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Why shoot digital?

By Peter Krogh

The reason that digital photography has taken off recently is not because it is cheaper to produce. Rather, digital photography is being adopted by the marketplace because it provides significant value to the buyer.

• Immediate feedback: Because the image can be viewed right away, everyone can walk away from the shoot knowing that it has been successful. In cases where the photographer is “shooting for expression”, this is extremely valuable. In many cases, Polaroids can simply not show what you get, because expressions change so fast.
• Easy editing: A photographer can make the shoot available for viewing over the Web quickly, sometimes before the end of the day. The photographer and client can then discuss which images work for the project, and can put them into final production immediately.
• Decreased turn-around time: Digital capture consolidates the production of images in one vendor. The digital photographer is able to provide a product ready to be dropped into a document, and sent to a printer for final settings and output. This could easily remove six messenger fees and the associated time delay from a project. And in many cases, the entire delivery of images can be done electronically.
• Reduced liability: Clients frequently accept large potential liabilities when they take responsibility for original film. The liability for loss or damage of the image is no longer a consideration with digital capture and delivery.
• Digital is a great tool for photographers: I think using a digital camera makes me a better photographer. I can balance light and experiment with blurs and make sharp infrared photos much more easily than with film. And when you start talking about actually doing something with the photos—e-mailing them, or making large color prints, or Web pages, or Quicktime movies, or 4x6 prints, or beautiful black-and-whites, whatever—the idea of a photograph that you can pipe straight in to the computer looks very attractive.
• Archiving and retrieval: A well-planned archive may be the most attractive advantage to digital. A piece of film can exist only in one place, unless expensive dupes are made. A digital file, with keywords written into the IPTC tags, can live in multiple files, and can be available a the touch of a keyboard.

Why does digital cost more than film?

Digital photography has brought a whole new set of opportunities to the world of publication photography, but it has not come cheaply. A digital-savvy film photographer will spend at least $10,000 to convert to digital capture. If you’re not already in a digital workflow, count on $20,000. Much of that investment will have fully depreciated and need to be replaced within 18 months.

The cost of going digital

The following list is designed for an ASMP general member, with the expectation that they would want to provide a level of service and reliability that he or she currently brings to a film-based workflow. This includes back-up bodies and storage devices, as well as a solid graphic workstation for the studio and a reliable laptop for location. The numbers in parenthesis are the additional upgrade costs that you can expect within 18 months.

• Camera Bodies: (2 bodies) $4000- $10,000 ($3000)
• Laptop (iBook w/ CD burner - G4 w/ burner) $1800-2600 ($1800)
• Software/ Upgrades (Photoshop, OS, multiple computers) $600-2500 ($300)
• Cards and Digital Wallet (at least three 512 cards plus wallet) $1000- $2000 ($600)
• Desktop image workstation (G4 w/ DVD burner, good monitor) $2500-4500 ($1000)
• Hard drives (enough for every image made, plus firewire transfer drives) $300-$1500 ($500)
• Wide lenses (14 mm and/or short zoom) $0-$3500 (0)
• Printers (Should have at least a 1270 or better) $0-$3500 ($500)
• Totals: $10,200- $30,100. Upgrade within 18 months ($7,700)

In addition to the investment in hardware and software, the investment in education and retooling of workflow will take at least hundreds of hours, if not thousands. Photographers need to become adept at using new software, implementing color management, and maintaining digital archives, among other disciplines. You can either spend your time evaluating and learning new software and workflow, or you can pay for classes or consultants to help you.

Production charges

It soon becomes obvious that you will need to recoup this investment. Traditionally, photographers have built the cost of new equipment into their fees, but this presents several problems. First, it can put you at a competitive disadvantage, as many clients concentrate more on the fee than the total job price when hiring photographers. Second, it does not make use of an accepted practice in our industry: expense costs that may approach, equal and even exceed fees.

If we start including the cost of going digital into our fees as fixed figures, we will absorb the cost of providing this new service in our salaries, lose the opportunity to upsell services, and turn off an accepted and necessary convention of the established revenue stream.

There are two important factors to keep in mind when setting production charges: what it costs the seller to provide, and what it is worth to the buyer. If either of these factors is out of line with your charges, the marketplace won’t support them. I think that both of these factors support a fairly high production charge structure, if we work individually to make it industry practice.

The first factor to evaluate is the cost to provide the services. In my case, I have tried to keep a floor of $150/hr for billable computer time doing image production work. I consider this to split up as $75/hr for my skilled labor, and $75/hr to recoup the costs of equipment and training. All of my production charges attempt to support this pricing structure.

Investment

• Hardware/Software Training $15,000 =100 hours a year
• Time investment to learn: 200 hours a year @ $50/hr =66 billable hours
• Total billable hours required to pay for your investment and training: 166

If you divide the hours above by two jobs a week, one needs to bill at least $250 in expenses per job just to pay for your equipment and training. If you also actually want to pay yourself for doing the work, then you need to be averaging $500 a job—or $1000/week—in digital production charges. And remember, unlike our old equipment paradigm, all this expensive new stuff will be nearly worthless in a few short years.

