Digital Onsite Setup

<p>I need a quick answer; I am an old film guy moving into the digital world. (A little late). I have been contacted to do some onsite photo and print gigs starting right after the holidays. I am looking to see what kind of setups you guys use. I guess what I am looking for is a digital camera to software program to printer. I have a budget so please keep that it mind<br>

Thanks</p>

<p>Everyone does, but of how many $$$? Print quantity, size and quality makes a difference, do you need the computer as well.</p>

 

<p>You need or will need:</p>

<p> Camera / Lens and Lighting<br>

Tether to computer<br>

Computer - windows or Mac<br>

Software (Editing)<br>

Software (display)<br>

Viewing stations - if you are going to let the clients view their photos before print<br>

Printer (inkjet or dye-sub - dye-sub you are more limited in print sizes in that you have to switch out packages to actually change paper size).<br>

Network router and cables to tie it all together<br>

That about covers the physical stuff. Lightroom may be a good choice for software - in that it will do the edits, cropping, and I believe now it will allow you to display galleries - but it will NOT do the ordering or package pricing. For display stations - you can use laptops, netbooks or tablets - but you can't have the customers looking over the editor's shoulder.</p>

<p>Then you need people:</p>

<p>Photographer</p>

<p>Editor / printer - someone who knows how to take an order and edit it</p>

<p>Sales person</p>

<p>Computer / network person<br>

You can multitask, but there are limits - your photographer can be the network / computer person, but can't be the photographer and sales person</p>

<p>Still want to do this?</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>I have the computer. What they are looking for is someone to photograph and print onsite for the customer to take home. No real editing will be required. I could just remove the card and plug into the printer. (I already have this capability) I kind of like David’s setup because it is more versatile. I am not looking at a lot of volume. My client stages a dancing competition a couple of times a month. They want to give each contestant a photograph, two per couple and have a digital file for themselves. The contest usually have about 20 – 30 teams. The events last several hours so time frame is not a major factor. I have other interest that would make a setup like David’s more reasonable. I guess its time to go to a pro camera shop.</p>

<p>We constantly do shoot & print onsite and have just moved away from swapping SD cards between me (shooting) and the hubby (editing).<br />Don't "tether" to the computer - get an Eye-Fi card. As a matter of fact, get an Eye-Fi Pro card so you can transmit RAW images in case you ever want to. (About $100 for 8G)<br />Now, with the eye-Fi you DO have to have a wireless router out with you. It has to see the router before it will bother trying to talk to your computer. Little bit of a pain? Yes. However, the cheapest, smallest router you get to carry around will be fine. Seriously. We carry a $20 router around with us. The 2 laptops just network themselves directly.<br /><br />If you shoot a couple poses and then you choose the best to print, you don't need to worry about proofing.<br />If you are going to let the contestants pick, you do need a way to proof. I don't like it, but for when we're out, I actually plug the camera into a TV & proof & take orders right there. The reason for plugging into the tv over moving to a computer is 2 things - 1) not taking the card out of the camera (we've suffered a lot of SD damage w/ other people touching the cards) and 2) not having another computer out with us.</p>

<p>Good point on the Eye Fi card - but that card is only available in an SD format - which limits your camera choices.</p>

<p>From the sound of it - you've got what you need to meet this client's needs - something as a momento of the competition for them to take home with them - since no editing required - and they don't get to chose or order extra images.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Thanks guys. I will look intothe EyeFi card. What kind of software are you using on the computer to the printer.</p>

<p>Oh, yeah. I did forget they're only SD right now, although they say they're working on compact flash.<br /><br />Software: Well, we're Mac users, so I don't know if this can apply for you.<br>

We use Aperture for cataloging & editing, but the way we have our set up, there's no editing anymore unless something weird happens to come up (like a huge group that requires I wind up shooting off the backdrop. And I only do that 1 group because the 'dad' is a good friend).<br /><br />We recently acquired a Kodak 6850 (kiosk printer) and THEN discovered Kodak offers zero Mac support for them. Well, the husbands laptop already runs Parallels & Windows for engineering software, so we use that printer's software on his machine.<br>

Therefore, the eye-fi sends all photos to a particular folder on my machine. When he gets the order form & knows what sizes of which file, he will then send only that file from my machine to his. The printer software will crop, rotate, & do some color correction (I think. I never see this, cause I'm busy) and you just tell it how many of what size and they get spit out. It sounds clunky, but this happens so fast that he can bring out the print order before we're done taking money up front!<br />Larger prints go to a different printer which plays nice with my machine, so those prints are edited and printed directly through Aperture. <br /><br />I would totally recommend the Kodak 6850 - for 6x8 or smaller - as it is fast and returns very good prints. I don't like that Kodak couldn't be bothered to have a Mac driver.<br />However, they've gotten oddly expensive on ebay. Recently they've been selling for double what we got ours for. </p>

<p>Check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Onsite-Event-Photography-ebook/dp/B004M8S7EC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1320888989&sr=8-2">How To Do Onsite Event Photography</a> by David Whitson. It's got some decent suggestions and the price is right as a Nook or Kindle book but I wouldn't pay the full price for a hard copy.<br /></p>