate mentioned having monolights. all i have is a 580exii and a 420ex. would that be enough to light up the kid and the background.

Mike_Adams

Canon EOS-40D

01/19/2009 09:17:00 PM · #8

Depends on how far away your background is and if you have umbrellas for your speedlights. My setup for something like this would sound quite a bit like Prof Fate. I would go two monolights and a backdrop system. If you use the gym as the background with two lights it will be difficult in either one of two ways. If you get the kid close enough to the background to light the background you will almost certainly have nasty shadow from the kid on the wall. If you place the kid far enough from the wall to avoid the shadow you probably will not have adequate light on the background. :) All that being said, that is the ideal and why most folks shoot for packages to make money on this to afford equipment overhead. You can and will do this and it will be ok. Will it be what a big studio can and would do, NO, but thats not what they are expecting and hopefully not what you are expecting. Relax, and what you need to decide is if you want a drop down background or if you are going to use the gym as background. After you decide that time for more strategy.

Prof_Fate

01/20/2009 10:11:15 AM · #9

Idea of basic costs if you really want to do this right...

3 monolights (2 to use, one as backup). AB800's you're talking $1400?
You need pocket wizards or similar to trigger them, so $600 (2 to use, one as bakcup)
A background (sports ones from Denny's can run $300-400) and a stand (savage, $125)
Perhaps 2 backgrounds - one basic blue muslin in a large size for groups (or use the stands as I prefer) $200
2 cameras, tripod, two lenses (kit lenses can be made to work) - $1300?
Misc things like clipboards, clamps for the BG, cords to plug the lights in , gaffers tape, etc - $200
table to bring to setup your money taker, box for money in case you need to make change, $100

$4000 more or less.

And depending on how you light the teams, you may need 2 more lights and 2 PWs for that, another $900ish.

The first league, if it's big enough, will pay for all your gear. Then as long as you get more leagues it's worth it and can be very profitable.

justamistere

Nikon D3s

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

01/20/2009 02:36:19 PM · #10

Prof_Fate, Just to verifyâ�¦
Iâ��ve done quite well in a studio or garage, using ( SB-800 lights/PocketWizards/Quantum Batteries/Manfrotto Avenger stands w/sandbags ).
Recent work: ON-Location ChristmasCard...

Of course there wasnâ��t any ambient lighting. Is it the ambient lighting that you need to overpower, that you prefer moonlights? If thatâ��s the case, you can setup a giant lightbox and shoot inside it.

Last summer, for $200 at Costco Wholesale Club, I bought a translucent white Tent, like the ones you see at outdoor Art Exibits. I may try that this Spring/Summer. I could even hang lights from itsâ�� ceiling

Message edited by author 2009-01-20 14:38:47.