The Business of Studio Photography: How to Start and Run a Successful Photography Studio

By Edward R. Lilley

The Business of Studio Photography is packed with proven strategies for starting a new studio or improving an existing oneand now this classic book has been thoroughly updated and revised for the new digital-imaging era. Expert advice on every aspect of running a studio is featured: location, financing, equipment, digital shooting, proofing, and ordering; marketing, Web advertising, public relations and self-promotion; pricing, negotiating with labs, selling to the wedding, portrait, school, commercial, and art photography markets; digital imaging, business plans, and more. Equipment checklists and sample business forms, plus full resource lists for websites, magazines, and books are included. The Business of Studio Photography is the complete one-stop guide to opening and running a successful photography studio.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allworth
• Release date: Jan 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781581159493

Book preview

PREFACE

This book is dedicated to those people who have chosen to make studio photography their full-time occupation. This is not to dismiss part-time photographers as insignificant, but my major concern is with those photographers who have risked everything they own on their new profession. You know who you are, and you know what the cost of failure is. If you only want to be in the business part-time, there is still plenty of information for you to absorb in these pages.

The two major assumptions I am going to make at the beginning of this book are (1) that you want to be successful and (2) that you want to make a good living doing what you love to do: photography. If you want to fail, you don't need to read any further! If you want to stay poor, save your money and don't buy this book.

The famous military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz wrote, Many assume that half efforts can be effective. A small jump is easier than a large one, but no one wishing to cross a wide ditch would cross half of it first. It is a hard fact of business life that if you can't focus all of your energy into your business, you stand a high chance of failure. If you have to devote energy to a second job to ensure an income, you'll be stealing time from your new business, which is courting failure.

To quote Bruce Williams (a talk-radio host who focuses on business) in his book, In Business for Yourself, The current estimate of failed businesses is 400,000 annually in the US. These businesses failed for a lot of different reasons, but let me point out the one that is seldom mentioned: lack of commitment. They failed because when the going becomes tough, the part-time business is exposed for what it really is—a hobby. In this book I am going to assume that when the going gets rough, you will want to buckle down and make your business work, not quit and go back to your old job.

I also want to stress that the information contained in the following chapters is aimed at the new studio business. More established studio owners may find fault with some of the approaches to business contained herein, and they might debate the details. That is okay. These ideas will work for you newbies, and hopefully you will outgrow them.

INTRODUCTION

Iwrote the first edition of this book because I saw a huge gap in the materials available to new studio photographers to read about being in business. There are tons of books and tapes on photographic technique and on sales/marketing techniques, but there is very little about starting a new business. Helping you start your new business with the fewest bruises and the least amount of wasted energy is what this book is all about.

The important thing you need to know about my background is that I was almost entirely self-taught in photography up until the time I decided to go into full-time studio photography. I opened my first business right after I quit graduate school (about six months short of finishing my PhD in space physics). My wife, Sue, and I, with our one-year-old son Hayes, left the ivory tower for the reality of business. I thought I knew a lot about photography and had an extra-strong dose of self-confidence. Our first business was a flop. To put food on the table, I worked in a camera store, where I learned about business and selling. I also met some potential customers in the wedding and portrait areas.

On March 15, 1974, Sue (carrying our second son, Bryce) and I borrowed three thousand dollars from a bank and opened up E. R. Lilley Photography in an old hardware store on a main business street in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada—a town of about 50,000. I opened a photography studio without ever having been in a proper professional studio before, and that was a mistake. Luckily, in Lethbridge the other studios were wise enough to realize that a sincere effort by a floundering newcomer could hurt their businesses. They helped me to get on track through local, provincial, and national professional associations. I attended every seminar, convention, and workshop I could to learn techniques and business skills. Sue learned finishing, retouching, and selling and became a vital part of our business.

As we are originally from New England, Sue and I eventually grew homesick. In late 1978, we sold our by-then-very-successful studio, packed the three boys (Wyeth was one year old) into the station wagon, and headed east to beautiful Cape Cod. The cost of our new home and an unanticipated delay in the sale of our Canadian house left us with almost no money to finance the new studio in this totally different market. That was a tough year, but we made it work. We made a decent profit and started growing. By 1986, I had been elected president of the Professional Photographers Association of New England, president of our local business group, and appointed to the most powerful committee in the town government.

