bill c.

Zaxh-- Some useable advice from above, but there are a couple of factors that can also affect the outcome that no one has mentioned so far.

 

First of all-- not that this will have a major effect on the lighting-- but I think you might get a more pleasing effect if you use a longer lens and back up some more. Second, use a table, so you can get the camera low in relation to the subject, almost even with the table surface. This reduces the bright area under the subject to a thin line, and while it may still be a bit brighter than you want, it takes up much less area and will not be as distracting, more like a graphic accent than an eye-pulling blitz.

 

As advised earlier, a scrim may be useful, but your main goal would be to cut down exposure on the backdrop.

 

Backdrops such as this are often used with a "box" lighting set-up. There are softboxes on three sides-- the top, left, and right, it's almost like a short, square tunnel. The backdrop fades away several feet in the distance, and can be lit separately, if required at all. The front of the subject-- especially if it is reflective, as yours is-- is usually lit using reflector cards that bounce the light from the boxes.

 

In your case you may be able to get away with one softbox directly over your subject, and pointed straight down. Then pop up the sides and front with white (not silver) reflectors. Get the camera angle down lower, and use a longer lens. I think you'll like that result much more.

 

BTW, the bigger the softbox, the more you can raise it above the subject and still get a soft effect. That way there is less of a distance difference between the top of the subject and the table it sits on, thereby evening out the exposure. This has a point of diminishing returns, though, that is only found by experimentation.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Amber-- First of all, if you haven't done so already, COPYRIGHT THE IMAGES IMMEDIATELY.

 

Actually, you may be better off not having a contract in this case. Look at it this way-- you don't have a contract with them, but they don't have a contract with you, either. And if you are the undisputed creator of the images, then nobody has a signed piece of paper from you giving them the right to use the images.

 

It's still not too late to get a contract. Make one up, take it to them, and make them sign it. You are actually in a more powerful position now, as you own the images and it can be argued that they have no rights to them, since they have not paid you in the time promised-- indeed, they have not paid you at all. You can tell them to either sign or give back the images. It's cheaper for them to sign, as otherwise they'd have to line up a new photographer and get it done all over again.

 

Of course, they may agree to sign if they're about to go out of business and have no intention of paying you anyway, but at least this way you can try.

 

See my previous thread in this forum under "The all-inclusive invoice fee addenda." That should give you some ideas as to how to word things to avoid weasel activities by the client.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

You have to keep in mind that labs and photo stores have been going out of business lately at an incredible rate. For those types of retial establishments, the future does not look good at all.

 

I believe that labs must evolve a bit more. Some of them are adding on-line ordering, but they still make it a lot of work for photographers. I still have to handle the money, the client pays me and then I pay the lab.

 

I believe that the only way custom labs can survive is to evolve into what are basically marketing agencies for photographers. The photographer gets the shots, turns them in to the lab, and the lab corrects them and loads them on-line. The lab should also take responsibility for selling albums, etc.

 

This business model would be sustainable. A lab today is NOT going to survive letting other people make choices about who to choose for making the prints, it MUST be pro-active. I am getting incredibly frustrated about all the time I have to spend in front of the computer, and it is cutting down on my profitability. A lab can take charge of this totally-- not piece-meal, as they are currently-- and business-flow can increase.

 

Imagine if, instead of just taking in images and printing out what is necessary, the lab instead considers itself a hub around which a group of photographers operates, and markets their work. True, there would be some consideration regarding legal responsibilities, but I'm sure those can be overcome. The lab takes in all the money from sales, handles the credit card transactions, etc. I give them the digital images and give the look-up information to my clients, and then I get a check from the lab representing my cut of the print and image sales. I work less on the computer and more with my camera, the lab does more work and gets a much bigger cut. The lab advises me and in some ways actively helps me in outside marketing.

