Workflow for charity ball photos?

[wibbly]

I plan to take pictures at a charity ball of people in their best ‘frocks’ and sell them on the night.

I have:

20D + 24-70L + 420EX + XP laptop

I expect to acquire (borrow or have bought):

- Tripod
- Backdrop
- Some misc extra lights (??)
- Canon “Selphy” dye-sub printer (does ~6x4’s in about 80secs)
- A helper

The idea is

- Build a makeshift photo area (‘studio’ would be too strong a term)
- Check white balance, exposure etc (prob. use manual mode) ahead of time best I can so prints don’t need to be tweaked. May use up to ISO 400 or 800, as it noise won’t be seen at 6x4 (or larger, later) and I should be able to get fast enough shutter speed at F5.6+ to use flash for better fill effect.
- Tether camera and printer to PC with USB cables.
- Use EOS capture (see below)

Then:

- I take a couple of pictures of each person/group
- While I line up the next photo’s, helper shows pictures on the PC, and buyer chosses which one they want printed
- We sell print in a simple card frame

Questions are:

- Does this sound workable?
- Is EOS Capture a good idea for this?
- Is it better just to browse CF card in the camera (via WIA drivers) and use Windows default viewer to review and then print? Can I do this and expect to take more pictures at the same time?

[Neens_wa]

I just returned from a fuji workflow seminar on monday. they chatted at length about event photog, and setting up.

Your flow is fab, matches theirs entirely - however, from what I learned monday it would be best if you rent yourself a good light meter and good lights. This way, you've got it set up, stick them in front of the camera and shoot, move 'em out and shoot the next ones....
The Shootsmarter.com folks presenting had used the FUJI equivalent of what I guess is canon's capture software (never use it...never seen it... haha), and used three lights. Hard light, a soft box overhead, and a back light (I think it was a softbox overhead with the grid on it). They showed the images on the screen for selection.

You know, you should put a sticker on the back of the photo with the filename of their image, and your website address so if they really llike the picture, they could later on follow up with more orders (ahem $$$$$$$$ if you're gonna do this, plan on doing it for bigger bucks, don't sell yourself short!).

You've got it going - rent some good lighting equipment, and make sure you have a nice glassine envelope or something to put their print in so it's safe. The bags are cheap, small price to pay and shows thought and consideration. ;o)

I think your setup sounds perfect, and will do great. I hope you make a killing! ;o)

neens

[DaveG]

I plan to take pictures at a charity ball of people in their best ‘frocks’ and sell them on the night.

I have:

20D + 24-70L + 420EX + XP laptop

I expect to acquire (borrow or have bought):

- Tripod
- Backdrop
- Some misc extra lights (??)
- Canon “Selphy” dye-sub printer (does ~6x4’s in about 80secs)
- A helper

The idea is

- Build a makeshift photo area (‘studio’ would be too strong a term)
- Check white balance, exposure etc (prob. use manual mode) ahead of time best I can so prints don’t need to be tweaked. May use up to ISO 400 or 800, as it noise won’t be seen at 6x4 (or larger, later) and I should be able to get fast enough shutter speed at F5.6+ to use flash for better fill effect.
- Tether camera and printer to PC with USB cables.
- Use EOS capture (see below)

Then:

- I take a couple of pictures of each person/group
- While I line up the next photo’s, helper shows pictures on the PC, and buyer chosses which one they want printed
- We sell print in a simple card frame

Questions are:

- Does this sound workable?
- Is EOS Capture a good idea for this?
- Is it better just to browse CF card in the camera (via WIA drivers) and use Windows default viewer to review and then print? Can I do this and expect to take more pictures at the same time?


I do something similar to this for a corporate client, but the individuals don't pay and I don't deliver the product until the next week.

In any case I would suggest that you rent or buy a monolight and an umbrella. A flash meter would be nice but with a digital camera you can use the histogram to nail down the exposure. The thing is that you are going to be going all night and I'd just want to be able to plug things into the wall and not worry about power problems. I use the one monolight on a stand with the light bounced into an umbrella. It's not ratioed lighting and it could be better, but it's a lot better than what a camera mounted flash would give me. The modeling light also helps me focus although that's increasingly less important. With the power of even a small monolight I can easily use ISO 100, and that's a good thing.

My strobes have built in slaves so I use an old 35mm film container that I duct tape over the slave. There almost certainly will be other cameras with flash in the room and you don't want your strobes firing when THEY shoot!

I really like to use tripods. 95% of my wedding images are done from a tripod. But I don't like to use one here. The situation is too fluid. You're only going to take two or maybe three shots of each subject and they'll be big, small, round, and so forth and you'll spend most of your night raising and lowering the tripod. I use a nice long synch cord that I have plugged into my camera. It makes the workflow much more efficient. Assuming that you end up shooting with a "normal" type focal length you are getting the equivalent of at least 1/700 shutterspeed, you shouldn't be dragging the shutter (why would you?), and they aren't moving. So working without a tripod - in this situation - will be just fine.

I'd be nervous about the umbilical from the camera to the the computer. If I did that I absolutely would use a tripod. My fear is that someone is going to trip over a cable and pull either the notebook or the camera to the ground. Some of these people will be drunk - count on it - and you have to take that into account.

I'd be more inclined to use CF cards. I'd shoot a few subjects, take it out of the camera and hand it off to the assitant who will upload it to the computer. They will select one and have it printed off. That eliminates the umbilical.

Note that I said that I would NOT give the subject any choice in the matter. This is not Karsh portraiture. It's down and dirty and you'll slow down your workflow too much. "Oh I can't decide. My mother is in the washroom. Leave it on the screen and she'll be out in in 20 minutes." How do you deal with that?

You assistant is saying: Which of the three do I like? This one. Print.

Of course everything should be prepaid and a small form you've prepared filled out. Name, phone number. You can glance at the file number from the review screen on you camera, write it on the form so your assistant can attach the form to the prints. Some people will pay, have the shot done and then not pick them up. Drunk or rushing off to see the sick kid, you'll have some left at the end of the night and it'd be nice to know whose they are.

A friend who does a lot of this type of shooting pointed out that the largest expected print size is going to be 4x6 or maybe 5x7. As much as I like RAW or even the large jpeg, there's really no reason to shoot with files that large. Do some experimenting but I bet a medium level jpeg will do just fine. There will be a lot more room on your card and the images will upload much more quickly.

[wibbly]

Thanks. With the printer does 1 print per 80sec, suppose each 'transaction' (inc taking of photo) takes 5 mins in total. If we were going flat out for 5hrs (unlikely) that would only be 60 printed photos. We're going to have to be very careful on costs (eg renting anything) if we're to make any money at all. I'm doing it for free for the charity. We thinking of charging £4 or £5 per photo... Maybe we'll getter a better return charging more and expecting less people to take it up...

Someone also mentioned to me that the camera battery may not last too long if it's 100% supporting a USB connection. Anyone got any experience of this?

W