In 1987, we decided to build our dream studio and invested $250,000 in a new building attached to our home. Relying on my usually highly tuned sense of economic timing, we chose to build at the peak of the real estate market. The nineties mini-crash followed and life got interesting for a while. In 1990, I finished the first edition of this book after four years of off-and-on work. The responses to the first edition were wonderful, so I decided to do a second edition. This third edition is leaner and more digitally oriented.

If one learns from making mistakes, I am the smartest man in the world! I have made more mistakes in my business life than any of you will ever make. Trust me on that point. Learn from my mistakes. Save yourself some pain and suffering. To quote Harry Truman, The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

I also have an attitude. I enjoy photography both as a personal outlet and as a job. I have learned that I am not the best technician or the most formal person in the world. In fact, rules bore me. I have tried to keep my observations about business on a chatty, person-to-person level. When I write down a Lilley's Law, it is usually something I have learned the hard way that I think might be valuable for you to also learn. I do not make up rules flippantly.

I also have not tried to teach you my style of photography. It is my style, not yours. You must develop your own style. There are many gurus out there selling tapes and giving seminars on style and technique. Listen to them and learn from them, but don't take anything as gospel until you try it out and see if it fits your own growing style and market.

I have another attitude that may benefit you: I believe strongly that you can succeed! I am a very positive person in this regard. I encourage my local peers in this business, and many of them have succeeded. The nicest compliment given to me was by the Professional Photographers of Cape Cod (a group that I helped found) when they gave me a plaque (with a camera and a lobster on it) and a poem. The poem is my peers’ opinion of me, and I think it's true.

We feel it is time for a tribute to Ed

For all that he's done, there is much to be said

When he came to the Cape, most of us were not here

Or maybe just trying to get it in gear

He counseled, encouraged, and challenged us, too

To do even more than we thought we could do.

He gave of his talent and gave of his time

To help us along on our upward climb

Some of us would not have been where we are

Had he not inspired us to reach for a star!

There's business enough for us all, he decries

Competitors—sure—but friends and allies

As members of PPOCC, we're gathered today

There's no need to gild this Lilley, we say

Now it's time to bring this poem to an end

Our tribute to Ed, our mentor, our friend!

There are many people I have to thank for helping me with this book. The two biggest supporters of the first edition were H&H Color Lab's Wayne Haub and Ron Fleckell. They believed that I could help make better photographers of their customers, which would benefit both the customers and their own business.

Again, thanks to Apple for the best computer. Thanks to Jenney Schaffer and Nancy Coan for being the proofreaders and my mentors for proper English and communication skills. I would also like to thank Mr. E. Carl Cierpial of California, one of the first purchasers of the book, for his painfully accurate list of errors in the first edition. He was correct in every instance, for which I thank him.

This book is dedicated to you, the new studio photographer. You have no idea how far you can go, up or down. I do, and I hope that this book can make your path go smoothly upward.

This book is also dedicated to Sue, my beautiful wife and business partner of over 40 years; to my three sons, Hayes, Bryce, and Wyeth; and most of all to good friends and better competitors, here and everywhere.

ED LILLEY

Harwich Port, Massachusetts

Note: In the text, I refer to books by the author and title only. Publisher and date are listed in chapter 13, Sources of Information. Names and addresses of organizations, publishers, and suppliers are also listed in chapter 13.

CHAPTER ONE

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

AND WHAT YOU NEED TO OWN

This is the third edition of this book, coming six years after the previous one. What a change has occurred in the studio photography business since the last edition. For that edition, I wrote a chapter on The Digital Revolution. Well, the revolution is over! Digital won, hands down. According to my good friend Ken Wilson, of Lustre Color Lab (a well-established New England lab with 40 years of history), they no longer accept film from clients. Ken made the point that people who still use film also want all of the shots digitized. The equipment to do this is no longer manufactured, the machines they have are getting old, and you can no longer get service or parts for repairs. It is not worth it. Some labs are still accepting film and others are only processing film once or twice a week—and then at a premium price.