 

That's what a lab can do-- take all this damned digital operation out of my equation, and in return sell my work for a much greater percentage than they would otherwise make just selling me prints. Actively sell to my clients (at least the ones on the lower end, the weddings, social events, etc.). The key is for the lab to maintain control over as much of the process as possible, and to stop thinking of their role as merely a producer of printed images. -BC-

Candie-- The many respondents who said that the contrast range was too wide for ANY film or digital sensor to capture were probably right. Aside from your metering woes (which you are correct in addressing), there is another trick you might use to help the situation.

 

When you are shooting portraits like this one, you will have the opportunity to fill in the shadows with reflected light. Get a piece of FomeCor, or better yet buy a real reflector from a photo store, put it on the opposite side of the subject from the light source, and reflect some of the main light onto the shadows. This will cut down drastically on the contrast ratio, and may very well help a great deal.

 

The good thing about using reflectors to fill shadows rather than strobes is that you end up with a softer, natural look, and the ratio is pretty much "automatic". Plus your eye can see what the effect will be (though you will have to train your eye to see what the camera sees).

 

All the technical stuff aside, I would like to mention that photography is part alchemy, and a lot of times people who don't really know that much technically can be very successful. Back when I was starting out, I assisted for a lot of pros who weren't nearly as technically proficient as I was, but they had a certain approach that gave them a certain look. They did things out of habit that had no discernable affect on the image, but insisted were critical. I called it "voodo photography." Now, this stood them in good stead for a while, but every last one of them dropped out of photography within a few years, while the people who were very technically capable kept pumping out great images for decades, and were a lot happier in the profession in general.

 

So, don't be averse to keep on practicing whatever alchemy works for you, but do follow your instincts about getting up to speed technically.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Happy-- In a word, the answer is probably "no"-- unless you get permission. However, quite often permission for things like this is easily secured. See if you can trade for a certain number of prints or post cards.

 

For a calendar, my usual approach is to offer to put a promotional mention in it in exchange for the rights to use the image of the boat. It's good publicity for the boat, it retains their control over their image use (no one can come along later and say, "Hey, he took a picture of your boat and used it without permission, you can't sue me for the same thing"), and it has a synergistic action in that it promotes both of you. You could have a smaller shot of the kitchen staff and a mention of their menu or services and their phone number down in the lower page with the days.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Valerie-- Those were excellent suggestions from the previous respondent. However, there is one more factor that may come into play, depending on how strong your modeling lights are. If the lighting in the studio is weak, and you are using autofocus, you might not be giving your camera either the time or enough light to get a lock on your focus. Try holding down the button for a bit longer.

 

Another problem I had with one of my cameras (the D70) is that I accidentally shifted focus zones partway through a shoot, and it was trying to focus on the background.

 

It sounds from your post that you need to spend a lot more time working on learning the technology and the basics of technique. Expecially try putting everything on manual control, including the focus and especually the exposure time. The previous advice about making absolutely certain that your shutter is tripping faster than 1/60 sec was very important.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Phil-- It may still be possible to register the copyright to the images. You can copyright them as published works. Note that even if the copyright ends up being invalid, it can still be of benefit.

 

Think of it this way-- few people actually know about the vagaries of copyright (witness the questions on this forum, including your own). In fact, few lawyers outside of the arts specialists know much about them. If you register the copyrights, you can wave the paper in front of the miscreants face, and tell him that he now faces a massive fine if he doesn't pay up for the use and stops using the images.

 

From this he has a few lines of action. He can look up the information himself, and if he is no more legally literate than most people, he will see that you are indeed correct, that if the matter goes to court he very well might have to pay a $20,000 copyright violation fine. Or he might spend the money and get a lawyer. There is probably a 75% chance that any common lawyer he goes to wouldn't know that there is a possibililty that your copyright was registered outside the deadline (and it is possible that a judge might decide it wasn't, anyway).

 

So, what are the chances that your former customer will spend about the same money talking to a lawyer that he would spend paying you off? That's your decision tree, in a nutshell.

