Asked to shoot Friday night football

[huntersdad]

I have been asked to become the official, and only, photographer for a local high school (came abut through a LL basebal tourney I shot a couple weeks ago). 12 games starting in 2 weeks plus team and individuals. The team is pretty loaded this year and expectations are very high.

All sounds good, but I am questioning a couples things:

1) My gear is in my sig. While I think I am up-to-par for the gear, would be nice if someone could verify it for me or make suggestions. 50-150 is = to roughly to a 70-200 on FF and very close to a 70-200 on 1.3x.

2) The football team has a dedicated website - it's where all the parents go for info on practice schedules, game schedules and so on. The organizer wants me to present him with a weekly disc of images (all watermarked) and they would be uploaded to the website. To purchase, parents would be directed to my website and all monies would go to me. Entrance to the games would be covered as would drinks, but no upfront pay. I am a little worried about this as it means for several weeks I am away from the family on Friday night (although , I guess they could go to the games since my daughter will eventually be going there).

For you guys that do this, am I up to par gear-wise and have you found that your efforts pay off at the end of the year? If any of you do this, could you give me some tips on pricing or PM me how you handle pricing?

[Thomas Campbell]

Your sig has a 120-300. I would use that over a 50-150 without question.

It all depends on what you want to do with it. If you are looking to make real money at it, giving a watermarked disc probably isn't going to help much. I've found that kids don't care about the watermark and will crop it off or just post it on their FB with it. I've even seen people try to print low-res watermarked prints and frame them. No matter how good your shots are, I am not real sure you are going to see print sales to make up the time lost doing it. If you want to do it for fun and your son is on the team that is one thing.

If you want to make money at it, the best way is in person sales. That means you have:
1. Card Runner
2. Someone editing/printing
3. You shooting.

Have a table at the game with pics from the game printed out and sell them for what you want. At the second game, you can have the game 1 pics there before the game. But once the pics are online, you are fighting a losing battle.

[jhowdy]

I have very similar equip and unless you have a really rare high school stadium as far as lighting is concerned, your image quality is going to drop way off from what you are accustom to by looking at your website. Are you planning on using flash? That is an option, but of course takes time to master with sports photography, but some don't care for that flash look. Is there any chance the team will have any practices prior to the season on the field under similar lighting situations as their games to allow you to make an assessment? FWIW, the fields our team play on require me to shoot at ISO6400 to get the shutter speed up to freeze the action and then some serious work on the images in post to clean and/or brighten them, but my don't clean up to be sellable. Mid field is usually okay on the near sideline, but most end zones are very dark and generally the light falls off notably starting at the 40's. The color can be horrible depending on the type of lights too. Firing off a burst can produce a rainbow of colors between images. The light cycling makes the WB issues as bad as the grain from high ISO. Just my opinion, if I was selling, I wouldn't do it without a 1D and a 300 f/2.8 This is an image from our spring game shooting wide open trying to get everything I can from a 7D and a 70-200.

[huntersdad]

Originally Posted by jhowdy

I have very similar equip and unless you have a really rare high school stadium as far as lighting is concerned, your image quality is going to drop way off from what you are accustom to by looking at your website. Are you planning on using flash? That is an option, but of course takes time to master with sports photography, but some don't care for that flash look. Is there any chance the team will have any practices prior to the season on the field under similar lighting situations as their games to allow you to make an assessment? FWIW, the fields our team play on require me to shoot at ISO6400 to get the shutter speed up to freeze the action and then some serious work on the images in post to clean and/or brighten them, but my don't clean up to be sellable. Mid field is usually okay on the near sideline, but most end zones are very dark and generally the light falls off notably starting at the 40's. The color can be horrible depending on the type of lights too. Firing off a burst can produce a rainbow of colors between images. The light cycling makes the WB issues as bad as the grain from high ISO. Just my opinion, if I was selling, I wouldn't do it without a 1D and a 300 f/2.8

J, That I am aware of, they won't have any under the lights practices (which I thought was a little crazy). So, while I can see the field and the light position during the day, I don't think I am going to be able to do any testing. Being that I haven't been around football in a few years, I know most of the local venues have made lighting changes over the last few years. Whether that is an upgrade or catch up, I cannot speak too.

I've thought about the 1d upgrade, but tough to justify without any monies upfront and based on the parents wanting pictures. I'd be OK with using flash, but would prefer not to.

I am considering going back to him with a counteroffer for some upfront monies and then paying back a portion of the monies based on my proceeds (kind like $1500 upfront and then 50% net sales back to the school up to $1500). Not sure they are gonna go for that.

I do now for fact that they have talked with at least 3 other photographers who have turned them down due to the restrictions and, with the first game in a little over 2 weeks, they are n a crunch.