Most of the people still using film are established photographers who don't want to change at this point in their lives to something they don't know. A very good friend of mine (who is a fine wedding photographer with 40 years in the business) told me that she is afraid to change and feels no need to, as she is close to the end of her career. She is just going to fade into the sunset with her Hasselblads.

Is film dead? Well, not totally. There is currently some belief among consumers that film is better than digital imaging (DI) and will specifically ask for film for their wedding or sitting, or worse, they want you to do both at the same time! Talk about your suspenders and belt combo.

The digital revolution is complete to the point where I will not be discussing film very much in this book, and then only as a niche market. A smart marketer will use these consumers’ beliefs to carve out a market as a film photographer who is worth more money because he or she is an artist working in an established media.

If you are just coming into the business, don't even think about film. At the entry level, digital is the only way to go. In my opinion, digital is easier to get started in and more difficult to master totally. My wife, Susan, once said, Now any idiot with a camera can take a good photograph! All's they have to do is fix it in Photoshop to correct their errors! I feel that the steep learning curve of Photoshop is not as easy to learn as some of the old techniques in film technology.

THE INTERNET AND YOUR WEB SITE

One thing that has changed over the last few years is the importance of having a dynamic and exciting Web site for your clients to view your work. The Web was made for photographers! Nowhere else can you show people so much of your work—and for such little cost—as on a Web site.

Today, many people shop for services on the Web. When they want something, they type what they want into Google and hit search. Up comes a list of places where they can obtain what they want. I feel that most modern brides and grooms use the Web to help find their wedding photographer, especially if they are from outside of your business area. The public also shops for portrait photographers and commercial photographers. You have to be on the Web to get their business. I estimate that over 50 percent of my wedding inquiries come in from the Web, and I have been in business a long time.

When I first became aware of the Web, I thought, well, I am a computer-savvy guy and I will design and build my own Web site. I purchased a program to do so. Two years later, no Web site!

Don't be unprofessional. Use the services of people who know how to build Web sites to help create your own. There are some very inexpensive and good choices out there. The one I use for my own Web site, www.erlilleyphoto.com, is BluDomain (www.bludomain.com). They have a number of templates you can choose from with many options to personalize the choice. Even if your competitors use the same template, by the time you customize it, your site will look different from theirs. The folks at BluDomain make it very easy to accomplish this complex task, and I highly recommend them. There are also other Web site building services that advertise in the Professional Photographer magazine.

Once you have a Web site, you have to promote it. You need to advertise it and inform as many people as possible about it, especially your past customers. It is well worth the effort. See the marketing chapter for more information.

WHY START OUT DIGITAL?

Advantages of Digital:

• It saves a lot of money. The last year I used film exclusively, I spent about $5000 on film plus another couple thousand on film processing, for $400,000 in volume. With digital, all I had to purchase were a few memory cards. I could have bought two cameras with the savings—or taken a nice long vacation to some far-away exotic land, which I did.

• You get to see your images right away, which means you can correct certain errors immediately. Customers can see their images much sooner than with film, which can build their confidence in you.

• You can do all of your retouching on the computer. You don't need to learn print finishing or negative retouching, both of which require some degree of cost, aptitude, skill, and time.

• You can digitally enhance photos more easily. This includes changing backgrounds or adding or removing people or objects from the scene. You are much more able to produce a perfect picture for clients. This will, in turn, lead to increased print sales.

• You can very quickly upload your images to a Web site for your clients to view. All potential clients can see the images and order them online.

• You can send your images to the labs or to clients via the Internet, greatly speeding up delivery.

• You'll be able to offer customers a wider variety of photo products.

Disadvantages of Digital:

• It takes more time for you to view and edit your work, especially on weddings. When we used film, we took fewer photos and edited them AFTER proofing. Now you need to view each frame and adjust it before editing it. This takes more time.

• Your exposures have to be more accurate and consistent; film was more forgiving.

• Images have a more limited contrast range.

I don't think a discussion of whether or not film is better artistically than digital is is in order. I have listened to audiophiles arguing that vinyl records are better than digital sound. Frankly, I can't hear the difference and the digital is so much cheaper and easier to use. In studio photography, we are not pushing the limits of art with our work, and the average consumer can't tell the difference between digital and film prints, so why bother? That sounds like a very weak argument, but at the beginning of your photography career you need all the economic advantages you can get.

