Cost of Taking a Picture

[pyterps]

I have no idea how to quantify how much it cost each time I press the shutter button so I'm hoping someone on the forum chould help me out.

Camera: 1DMKIIN

I take gymnastic pictures with a guy that has two hourly rates. One with his gear and one with mine. The difference is $2 and hour.

I was thinking that the cost would be around 2-3 cents a picture and I was wondering if this sounds right. And for us to take 1000 pictures and hour would not be out of the questions so I was looking at $20-$30 ware and tear on the camera for every 1000 images.

With those numbers one would be crazey to use their own equipment.

Please help me out here to see if my logic is correct.

Dave

[Longwatcher]

Some figures I use as a basis:
These are not actual cost but I got to make a profit at some point. And my math is frequently bad.

Divide cost of camera by shutter life ( I think 1DM2 is 200,000 shutter activations) this is cost per frame for camera. I have 1DsMkII so 8000/200,000=$0.04 per shot.

Lens is $1500 average call it the same life expectacy so about 0.01 per shot

Divide expected life of CF card (I think it is estimated at like 1000 read/write sessions) times number of images that ca fit on card. I use Sandisk Ultra II 2GB cards that hold 100 images on average at $250 (what I paid at time) = $.0004 per image

DVD and HD storage. I get 350 images on DVD-R (at a $1 including jewel case = 0.0028 per image) and a lot on a 250Gb hard drive about 0.01 per image.

Computer, software and electricity are fuzzier numbers. I just figure on 0.01 per image

So my total for equipment is $0.0732 or round up a bit to about 8 cents an image. I take about 350 per hour on average, so about $28 per hour for equipment (not counting studio lights). I figure in reality I will probably get about double that out of everything (except DVD and HD). I note that if shooting for pay I tnd to shoot a bit slower so about $15 per hour to cover equipment. With a 1Dm2 your equipment costs should be significantly less.

Hope that helps,

[pyterps]

Longwatcher....

Thanks for all the information and you have broken things down a whole lot more than me. The only thing that gets me confussed is I know that the MKII has way more life than 200,000 and after this if the shutter needs to be replaced it will only cost around $500 so do you still figure the total cost of the equipment? With our numbers we are figuring that we will replace the camera after 200,000 shots.

I do agree with the numbers and will never use my equipment when I shoot sports with this guy.

Thanks again for the info.

Anyone else have numbers like this?

Dave

[TeeJay]

The only thing I can confirm (without spending a lot of time on the math) is that I am pretty sure that Longwatcher is correct with the life-expectancy of the shutter on this camera is 200,000 actuations.

[Longwatcher]

Note: I recognize that the shutter can be replaced after it fails for relatively little money. However for planning purposes that is what I use as the camera is likely to start having other problems after that point requireing it to be turned in more often. So I use that as the replacement expectation point. I actually figure I will get two shutter replacements out of the camera before it HAS to be replaced, but there is inflation to figure in for the replacement camera as well as profit and misc unexpected costs, so using the shutter life is a good practical line to set for expense setting.

If I shot enough that the shutter is likely to go out in less then a year (I only shot about 40,000 images last year so I have about a 5 year life for the camera); then I might adjust the cost per shot as the other components are not as likely to fail, but if I am shooting that much then I can probably charge more anyway.

And I just confirmed, I remembered right 200,000 shutter cycles (from Canon USA web site)

[Phil V]

WAAAAY too much thought, if you're running a business, count all business machinery as expired after 3 years (that's the usual depreciation for UK taxes). If the gear will need maintenance during that time, add that in.

To break that down to a job would be dependant on the number of jobs you do. Basically when you're calculating your own costs, you need to divide your depreciation by the number of jobs and then include that within your other fixed costs (insurance, rent, bank charges, accountancy etc.).

And if you're not being compensated enough for the other guy to use your gear, it's because you never calculated this in the first place. So where did these figures come from? They should have been calculated and agreed, not just guessed.

[Jon Foster]

Another cool thread I'll have to keep in mind. Thanks for the input everyone.

Jon.

[chtgrubbs]

I agree with Phil. You should depreciate it according to a time schedule, since you will probably be replacing it with the newest model in 2-3 years. Most digital equipment becomes obsolete before it wears out. Plus, you need to figure a return-on-investment (ROI to accountants). This means you could have just taken the money and invested it in stocks instead of depreciating capital equipment. Figure an additional 15% per year for ROI.

[DocFrankenstein]

My amateur calcualtions yielded about a dollar per picture.

I have about 6 grand in equipment
It depreciates at 30% per year
My time is worth 15 bucks an hour (I'm a student)
I can make 30 good images per hour (very unrealistic)

It's an expensive hobby!