Advice for Shooting Race Events

I just shot my first real race event yesterday and I am curious as to what the average amount of images one photographer should shoot for a race event. This event I shot had a little over 2,000 participants, 3 races: a 1 Mile walk, a 5k and then a kids dash which all 3 I shot. I shot at 4 different locations/spots, start, half mile, just after the first mile and then the finish. I come home and I notice that I've shot around 1,600 images and I was unsure if that is a lot or a good amount. I made sure to get everyone at the finish, either in groups or individuals. Any advice would be greatly appreciated..

The number shouldn't matter, it's the quality. I know a married couple who did one of those mud events, they found their photos and wanted to buy them. They really did, but the quality just wasn't there, so opportunity missed.

True, quality if definitely important though I've noticed a few photographer's work at these events aren't exactly high quality but they don't really do it for money. I was just concerned, though I was told to get as many people finishing as I could, and to make sure their bib numbers were easy to see so they could be tagged, that is what I made sure to do.

If you're shooting for someone else and they want one of everybody and you're at 80%. Then I'd say you've done your job.

Number of images is one thing but if are doing this for sales the number of bib numbers is the one you want to maximize if you are making the images searchable by bib. I doubt a lot of people will go through 1,600 images to find a couple of them.

As for quality vs quantity, some people will buy images of them no matter what they look like (sad but true) and some will never buy images even if they are amazing. You have to find a middle ground to maximize your sales.

Thank you both.

If you were shooting for me, you would be a little short. With 2,000 people you want about 4,000 shots at a minimum. Ideally that would be one look with two photos or two looks with one photo each. I like my team to shoot two shots each time they see a runner (one full length and one waist up). I do not have time to crop each photo so they must also be consistent so there is no cropping needed. At finish I want two shots of each person crossing with a remote camera overhead shooting wide (entire finish line). It may seem like overkill but with someone having on average 4/5 photos at each race lends to more sale of higher priced items like PhotoCD's which contain all their photos digitally.

ZXDrew wrote in post #16039466
If you were shooting for me, you would be a little short. With 2,000 people you want about 4,000 shots at a minimum. Ideally that would be one look with two photos or two looks with one photo each. I like my team to shoot two shots each time they see a runner (one full length and one waist up). I do not have time to crop each photo so they must also be consistent so there is no cropping needed. At finish I want two shots of each person crossing with a remote camera overhead shooting wide (entire finish line). It may seem like overkill but with someone having on average 4/5 photos at each race lends to more sale of higher priced items like PhotoCD's which contain all their photos digitally.

I agree and would love to have those options someday, and going through the images I've noticed a lot of people does have 2-4 images with them in it but a lot of them are grouped together, especially near the end of the race. I'm going to have to double check just how many participants were there.

If you are intending to generate revenues from your shoots, shoot as much as possible. You obvious should get all athletes.

Thanks.

Are many people going to weed through 4,000 spray and pray shots, that all look alike, looking for themselves?

"Oh, but you sort them by bib number!"

Yeah, but that's a registered method and is going to cost you to do that.

Biffbradford wrote in post #16064211
Are many people going to weed through 4,000 spray and pray shots, that all look alike, looking for themselves?

"Oh, but you sort them by bib number!"

Yeah, but that's a registered method and is going to cost you to do that.

I currently use a company which offers the sorting ability for free. They also fulfill orders and process payments for a small fee. Works pretty good for me.

Backprint.com

Biffbradford wrote in post #16064211
"Oh, but you sort them by bib number!"

Yeah, but that's a registered method and is going to cost you to do that.

Really? Registered by who? Its a simple thing to do, if a little time consuming

Photocrazy has a patent on that process. Now, the latest of these articles are 3 years old, but I think it still applies:

http://www.sportsshoot​er.com …ge_display.html​?tid=35234

http://www.sportsshoot​er.com …ge_display.html​?tid=28052

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/62164​2

So this Peter Wolf is going to start suing photographers the world over is he?

I spent about 30 seconds reading his patent application, saw that it is crap and closed it down.

He hasnt got a prayer of enforcing that