DIGITAL CAMERAS

This is my version of what you need to know about digital cameras. I do not get paid to endorse any particular brand, so these are my own experiences or experiences of other professional photographers with whom I have spoken. It is a fairly common topic of conversation at professional get-togethers.

If you want the latest technical reviews of the most current digital cameras, go to www.dpreview.com. This Web site offers thorough camera reviews from an independent point of view (the site doesn't carry ads from the camera manufacturers). Their reviews are very detailed and get quite technical. They usually offer side-by-side comparisons between models in the same brand and also between similar models of competing brands. There is more technical information than you can possibly absorb. They also give very sound advice on the value of each camera in realistic terms. In one review of a new Canon camera model they said, Why buy the more expensive Canon when this cheaper camera has exactly the same chip, exactly the same software and costs thousands of dollars less? That is real, valuable advice from people who know.

THE MYTH OF PIXELS

Before we start to discuss specific equipment, let's clear up a common misunderstanding among photographers. How many pixels do you really need to produce a sharp enough print to give to your customer? If you believe the camera companies, the more pixels, the better. Each new generation of cameras (which come about every eighteen months) has more pixels than the model before. How are the companies going to sell you a new camera unless they make you believe it is a better camera? Most new models also have major improvements in noise reduction and ISO capabilities, better focusing, and improved software, in addition to more pixels. Sometimes those improvements are worth the new investment.

The real solution to the how many pixels dilemma depends on how big a print you want to produce from your files. If you are in advertising and your end product is a 10’x10’ display transparency of finely textured fabric, you need a lot more pixels than if you want to make a 16 × 20 print of a family or an individual. If you shoot and make large prints of big groups of people, the additional pixels are of greater value. If you shoot weddings or high school seniors, you don't need anywhere near the maximum number of pixels now being offered.

My current favorite guru, Will Crockett of Chicago (www.shootsmarter.com) demonstrated this point very well. He used a Fuji S3 camera that produced files equivalent to 12 MP, 6 MP, 3MP, and 1.5 MP chip (MP = megapixels). He photographed a fireman (helmet, ax, turnout gear, and all) three-quarters’ length in his studio using fixed lighting but varying the file size on the camera. He took the four files, did not do any adjustments or retouching to the files, sent them to a commercial color lab, and ordered 30 × 40 prints with instructions to the lab to print as is.

With the four prints viewed side by side, there was no visual difference in print quality, except in the 1.5 MP sample, which looked soft and grainy. The secret is that almost all commercial labs have special software to res-up (increase the resolution of) the files they receive so that they have enough pixels to make a good print. Most printers need files that are 240 to 300 pixels per inch. Thus, a 30 × 40 print needs a file with 308 MB for 300 dpi. An original file from a 12 MP camera is about 36 MB before cropping. The software has to add the additional pixels by placing them between the existing pixels to make the image.

Where do the extra pixels come from? Computer programs use mathematical algorithms to figure out what best fits between the two known values in the image. Photoshop will do this for you, but not very well. It costs about $700. Labs use programs that cost around $50,000. They were developed by NASA to clean up the pictures coming back from space, which are of poor quality and have a lot of noise in them. These programs literally cost billions of taxpayer dollars to develop, and they are now available for commercial use. Don't use Photoshop to res-up a file before sending it to a commercial lab. Instead, send them the original pixels and let their software do the work. Also, don't take a file that you have resed-down (made smaller to produce a smaller print) and then try to res it back up in Photoshop. Resing-down throws away original pixels to make an image fit the desired size. Enlarging this image is like having a smaller sensor to start with.

The point is that the most recent generations of cameras have more than enough resolution for the average studio to use. Between 8 and 10 MP is fine for 98 percent of your purposes. If you do niche work, you may wish to consider using a camera with a higher MP. Some of the SLR type cameras can have up to 21 MP. If you need more than that, consider using a digital back on your large format camera, such as a Leaf or Phase One, which will fit on a 2 ¼ Mamiya, Bronica, or Hasselblad body. These backs can go up to 40 MP or more, but the price also goes up into the $10,000 to $40,000 price range.

