Bargain Wedding Photography!!!

anewman

snapyou wrote: »

not to mention his rather expensive equipment PLUS good post production work can take two or three days.

Good post production work need take no more than 15 minutes per image unless you're doing something *very* creative (or are crap at using image editing programs on the computer). Expensive equipment is only a one off cost for them - you can often get as much quality and creative capability out of a camera costing £500 as you can out of one costing £4000. The only difference with them is the model number and array of buttons would impress someone who knows a bit about cameras.

If all you get out of it is an album and a cd of the images £275 strikes me as particularly expensive, if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price.

snapyou

anewman wrote: »

you can often get as much quality and creative capability out of a camera costing £500 as you can out of one costing £4000. The only difference with them is the model number and array of buttons would impress someone who knows a bit about cameras.

If all you get out of it is an album and a cd of the images £275 strikes me as particularly expensive, if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price.

Just as well photography isn't your chosen profession.

Private_and_Confidential

I though I'd add my perspective, from my experience as a wedding photographer.

My prices range from £295 through to £1695 and the diffierence between the prices isn't the quality of photographs taken, but the time spend on the shoot, in post production and album creation, as well as the costs of the album materials.

To put it into perspective, my £295 package is for basic coverage only (c4hrs) with no image editing and images supplied on a disk. Total time spent is c6 hours.... £50/hr.

My £1696 package is for full day coverage of anything between 10hrs & 14hrs, with a minimum of 80 images prefessionally edited and a digital artbook style album designed, proofed and produced (which takes roughtly 12 hours). After costs the hourly rate is about....£50.

I think that for a professional (plumber/accountant/architect/photographer/web designer/decorator) a fee of £50 per hour is an acceptable fee.

If for the £275 you feel as though you are getting value for money service, then I wouldn't judge based on the base price.

BlueRapture

Being a up and coming Wedding photographer myself i can see exactly what they are doing here!, They are trying to build up their portfolio so are offering their services cheap to do so. Everyone has to start somewhere as i know very well so i would say give them the benefit of the doubt as the cost doesn't represent their photographic skills! If you are in any doubt ast to see some of their work...
If you wanna see my work too just ask!!! LOL

BlueRapture

anewman wrote: »

Good post production work need take no more than 15 minutes per image unless you're doing something *very* creative (or are crap at using image editing programs on the computer). Expensive equipment is only a one off cost for them - you can often get as much quality and creative capability out of a camera costing £500 as you can out of one costing £4000. The only difference with them is the model number and array of buttons would impress someone who knows a bit about cameras.

If all you get out of it is an album and a cd of the images £275 strikes me as particularly expensive, if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price.

This is one of the funniest thing i have ever read!!! :rotfl:

Obviously they have no concept of the work that goes into wedding photography! :rotfl:

Lincolnite

^ My sentiments exactly! :-)

DecoSparkle

A pedant I may be, but I'd be so put off by their shocking typos and mistakes in their text that I wouldn't be using them anyway.

I don't think the images are that bad, but I have friends who are just as good with their own cameras, there's nothing special about them.

Kayteehee

anewman wrote: »

Good post production work need take no more than 15 minutes per image unless you're doing something *very* creative (or are crap at using image editing programs on the computer). Expensive equipment is only a one off cost for them - you can often get as much quality and creative capability out of a camera costing £500 as you can out of one costing £4000. The only difference with them is the model number and array of buttons would impress someone who knows a bit about cameras.

If all you get out of it is an album and a cd of the images £275 strikes me as particularly expensive, if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price.

15 mins x 300 images = 120 hours..... not a lot of work eh? (300 is average amount of images I provide for a wedding), but I take almost 1000 images on the day.

Also the bit about equipment being a one off cost, it is a very large one off cost, and is not just the price of the camera. There's lenses, camera bodies, cases, memory cards, readers, laptops, editing software, cleaning stuff, tripods (decent one is at least 100 quid), flashgun, batteries, chargers..... insurance also needs to be paid for and this would be an annual fee. People upgrade their kit as time moves on.

There is a hell of a lot of difference in the capabilities of a camera costing £500 than a camera costing £4000..... clearly, otherwise why would there be a sustainable market for cameras costing £4000? :rotfl:

Clearly there's no point me explaining all the differences between as you wouldn't understand - placing yourself as someone apart from ""someone who knows a bit about cameras."

emisem

anewman wrote: »

Good post production work need take no more than 15 minutes per image unless you're doing something *very* creative (or are crap at using image editing programs on the computer). Expensive equipment is only a one off cost for them - you can often get as much quality and creative capability out of a camera costing £500 as you can out of one costing £4000. The only difference with them is the model number and array of buttons would impress someone who knows a bit about cameras.

If all you get out of it is an album and a cd of the images £275 strikes me as particularly expensive, if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price.

-So say it take 15 mintues per image X's that by at least 300 to 800 photos is hell of a lot of hours work.

Plus the hours spent on the day and petrol + an album.

I'd say that at £275 that it is not a lot of money per hour for a photographer.

Plus if a photographer gives away the disc of photographs that means no extra money on prints to family and friends


You say 'if people genuinely believe this to be cheap perhaps I should go into business as I am sure I could turn a profit and deliver quality at a lower price' - give it ago and see how long you enjoy running yourself to the ground for next to nothing per hour.

BUT before you do, work out how much an hour you will be getting if you do a wedding charging a lot less than £275(?), say you take 500 images at the wedding and take 10minutes editing each picture. Then give it ago try it out and see how worth while it seems!

party_of_five

This isn't targeted at anyone, but I'm not sure that breaking it down into an hourly rate is all that helpful in deciding whether you get value for money. Obviously when you're getting married, you have a budget that you're working to and a set of requirements that you need to meet - images on disk, album, prints etc so if you can only afford £275 then you will get the best fit for your requirements that you can for that price. But there is an aspect outside of time spent in post production and the cost of camera equipment broken down over an arbitrary number of weddings and surely that is a photographer's artistic talent and experience both in terms of taking the photographs, getting the best out of their subjects and managing the day. Being good at profesional wedding photography is incredibly difficult and not about just snapping what is in front of you, and really that is what you are paying for.