Now let’s look at the buyer side: what are the added services worth to the Client? This value is made up of cost savings and added value.

On the shoot, shorter shoot times, and reduced model and crew costs are potential advantages to digital. Messenger fees and service bureau costs are post production charges and have always been big line items in our clients’ budgets. We are now hoping to save the client this money, so that they can pay it to us.

Listed below is the re-directable income that my work typically generate for my clients:

• Film and Polaroid costs: $90 to $800/day
• Messenger fees (to and from lab, to and from client, to and from service bureau): $15-$90/job
• Scanning costs: $20 - $150/ scan

Looking at these numbers, we can see that our clients already budget the $500 average we need for production charges. Additionally, since we are keeping the scanning in-house and the job is still in our shop, we have a much better opportunity to do any retouching.

The financial success of digital capture in large part depends on our ability to divert the existing post-production revenue stream into our businesses. If we are timid about instituting production charges, we may find ourselves in a position of taking the cost of all of this new equipment out of our profits.

I have chosen to break up my charges into capture charges, and several different methods for editing and delivery of the files. I have tried to accommodate the clients I have—and those I would like to have—based on a $150/hr billable hours charge.

Image capture

• 20 Images / $20 ($50 minimum per job). Think of the image capture fee as similar to traditional film charges. (Compare to my normal charges of $40/roll of 36). Clients are familiar with this structure, and none has raised any objections. I tell clients that image capture expenses include the cost of the equipment and labor to shoot, transfer, batch convert, evaluate, save, and archive digital files.

I do not apply capture charges to images that are deleted in camera, or to images that are considered “Polaroids.” I frequently point out to my client that a digital shoot results in fewer frames than a film shoot, and that there is no Polaroid charge.

Delivery

• Web (or CD) photo gallery: This has a thumbnail page linking to a larger image. These galleries can be accessed over the Internet, or can be sent on CD. Please note that the images in these galleries are not color-corrected.$50/up to 100 images - $20 each additional 100 images (Web or CD). Add $20 to get Web and CD.
  The standard fee includes keeping the gallery on the server for on month. Typically, I always send the client a copy of the Web gallery on CD for their records.
  Epson contact sheets: These are long-lasting high quality Inkjet prints. Global color correction is included, but, like all contact sheets, the color and density of the individual images may not reflect the color of the actual finished files. Contact sheets are available in 20, 12, and 4 images per sheet
  $15 / each 8.5x11
  $25 / each 11x14
• CD-ROM, Raw images: If my client is an experienced user, I will deliver raw files. Of course I would like to keep all the post-production in house, but sometimes it doesn’t make sense to insist upon it. There are two kinds of clients who want raw files. The first is a client who wants to save on production charges. Some of these people actually come back later and have us do the final image prep because they see that it is not so simple. The second kind of client is one who may have workflow needs that would be hard for me to accommodate. This would include users who expect to hold the images for a while and will then need immediate turn-around once the images are selected, or clients who need a large number of final images and are capable of preparing them.
  Raw images can be delivered three ways: as the original NEF Files, as 16 bit Tiff Files, or as 8 bit JPEGs. In these cases, raw denotes that they have received only minimal (or no) color or density correction. They may need significant color or density correction. The NEF files can only be opened with the Nikon Software (or Bibble) and therefore require a purchase on the part of the client. The Tiff files are really as good as the nefs, and are the preferred delivery method.
  • CD Burn, NEF Files $20 /20 Images ($20 Minimum)
  • CD Burn, 16 bit tiff files $30 / 20 images ($30 Minimum)
  • CD Burn Jpeg Files $30 / 20 images ($30 Minimum)
  • 4x6 machine prints, $50 per 25: Yes, a client can have good old machine prints made from digital files: the traditional color prints you get from a minilab. Color correction is not guaranteed, but they’re good for proofing. Messenger charges and longer turnaround times may apply.
• Final image preparation, $50 /image: Raw images straight out of the camera must be individually prepared for print. Final image preparation includes conversion to tiff file, individual color correction, sharpening, as well as any needed dust removal. Files are delivered as RGB tiff files accompanied by an Epson print as a color guide. We strongly recommend that the final CMYK conversion be done by the printer, in order to account for the settings of their presses.
• Retouching, $150 / hr: Any retouching that is needed beyond basic color correction will be billed on an hourly basis. An estimate will be provided before work has begun.

Peter Krogh, of the Washington DC chapter of ASMP, is based in Kensington, Maryland [www.peterkrogh.com] and specializes in advertising, annual reports, corporate-industrial, architecture and editorial photography. For his studio’s guidelines for digital image production [www.peterkrogh.com/Pages/Capabilities/digital.html].

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