There seems to be a lack of understanding of what cropping does to file size in digital cameras. In the most widely used cameras, there are sensors that have a 4:6 ratio format (the same as the old 35mm frame). When you create an 8 × 10, you lose about 20 percent of the file. Kodak and Olympus tried to start a movement to have camera sensors in a 3:4 ratio format. This format is now available in Olympus and some other brands. To crop a 3:4 file to an 8 × 10, you only lose about 5 percent of the file. The point is that if you sell a lot of 8 × 10s, a camera with 10 MP in a 3:4 format will give you the same size printable file as a camera with 12 MP in a 4:6 format.

WHICH CAMERA IS FOR ME?

There are three major companies that control about 95 percent of the professional market: Nikon, Canon, and Fuji. Olympus has an interesting line, but is not very popular yet among professionals. Sony and Panasonic are also producing still cameras backed by well-established reputations and longevity. Read the reviews to see what they have to offer. All six of these companies make good quality lenses.

About every 18 months, the big three come out with new models. The new models usually offer more pixels, better software, and improved noise and focusing. It is very difficult to keep up with what's new.

A long time ago, I was a retail camera salesman. People would come in wanting a good SLR camera and would ask me, Which one is the best? There were many choices (add Minolta, Konica, and Pentax to the brands mentioned above). I learned that if I took all six or seven cameras out and tried to explain the differences, I would confuse the customer to the point that they wouldn't buy anything. I would, instead, take the samples out, line them up on the counter, and ask the customer to pick up each one and look through the viewfinder. They'd go down the line and at the end I asked, "Which one felt best in your hand and looked best to your eye?" They would usually choose one, sometimes two. Then I would explain various features of that particular brand. Buying a camera is like buying a hammer—the one that fits your grip the best is probably the best for you.

For portrait and wedding work, I don't see a major difference in quality between Nikon and Canon products. They do handle differently, and if you are accustomed to using one brand, the other one seems awkward. If you have been a Canon user for a while, and have a supply of Canon lenses, it makes sense to buy Canon. The same argument goes for Nikon. As for Fujis, they have Nikon bodies and lenses so they are just like Nikons in basic handling, but not necessarily in features.

As of 2008, the Nikon D300 ($1,800 body), Fuji S5 ($1,800 body) and the Canon EOS D40D ($1,300 body) are all excellent cameras for studio photographers. I don't think you need to invest in the more expensive models (the Nikon D3 [$5,000 body] and the Canon EOS 1Ds [$8,000 body]) at this time. Maybe after you're rich and famous.

If you are working alone, you need a backup camera, especially if you are doing weddings. You never know what will happen. Once you pick a brand, it is a smart move to buy a second body in the same brand. However, you don't necessarily need the same model. You might opt for an older or lesser version. For example, if you get a Nikon D300, look for a used D200 or D50, or D80 as a backup. It will use the same lenses and flash units as your main camera and will operate in a similar manner. When you go to buy the next new model, trade or sell the backup and use the older good body as your backup.

The auction Web site eBay (www.eBay.com) is a great resource for photo equipment. You can find bargains on lenses, cameras, and accessories. It shouldn't matter if a 70–200 f2.8 lens shows signs of wear on the barrel as long as it is optically in good condition. You can also get a good price for your old bodies when you upgrade—usually more than you can get from a camera dealer as a trade-in.

If you have a second photographer doing weddings and you have to supply the cameras, he or she will also need two bodies, their own flash units and lenses. Keep to the same brand and models for interchangeability.

LENSES

Rule number one about lenses: Buy good quality glass. It will last longer and will produce better photos for you. What's the point of having millions of pixels if the image is fuzzy because of cheap optics? Whenever you upgrade your cameras, you can still use the same lenses.

One advantage of the current SLR-style DI camera over the older, large-format cameras we were using five years ago is the availability of high-quality zoom lenses. I used to own a Bronca camera system. I had about 18 lenses and eight bodies in the system (worth about $30,000 brand new). Only one lens was a zoom; it weighed a ton and I only used it once at a wedding. With Canon or Nikon you can get along just fine with two basic lenses; a wide to short tele-zoom, and a short-to-medium tele-zoom. You may have the need for a longer lens or a very wide lens for sports or specialty shooting, but not in normal studio or wedding photography. The two standards I use often are the 17–55 f2.8 and the 80–200 f2.8 lenses (about $2,200 new for both by either Nikon or Canon). There are other zoom ranges available, so find the ones that meet your needs.