 

Also, if you had put a copyright notice on the original image and not just a credit line, note that there are additional penalties for removing it, EVEN IF THE COPYRIGHT WAS NOT REGISTERED..

 

As has been stated before on this forum, I am not a lawyer and this is not a definitive place to get legal advice, but that's my $0.02 USD. But my guess is that if you posture and raise enough rukus, you'll get your monetary due. Just be prepared to deal with some negative word-of-mouth fallout.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

RK-- This is the exact reason why most photographers consider it imperative that they register their work BEFORE it gets published. It is a massive PITA if you do it any other way. What you have to do now is actually much easier than it was a few years ago, when you couldn't register more than one published image at a time.

 

If you go the pre-publish route, you can copyright masses of images with one registration and no continuation forms. If you are simply uploading to a website, and time is not a consideration, then you can just take all the images you've taken over the past month and register them, and THEN you can publish them.

 

Personally, I will either do it every month, or wait until I have a time-critical news shoot to register copyrights. Although I will make exceptions for things I do for the community where there is little or no value to the image, nothing gets published without being copyrighted first.

 

However, there was one study done that compared the potential recoupment from copyright violations to the potential return if the money spent on copyrights were invested, if the copyrights were registered every week. Average recoupment on copyright violations was something in the neighborhood of $27,000, if memory serves, but return on investment was nearly $40,000.

 

But that's weekly, monthly may be another story, and it doesn't take into account the deterrent effect of copyright registration. IOW, you might be able to tell a copyright violator, "Cough up the proper fee, I've registered the copyrights and you face a $20,000 fine," and he says, "Damn, I'm busted, here's the fee!" That isn't included in the potential recoupment.

 

Happy shooting, and best of luck. -BC-

Lorin-- Start out with either White Lightning or Alien Bees. You won't have to "replace" them later. What you will most likely end up doing is using them to supplement any other high-end strobe equipment you get. You can ALWAYS make use of a little monobloc here or there to pop up a corner or act as a hair light, and if you reach a decent professional level the cost of your starter set will be less than what you'd earn on a half-day shoot, which is relatively negligible at that point.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Michel-- Kudos to your wife. Those are some amazing sculptures. When I saw the image on the home page, if it wasn't for the head I would have sworn I was looking at an image of a real human.

 

At any rate, because the pieces you are photographing are not all that big (though I didn't note the exact size), you don't have to worry about getting a big diffuser to create a soft enough light. Frankly, you might want to experiment with bouncing the flash up against a piece of white FomeCore. Another possibility would be to modify a plastic gallon milk bottle (don't know if you have those in the UK) by cutting out a hole for the flash to be inserted about an inch or so, and then setting the flash head at about a 45-degree angle. Some on this forum might advise you to line the inside top of the milk bottle with aluminum foil, and that might be beneficial. Gary Fong makes a product that has a similar effect, if you want to look it up to see what I'm talking about.

 

Another approach might be to get a common clamp-on floodlight with a reflector about 12 inches in diameter, and put a piece of diffusion material over it. I've used plain white paper in an emergency, but you might be playing with fire (literally). You can get heat-resistant diffusion material from a theatrical or lighting supply company. Rosco is a good brand name for that here in the states, and Tuff Rolux is the material that they sell for the purpose.

 

There is a modification to that floodlight approach which often renders outstanding results for objects 12 inches and smaller. You can cut out an opening just perfectly big enough to put the flash head through, and get a sync cord (perferably a TTL sync cord, but you can work with a simple PC cord) that will allow you to use the flash off-camera. I cut the opening as close to the bulb as I can, but that's still a couple inches at least from the socket. The flash points directly at the light bulb. The trick is to set up the light using the regular incandescent bulb to gauge the effect (as a modeling light in a studio flash system). Then when you get it just right, you put the flash into the hole and pop a picture. If you have the front covered with diffusion material, this works pretty good. Just don't leave your flash too near the incandescent lightbulb for any length of time, as it will melt the lens on the flash.