[huntersdad]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

Your sig has a 120-300. I would use that over a 50-150 without question.

If you want to make money at it, the best way is in person sales. That means you have:
1. Card Runner
2. Someone editing/printing
3. You shooting.

Have a table at the game with pics from the game printed out and sell them for what you want. At the second game, you can have the game 1 pics there before the game. But once the pics are online, you are fighting a losing battle.

To do this, I would have to hire a staff and that for sure is not gonna happen since there is no upfront money. I don't know anyone who does photogrpahy who's editing capabilities I would trust enough to edit a picture and then put my name on it.

[Thomas Campbell]

Originally Posted by huntersdad

To do this, I would have to hire a staff and that for sure is not gonna happen since there is no upfront money. I don't know anyone who does photogrpahy who's editing capabilities I would trust enough to edit a picture and then put my name on it.

Yeah, it raises your overhead considerably and makes everything more complicated.

But the important part is to not get the pics online before you can get prints in the hands of parents. Maybe you just bust your ass, print a ton at Costco, sell previous weeks pics at each game and promise them 2-3 pics of your choice online each week, plus a year end-slideshow. Again, upfront cost of printing, but Costco does a pretty good job and is fairly inexpensive.

[C.david]

That's about the best idea...I call them 'cigarette prints', pricing them around the cost of a carton of smokes. Folks will get us to seeing you with you satchel and approach you, kinda the instant gratification syndrome.
I am trying this process this season with my Pop Warner and High School games.

C.

[Gatorboy]

Sounds like a losing proposition.

I would NOT hand over any images on disk. Their website can send the parents to your site without them having any images.

By the end of the season you will have had enough. Hours upon hours of work for a few hundred bucks. You would probably make more money delivering pizza on Friday nights than trying to sell football prints to parents.

[RSB]

Originally Posted by Gatorboy

Sounds like a losing proposition.

I would NOT hand over any images on disk. Their website can send the parents to your site without them having any images.

By the end of the season you will have had enough. Hours upon hours of work for a few hundred bucks. You would probably make more money delivering pizza on Friday nights than trying to sell football prints to parents.

I was hoping someone would point out the cold, hard truth. If you want to shoot these 12 games for experience, or practice, or for the love of the game, it's a great opportunity. Figure 7-8 hours per game to prep, drive to and from, shoot, download, edit and upload, maybe 100 total hours, or 2 and a half work weeks over the season. Difficult to predict sales for your particular team, but $400-$1000 for the entire season is probably a good guess. So, between $4-$10 an hour in gross sales for your efforts. The 3 other photographers who turned this down, did so for good reason.

[whuband]

I shoot for the local newspaper as a "community photographer". I was a staff photographer there many years ago, and I do this because I like to do it. Shooting gets me into all levels of ball games, concerts and other events. That being said, my deal is that I get paid a fee to go shoot a game, and it's the same amount for HS, college or NFL. Believe me, HS is much, much easier.The paper hosts the photos on their web site and handles all the fulfillment, so once I upload, I'm done with it. We split sales revenue, so I get a check every month for the photos sold.

That being said, I make more money shooting fans and cheerleaders than I do from the game shots. Big games such as homecoming or senior night do better, but don't expect to make much money. You have to do it for fun. It does, however, lead to other jobs which are far more lucrative than the ball game.

[bobbyz]

maybe some money in T&I. I would do it for fun.

[huntersdad]

Thanks for all the insight guys. After some consideration, I'm going to offer to do their T&I pictures and cover their homes games. Pictures will posted on my website and ordered from there. The booster club will be given a link to the pictures - not the pictures themselves. They will be giving me a free ad in the weekly program and mentioning the website at the games.

We'll see how it goes. Be a good learning exercise anyway.

[jra]

When it comes to making money, you really don't need to shoot more than a single game (maybe two).....after that, the people that would buy have bought and sales on additional games will dwindle down to nothing. You'll find yourself spending hours to sell $10 worth of goods if you're lucky.

[JPR Images]

I hope your season turned out well. Your equipment in your signature will serve you very well for HS football. After trying out the 5DM3 I ended up selling my 1DM3 & 4, canceled my 1DX and now shoot with 2 - 5DM3 with battery grips. If I could only use one lens for HS football it would be the 400mm f2.8. I always have something shorter like the 70-200 or even the 24-70 but the 400mm is my go to lens. Using the 5DM3 under the HS lights I usually shoot underexposed by -2/3 to -1 stop to expose correctly. Here is just one sample

Settings: Camera model:Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Focal length:400 mm
Max lens aperture:f/2.8
Exposure:1/1600 at f/2.8
Flash:Not fired, compulsory mode
Exposure bias:-2/3 EV
Exposure mode:Auto
Exposure prog.:Aperture priority
ISO speed:ISO 4000
Metering mode:Pattern