When I first bought a Nikon D70, it came as a kit with a lens. The difference between the kit and the body only was about $100, so the lens in the kit was a $100 Nikon brand lens. I think Nikon should be ashamed of it. It is not sharp and it is poorly made. I have two of them that I use as paperweights and ultimate backups (for example, on a really rainy day at an outdoor wedding). The lens was an 18–55mm f3.5–5.6 zoom, which is a very nice working range. Nikon also makes a 17–55 f2.8 zoom which sells for $1,200. I have purchased two of these and they are worth the price. The same is true for longer zooms. Nikon also makes a 55–200 f4.5–5.6 for $200 and a 80–200 f2.8 for $1,000 (or a 70–200 f2.8 for $1,800). Guess which one is sharper and more well-made? I do not wish to appear to be picking on Nikon, but I am more familiar with their line as I own more of them. The ultimate advice is that you get what you pay for, so buy good glass.

If you own older lenses in a particular brand, check to see if they will work on the new DI bodies. Not all older lenses work with the new digital bodies. If you use the Fuji, there is a list of Nikon lenses that don't work with certain bodies.

If you only need a long lens to shoot high school sports, then the cheaper lens may be fine. However, if you are doing commercial shooting, you need the sharpness, quality, and speed of good quality glass.

My experience with off-brand lenses (Sigma, Tameron, etc.) is mostly negative. Avoid cheap products like the plague. The higherpriced ones may be considered, but I would test them for sharpness (or find a publication that reviews lenses and shows sharpness tests). I know some people, however, who swear by certain off-brand lenses, so find the references and be careful.

FLASHES

If you are doing portrait/wedding photography, you certainly need a dependable and accurate flash to go with your camera. The flash provides illumination in scenes where there is poor quality light or the light is insufficient to take a good picture. The flash also works as a fill light when your environment is brightly lit and there are shadows that you wish to minimize or eliminate.

I was at a seminar—given by New Jersey-based photographer Neil Van Niekerk—on using on-camera flash units to achieve window-light quality and control. He bounced his flash on almost every shot. To achieve this, he was constantly twisting the units and they were usually putting out close to full power on every shot. He said that, because of the rough use he gives his equipment, he owns eight Canon 580 units, and two of them seem to always be in the shop. His is a seminar I would highly recommend for wedding photographers.

For general-purpose use, the camera manufacturers’ units work very well. The Nikon SB800 ($329) and the Canon 580EXII ($420) are specifically designed to interact with their brand camera bodies for the best results. They are both well-made, tough, and powerful for their size. They come with a world of features that make them very flexible to use.

For many years, I have used the Metz brand of flashes with my 2 ¼ cameras. The Metz 58AF-1 ($360) is an on-camera hot shoe flash that is similar in function to either of the brand-name flashes I mentioned. This unit is highly rated by Will Crocker in his tests and may be a good choice. It comes in versions for Nikon and Canon use.

In the summer, I photograph a lot of my subjects outside at the beach. The major problem I face is the brightness of the light. People should be turned away from the sunlight so they don't squint or feel uncomfortable. This creates very strong and deep shadows, which must be filled with light from your flash. Most digital cameras today sync (the maximum shutter speed you can use with an electronic strobe) at 1/250 sec. At the beach, (ISO 200) this means a background exposure of f16 is necessary to correctly expose the scene. This means that your strobe needs to put out enough light to make it f16 at the subject. With a large group (such as a wedding party or a large family) you can't get closer than 20 to 24 feet. Neither the SB800 or the 580EX will put out enough power to work in this situation.

I still use my faithful Metz 60CT4s for all outdoor work. It is the most powerful automatic flash on the market and it works very well. It has a separate battery pack, which is a pain, but it will last all day at a wedding—and then some—so you don't need to worry about changing batteries. The head of the 60CT4 is also much bigger than the SB800 or 580EX, which, in my opinion, gives you better wrap-around lighting when you are close. It has a built-in diffuser and can be modified with various bounce devices. Though the unit now costs about $1,000, I can tell you from experience that it will last through many years of heavy use. I have units that are twelve years old and still work perfectly. After four years, you might want to replace the battery, which costs about $50.