 

When using available light, you'll want to use either manual exposure control, or aperture-priority, and mount the camera to a sturdy tripod. Shoot in RAW mode so you can tweak the color balance later on. Also, it helps to use a tripod for that flash-in-the-floodlight trick, too.

 

Best of luck, and happy shooting. -BC-

Robear-- Two major things about using the commander mode instead of the dedicated sync cord for the SB800.

 

First, you are correct in postulating that you will get a much more reliable connection between the flash and the camera with the cord. If you have to hold the flash behind you, or, as often is necessary, up off to the side, the SB may or may not fire, most probably not.

 

Also, the SB800 has a built-in focus-assist light, with a much longer range than the one built into the camera. f you use the newer i-ttl cord, you will still have the advantage of that light, but if you use commander mode you won't.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Chad-- Back during the 1980's, I raced whitewater kayak slalom against the guys on the Olympic team who were headquartered here in Bethesda. They dominated the sport for ten years, and I photographed them often. Knowing the sport and the people involved was absolutely invaluable. Many times, I was able to make educated guesses as to where the judges would set up the gates, and then get to the course hours ahead of time to secure space on a strategic rock. The racers were happy to give me special access if I needed it.

 

The same was true when I photographed fencing, and I ended up with a cover and a national award.

 

However, keep in mind that I not only knew the sport, I knew photography. A lot of times I would choose positions that others didn't think were worthwhile, and end up with great shots. Sometimes it was because they isolated the subject, sometimes because it gave me great lighting, or some other factor came into play.

 

In short, it helps to know all you can about what you shoot, but in terms of knowing the sport or knowing photography, depending on how good a photographer you are it can cut either way.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

ZouZou-- And you also have to keep in mind that Pocket Wizards DO NOT come with PC sockets. You must get a PC/mini plug adapter if you are not able to use it with a hot shoe. Happy shooting, -BC-

Tyler-- Assuming that the print is of *archival* quality, it's not going to be all profit. Even if you have a suitable archival-quality printer, you're still going to spend quite a bit on ink and paper. Send it out to do a proper Light-Jet print, and you'll be spending even more. That's not to mention the effort it will take to process the orders-- you would not believe how much time that takes. Between filling, addressing, checking and double-checking and notating, it can take an entire day to get out 15 packages and deal with payments.

 

As I said, there are times I've cut prices as much as 50% on special runs. But I also keep in mind that there was one 11x14 B&W print by a favorite (and relatively unknown) photographer of mine that I bought for $275, and I considered it cheap at the time. Still do.

 

Go to an art supply store and get an archival ink pen to sign them with. The ink is more like paint, but it sticks well, doesn't seem to run the print, and dries almost instantly. It will even write on Plexiglass.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

Tyler-- Current starting price for unframed/unmounted, *archival-quality* prints is about $1/sq. in. If I am doing a large run of prints and want to have a sale, I may lower my prices, going no lower than about half that. If I have a print that is very popular, I may make a special run and double it. All my prints are signed.

 

I find it very inconvenient to sell prints smaller than 11x14, except under special circumstances.

 

If I am selling to a retail establishment for re-sale, the percentages are 70/30 if on commission (they don't pay unless it's sold, and I pick up all unsold pieces) and 55/45 if they buy it straight-out, minimum of ten pieces.

 

Mouted/framed pieces vary widely in price depending on the quality and cost of the mount. Mark it up 100% for profit.

 

Since custom woodworking is a hobby of mine, I often make custom frames for my pieces. It's not as easy as one may think, but once the system is in place the profit margin increases greatly.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

Dennis-- As the previous respondents have said, it depends on what you're going for. If you want to shoot with very soft light at f2.8, like a lot of the NYC headshot artists are doing, there is pretty much no system out there that can give you what you want without a lot of finagling. I managed to do it with two AB800's and an 11-foor-wide, custom-made baffle.

