Pricing for Product Pictures?

[mallory_younger]

<p>Hello,<br>

I was wondering what any photographers think about a price for taking ebay product pictures. I had someone ask

me for a quote, but I am really not sure what to tell them. Thought I would get a feel for it this way first.</

p>

<p>They want me to come and set up at their shop and take pictures of 200 products (all small) mostly motorcyc

le light bulbs

.<br>

Then they want the lighting photoshoped and also they want a large file and small file saved. They want

each product punched out of the background and saved with no background, and some of them done with a

white background placed behind

it.<br>

They told me another photographer quoted them $1.00 for each picture, as in $200 total for everything. I

thought that sounde

d nuts.<br>

What would any of you quote ballpark fo

r that?<br>

Any input is much appre

ciated.<br>

 

Thanks,</p>

<p

[tony_clark]

<p>Run from that job as fast as possible. In their minds that $1 price point is the high number and they want you to beat it. They want an edited image in both high resolution and one for online for that price. Myself, I would quote them a realistic number of $100 per shot and laugh as their jaw hits the floor. I would not touch it for less than that number.</p>

[alan_myers]

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>Small products like that can be done pretty quickly, once you have the tabletop setup arranged.</p>

<p>I've done similar work for websites and catalogs. One job I did a few months ago had about 200 smaller pieces took me about a day to shoot, but a lot of the pieces were grouped into twos, threes and fours, so it actually ended up about 60 setups, with two to three angles of each in some cases. The customer got around 250 proofed images to choose among, made their selections and ended up with about 75 or 80 final images, including a couple dupes they couldn't decide between. In this particular case, they decided to drop a lot of the backgrounds later and the website designer ended up doing it instead of me.</p>

<p>The only glitch was a really surprising one. I burned the images onto a DVD. Turned out the website designer didn't have a DVD reader installed in her computer! So, we ended up having to resend the images on a CD, as well as transfer some via ftp.</p>

<p>Usually there's an initial setup fee, then a per-piece fee after that. Think one to two hours for initial setup, then probably 5 to 10, maybe more, pieces per hour after that.</p>

<p>One thought about this.... They might be able to save some by ganging a bunch of products into one image, rather than having each and every one shot separately.</p>

<p>Use a white seamless background if that's what they want. For full background drops you might need to buy a chroma key (blue or green) to make that faster and easier. If so, pass along the cost of that.</p>

<p>You mention bulbs, which mean glass, which can be trickier that a lot of things to light well, so take that into consideration.</p>

<p>Post-production work is another matter, separate from the above. I use half my hourly shooting rate for that, and come up with an estimate of how many hours work I'm going to need to do. I pretty much stick with that quote, even if it takes me a little longer.</p>

<p>eBayers are often very small businesses without much grasp on the real costs of some of this sort of work, I'm afraid. $200 is incredibly cheap. But I also don't think $100 a piece is realistic, either.</p>

<p>Off hand, I'd roughly estimate $5 to $10 a piece, on average, not including post production work. We're talking about probably a full day's shooting, maybe two at the outside. Again, the price might be reduced a bit if you can gang up a bunch of items into single shots.</p>

[brian.]

<p>Here's something to think about: How much time are you going to take on each image? You will light it, compose it, label the file, process the file, photoshop out the background, relabel the large photoshopped file and the small file, burn them to CD/DVD, drink a glass of water in between shots, maybe go to the bathroom sometime that day, eat some lunch, breathe, ... so what maybe 5 to 6 minutes on each of the 200 shots? That's 1200 minutes or 20 hours. What's two days work worth to you, $200? I think $10/hr is too little for a photographer with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and the skill and talent one has. In pricing this job don't fall into the trap of "x" number of dollars per shot. Figure what your time is worth and how long it will take to do the entire job, then give an estimte to them with your payment terms clearly specified. Good luck!</p>

[steve_solomon2]

<p>Greetings! Prior posters have good advice...$1 a shot is ludicrous, and just serves to undermine your skillset and their Quality expectations! I would agree with Brian that you need to figure a reasonable day rate, and always assume that it will take longer than you think (that's Murphy's Law, right?). Without knowing all the specifics, my figure may be something like $40/shot, plus a $300 downpayment, which would cover necessary supplies, backgrounds, and post-production work. Good luck! <b>Signature URL removed, not allowed on photo.net.</b>

[tony_clark]

<p>Only you can figure out your CODB and determine what the job is worth to you. As far as the gear goes, my local Rental House gets about $300 for a basic pro level camera and lighting kit. I build that into my estimate because the cost of maintaining a pro level kit is not just so I can claim it on my taxes. It's a real expense and must be accounted for.</p>

[commercial photographer in]

<p>Mallory,</p>

<p>I see you got a lot of great advise here, in fact I might consider changing my pricing methods based on what I read here too. Right now, I would advise you to tell that guy "if you want the quality that $1.00 per product would buy, then call that other photographer. I am not cheap, I'm good" I also question weather he even got that quote, or if he is just telling you that to see if you will go lower.<br>

I would not accept the job for anything less than $50.00 an hour plus travel time. You have to lug all your equipment to his location and set up, that all takes time. You have to photograph is items, that too takes time. Most likely you will be shooting multiple pictures of each item to insure you get at least one good one. Then you have to take those images home, clean them up, remove the backgrounds, in some cases, add a background, resize them save them twice, and deliver them to the client. All this takes time. I don't know a single pro photographer in their right mind who would do this for $1.00 per product. I would hazzard a guess he didn't get that quote from anyone. You need to factor in what you feel all that time and effort is worth to you. I know some areas who charge $150.00 per hour, but in my town that will get you laughed out of every job you bid on. Not saying that's a bad price, but your market has to support such a high hourly rate. I'd say $50.00 is a good starting rate per hour, or you can do the per product pricing that the other fine people on this board suggested. In any event, don't work for that $1.00 per product Mallory, you are better than that.</p>

[mallory_younger]

<p>Thanks for all the responses everyone. Just to clarify, I never intended to do $1.00 a shot. I just wondered what anyone else thought about it in general. I also tend to think he never got that quote, and was just pushing to see if I would do it for that cheap or less. Either way, I will quote him what I originally thought I should, which is pretty close to most of the above suggestions. Thanks Again!</p>