Quantum also makes a strobe that many professional photographers like to use: the Quantum Qflash T5DR ($690 for the basic unit, $1,200 for the whole system). It also has a battery pack and is very powerful. It has an advantage in that the reflector on the head can be removed and the light used as a point light source. In certain lighting situations, this can be very effective. The unit is about twice as powerful as the Nikon and Canon units but less so than the Metz 60 unit. Will Crockett claims that this unit is the best TTL flash on the market for Nikon or Canon.

BRACKET

One problem with the on-camera strobes is that they are designed to go in the hot shoe on top of the camera. If you only took horizontal photos, this would be fine. However, in the real world you will also take a lot of vertical photos. If there is a wall behind a subject, a horizontally positioned strobe on a vertically positioned camera will create a very unpleasant shadow on the wall. It also creates shadows on the subject that are unappealing and unprofessional.

The solution is to move the strobe off of the camera body and place it above the lens axis on a device that allows you to rotate the camera from vertical to horizontal without moving the flash. The device is called a bracket, or flash bracket (not to be confused with the camera function of bracketing exposures).

There are many brackets on the market, but after trying most of them, I have found the one that I really feel is the best. It is manufactured by Custom Bracket Co. and is available online or through your major professional camera stores. It is not cheap ($185) but it is sturdy, well-made, and easy to use.

The rotation is achieved with a curved track that attaches to the frame and holds the flash. For the manufacturers’ flashes, you need a connecting cord to join the hot shoe to the holder on the bracket. Manufacturers sell cords that will keep all of the automatic features of the flash/camera system functional, such as TTL exposure. For large flashes, you need a sync cord from the camera to the flash through the usual sync terminal. Be careful when buying a used camera. Some of the early models—such as the Nikon D70—don't have a sync terminal. The whole rig is well-balanced and easy to operate. It also will not rotate when you don't want it to, which is a major problem with some of the cheaper units.

You will also find that the bracket rig will gain you some degree of respect when you are compared with all of the Uncle Harrys taking pictures at a wedding. Many times, I have stood at a cake cutting in the middle of a crowd full of people who were using cameras just as good as mine, but mine looked more professional because of the bracket.

Custom also makes a bracket with just the rotating part for your studio tripod ($90). This enables you to switch from vertical to horizontal in seconds without fooling around with a tripod head. If you do a lot of studio or school photography it is worth having.

METERS

Even though every camera I currently own has a built-in metering system of some sophistication, I still prefer my hand-held meter in tricky lighting situations, especially when using electronic flash units. Camera meters don't read off-camera flash exposures. Also, camera meters are reflective light meters, and I don't trust their readings at all. I highly prefer the reading capabilities of a hand-held meter.

Just to refresh your memory: a reflected meter reads light that has been reflected (or bounced) off of a subject and toward the meter sensor. An incident meter reads the amount of light falling on a subject from a light source. The reflected meter is highly influenced by the nature of the subject. If you point a reflected meter at a light subject, it will tell you to underexpose the shot. Point it at a dark subject, and your reading will tell you to overexpose your photo. An incident meter will give you the correct exposure in almost all instances. The only drawback is that you have to measure the light close to the subject, which is hard if the subject is a mile away.

In recent years, I have settled into using the Sekonic 508 meter. It reads ambient and flash exposures and has a variable dome for different types of incident readings. Some models have a zoom viewfinder and can also act as a reflected spot meter. It is accurate and durable because it is digital and has no moving parts that break easily. The cheapest model is the Sekonic L-358 Meter with Transmitter ($340). This model includes the Pocket Wizard Transmitter that, when used with the Pocket Wizard Receiver, can fire your strobe lights from a remote distance with no wire connections.

One major advantage is that you can get a radio module that will fire electronic strobes using the Pocket Wizard radio slave units. This is a real time saver when lighting a large area with flash units. You can stand anywhere within 300 feet, fire your lights with the meter, and take exposure readings on the spot. Even in the studio, I do not have to disconnect my camera to share the sync with the camera, because I use the radio slaves. This means that I can refine my lighting carefully from the subject position with no extra wires.