 

For a technical example, using an AB 800 bounced into a 72" umbrella, placed about three feet or so from the subject for maximum softness, I was still getting almost f5.6 at ISO 100. I was using a brand-new, highly efficient umbrella and the shallow pan umbrella reflector. YMMWV, especially if you use an old umbrella.

 

If you like lights very soft and depths-of-fields shallow, then even the weakest monolights might give you more than you want. But for shooting groups and standard headshots and the majority of what I need them for, the AB's can be dialed down to a sufficiently low power for all of those.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Cappy-- Because in order to really control your backgrounds, you need to be able to light your subject and your background separately. If you have your lights four feet away from your subject and your background only two or three feet behind your subject, then the background will get at most a stop less than the subject. You will have shadows, and even if you can avoid them there will be mucho light spill from the main lights.

 

If you want to be able to do a good job, a minimum throw of 20 feet is necessary. I suffered for several years with a studio that was 24' x 12' on the outside dimensions. Trust me, when you are doing full-length, your background set-up will take three to four feet. Your lights will take up three or four feet, minimum. That leaves four to six feet for your subject. He will need to be at least three feet away from the lights for proper effect in most cases. That leaves as little as one foot between your subject and the background.

 

Even if you just use the wall as a background, the equation is still not in your favor. And all that light bouncing inside a small room will easily find its way to the backdrop. Distance is the only way to properly control it.

 

And there is absolutely no way you can use a cyc in such cramped quarters, and many photographers consider those to be critical for full-length work.

 

Head and shoulders, maybe, but not properly and not creatively. And you won't be able to use long lenses to get the compression so desirable in today's headshot market, if you want to go for that.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

Bob-- Top shooters for this kind of work are getting $5k to $8k as day rates, but this is for the elite shooting for national companies. For local companies, it would probably be less than half that, if you are still going by day rates. That's for advertising, if all he wants is for construction records, etc. then that would go even lower still, perhaps $1250/day plus expenses.

 

Note that you should still maintain a very close control over the useage, and stipulate specific fees for uses above and beyond those which were originally specified.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

As well as Randy's advice, keep in mind that you will probably end up cutting out yourself and perhaps some other photographers from magazine or other publication work later on down the road. You can expect your images might be used in annual reports, magazine articles, websites, and etc, anything that can be used to promote the local area.

 

Now, this is a common thing with chambers and it's pretty much the way things work. However, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, day and half-day rates are obsolete and hourly rates are even beyond obsolete, except for perhaps some corporate party shoots.

 

This is NOT a situation where I would like to be paid by the hour, unless it was a very high hourly rate. You could take a hundred images in that hour which could be used in dozens of different ways.

 

Here are some suggestions for alternatives.

 

First, offer them only a certain number of selections/picks from the images. Have them tell you in advance what they want shown, and then shoot that, plus whatever else you think will look good. As a professional you owe it to your client to show them the best, but you don't have to give them everything. Just give them the "hero" images, and if they want more they have to pay more, as each image costs you time and money to tweak for use.

 

Second, charge by the image. If you go to a location and you get ten great shots, and you happen to think that $100/hr is a good rate (it's not), imagine what would happen if you charge them just $20 per image (a rip-off rate as far as you are concerned). You'd get paid $200 for that hour. Then what happens if you charge them that much for a year's use of the image? They're getting a huge bargain, already you're getting twice as much money, and you'll get paid again in a year.

 

How much would the business have to pay a professional photographer to come in and take advertising photos of their facilities? $1500? $3000? How much would they be charged for the use in ads? Will your photos be available to the businesses for use in advertising, or any other sort of promotion? Can you block that? Do you even want to?

 

Do they want just single images of each business, or lots of images? If they want a single image, then rent the image to them on a yearly basis. Charge a location fee and expenses. If you don't think you can get away with that, then charge an hourly fee. If I do charge an hourly fee, it's $250 for the first hour and $150 for each hour thereafter, plus $1 per image captured, $50 to burn a CD, and all expenses. These things cost you money and time and more importantly save the client money and time, they are worth something.

 

Another possibility is to not charge the client at all. Do the job for nothing in exchange for an exclusive arrangement with the Chamber. They promote you on their website and you charge them for any use of your images, including on their website. Upload your images to Digital Railroad or some other marketing utility, and then negotiate fees for use by anyone who wants to use them. This saves the Chamber money and will probably net you more in the long run, plus there are a lot of photographers out there who swear that you can make a lot more money selling images to a lot of people for less money (I'm not sure about that, but I'm not sure it isn't true, either).

 

As a neophyte, you'll probably be more comfortable charging by the hour. Note that studies show that it costs the average home-based businessperson a minimum of $55 per hour of billable time just to break even. I'd say $100 is a minimum that a decent photographer should charge. Get lots of promotion for your business in exchange for your low rates. Make sure you retain copyright of the material and that they know they are just getting specific use rights, and lay out exactly what those use rights are.

 

Lastly, look up a thread on this forum marked "The all-inclusive invoice fee addenda," and read it thoroughly. You might want to incorporate it into your business forms.

 

Best of luck. -BC-

Nathan-- Your inability to spell not withstanding, I personally believe that local blogs will play a critical role in the future of news dissemination.

 

However, your main challenges will not be linguistic as much as legal. You see, lawsuits against small, unfunded newsoutlts are the one tool that big news orgainzations can use to keep their stranglehold on the public. If you make even the slightest mistake-- or even if you don't make a mistake and someone decides you should be sued-- you can quickly rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Big newsgathering organizations have the funds with which to fight off these onslaughts, little guys don't.

 

Read well and extensively on the legalities of what you can safely publish and what you can't. Get a good libel manual and read it several times, cover to cover.

 

And when you find that there are some things in it that are vague, and others that seem to contradict each other, don't be surprised. Know this and know it well-- ON ANY GIVEN DAY, THE LAW SAYS WHAT A JUDGE SAYS IT SAYS. PERIOD.

 

Then, if you still have the balls to go into this venture, the very best of luck to you. Just remember to incorporate to protect yourself and your family and your home from moneygrubbing lawyers. -BC-

 

P.S.-- I'm sure that the decent, hard-working legal eagles who selflessly contribute their sage wisdom to this forum don't fall into the "moneygrubbing" category.

As somebody who's shot tons of weddings, I offer a couple of possibilities.

 

One, there was a guest's flash that went off at the exact same time as the photographer opened his shutter. The respondent who said it happens from time to time is correct. I can count on this happening at least once a wedding. It is far more likely to happen if the photographer is using a longer shutter speed, which is very common when trying to take a shot using available light.

 

Two, either intentionally or un-intentionally, the photographer had a flash downstairs that was radio-slaved to his camera. He was shooting from the balcony.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Michelle-- One of the major factors you have to take into account is modeling lights. The Alien Bees have modeling lights that will in most (sufficiently kind of dark) circumstances enable you to see with your eyes a reasonable facsimile of what the flash will give you when it goes off.

 

Using the display of the digital cameras will substitute for this somewhat, but then you will still find modeling lights very helpful. I also have several SB 800's, with D2x's and D70's for backup. Along with big, generator-pack studio lights, I have a few Alien Bee 800's. Those Bees are finding a lot of use lately, especially on location portrait jobs where quick set-up is required.

 

While my friends in the ASMP tell me I may have been among the first photographers in the DC area to figure out how to use the D70/SB-800 combo in Commander Mode, I find it a whole lot easier to set up the AB's and go fully manual. You'll have a lot more power and no battery hassles, with a virtually unlimited number of flash pops available--and tons more control.

 

My guess is, if you go the SB-800 route for a while, and then get the Alien Bees, you'll think to yourself, "Why did I make myself suffer like that for so long?"

 

And if you have the time to set up with an umbrella and etc., you probably won't need to bother with the Commander Mode anyway. Just set the flashes on manual. This will keep the camera from re-figuring the exposure every time you move the model's head to a different place in the frame. You want problems? Take a picture of a blond against a dark background while letting the camera determine the exposure. Move the view slightly, and the camera will try to re-interpret the exposure. Take a series of 20 pictures in Commander Mode/TTL and many of them will be all over the map, exposure-wise. That can mean HOURS of painfully correcting the exposures by hand in PhotoShop if you are working at a level that requires professional consistency. It's far, far easier to use a proper, consistent manual exposure.

 

Taking a bunch of executive portraits where people show up in different types of clothes, some dark, some light, all different colors, can make it even worse.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

Johsua-- The infinity table will work-- somewhat. However, you need to realise that expertly achieving some "floating product" effects, there is a whole lot more to it than just a light from under the table.

 

While PhotoShop has made some of these techniques easier to render electronically, in the days of film (and still now, if one wants to do it well), it is often necessary to shoot more than one exposure to get the correct effect. First, you carefully cover the table with black cloth to keep reflections off of it (use photoblack velvet, carefully cut out around the product). Then you take the exposure of the product. Then you very, very carefully remove the black cloth, and take another exposure of the lights coming up from under the table.

 

If you want to build a cheap table, go to a plastics supply warehouse (there are usually several in any metropolitan area, check the phone books) and get a sheet of translucent plastic. Then borrow a heat gun and bend down the front of the plastic sheet in an arc about four inches in diameter.

 

Setting it up to work as an infinity table is no easy task. You will have to somehow clamp it on the edges while leaving the central area completely free of obstructions, and clamp the back up in a cyc. When I made mine, I had a warehouse to work in, and a bunch of old metal shelves, woodworking equipment and scraps, etc. That was ten years ago, and I made it because I needed something just a tad bigger than the commercial product table that my partner already had, it was a Saturday, and the shot needed to be done by Sunday night. It worked, but it was a royal pain to set up and use.

 

If you're a handy tyro who has more time than money, this may be the way to go. Also, pick up a copy of the publication, "Global Notes," which has massive amounts of info on how to achieve great effects in the studio. They may be out of print, but I think you can pick some up used online if you Google it.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

The camera clubs I've spoken for always try to give me an honorarium of about $25-$50, which it is customary to try to refuse. There have only been a couple of times when I've been talked into taking it. -BC-

Ben-- Well, as a user you don't obtain a "copyright," at least not in the sense you are talking about it. You would obtain limited rights to use the music, and of course the copyright holder would retain the actual copyright.

 

There are two ways to go about finding out what you need to know. First, you want to look up the publisher of the song you would like to use. That is the most expedient way. They are the entities who administrate the use rights to songs, but they might only come into play if you are thinking about recording a version of the song as performed by you or someone you hire.

 

The record company would be the entity you need to contact about using the recording that some major artist recorded.

 

However, note that in most cases you will either be working with a massive conglomerate that considers you to be a small customer that they will probably lose money on (it will take more to administrate than they will make off of you), or you will be working with a tiny publishing house created by the musician that wrote the song, and he'll be too busy recording and writing and performing to bother with you.

 

The publisher and the record company should be listed on any of the copies of the song that you legitimatly purchase. If not, you should be able to obtain the publisher info from one of the two major artists rights groups in the U.S., either ASCAP or BMI or SESAC. The Harry Fox organization is also involved in most things (though few people canfigure out what it does). Those organizations have databases that can be searched to find out what you want.

 

BUT, you will probably need to get separate permissions to use the song itself (from the songwriter's copyright) and to use the recording of the song (from the performer's copyright). They are two different things Note that, especially if you end up trying to work your way through the miasma of the larger organizations, this can take weeks of waiting and hours of work.

 

This is why many people simply give up and find a local musician who can quickly turn out some original ditty for about the same money you would have paid in the first place, and for much less hassle.

 

Best of luck. -BC-