SHOOTING RAW VERSUS JPEG

On all good digital cameras, you have the choice of a number of different resolutions in which you can photograph your subjects. Your camera may have a 12 MP chip, but you don't need all of those pixels to produce 5 × 7s. You may as well use a lower resolution, which will let you conserve memory on your card and speed up processing. The choices are usually called fine, normal, and basic. All three options deliver your image in a JPEG-format file, which takes up the minimum amount of space on your card or hard drive. JPEG is a nice format for things like school pictures because you are only going to make small prints and only use them a few times. Most wedding photos don't have to be the best possible resolution either.

There is another choice. This is the raw format setting. What is the difference? In the JPEG mode, the camera software uses a math algorithm to compresses the data the sensor collects into a tighter bundle. When you want to view the image, your computer opens the bundle for you and recreates the image. When you work on the image and save the changes, the computer recompresses the file. Each time this happens, you lose a little bit of information. If you closed and opened a JPEG file 50 times, there would start to be major damage to the image.

In raw format, all of the information that the sensor produces is stored. This includes all of the channel information. A 12 MB camera on fine resolution produces a JPEG file of about 5 to 6 MB. A raw file from the same chip is a 36 MB file.

The advantage is that you can open the raw image file and actually change the exposure value of the image. This makes it similar to what used to be done with film. The raw format gives you about two stops of flex room in your exposures. The problem is that it takes time for you to open each raw file, make the adjustments you need, and convert it to a file size and format you can send to a printer.

Each camera manufacturer creates their raw file in a proprietary way, which used to mean that you had to use the camera company's software to open the images. Adobe thought this was a little silly and tried to get the raw process standardized. Adobe didn't succeed, and instead released a program called Adobe DNG (Digital Negative) Converter. This program translates each of the camera files into a DNG file that is compatible with Photoshop. Adobe DNG has also been integrated into the new Lightroom program. Lightroom is an image editing program that makes the conversion and correction of original digital file much more efficient and faster than was possible before. Apple has a program called Aperture that does similar things on a Mac System.

I have heard speakers tell audiences that they should always shoot raw. If you are really sloppy in your exposures, I agree. However, if you learn to expose correctly and pay attention to your histogram, you can shoot JPEG for many uses. I only use raw when I have a very complex lighting situation in which I am not sure of the exposure or a situation where the light is changing rapidly. In those situations, raw is a cheap insurance policy to get a good exposure.

THE HISTOGRAM

Though I don't trust the TTL meters in my cameras, I fully trust the histogram that the camera produces. A histogram is a graph that charts how many pixels are in each density value captured by the sensor and software in the camera. They are displayed in a graph from darkest to lightest in 256 steps.

What is density value? Computers break things down into little bits so that they can be stored as simple numbers (zero and one). A standard color image is broken down into increments between 0 (black) and 256 (white). In reality, there is one channel for each of the three primary colors, and they are each broken down into the 256 steps. The combination of the three channels gives you a full color image, but it still only has 256 steps of brightness value. The number 256 is two to the eighth power (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256). These files are usually referred to as 8-bit color. If you shoot raw format, your files come out in either 12-bit or 16-bit color, where there are many more steps between black and white (and bigger files to store all the information). Almost all commercial lab printers work in 8-bit color, so even if you shoot raw, you have to convert your files to 8-bit color before sending them to a lab, otherwise the lab will convert them. An inkjet printer will print 16-bit files. To fully understand the difference, I recommend taking an advanced course in Photoshop.

Right after each exposure, the camera shows you what the pixel distribution is in the recorded image. If your subject is only one color, the histogram is a spike; a single value but many of them. Most normal, full-tone subjects look like a curve with the peak in the middle that fits within the end boundaries of the histogram. The histogram of an image of a sheet of white paper would have all the pixels over at the right edge in a spike; black paper appear as a narrow spike along the left edge and would be 18 percent gray in the middle.

If you have been shooting in the JPEG mode, any white value that should be greater than 256 is recorded as 256. If you photograph a bride in bright sunlight and overexpose the shot, there will be a spike at the right edge. All of the pixels in that spike are going to print at 256 even though they represent differing tones in the white dress. There is no detail in those whites, just a blob of white. You have blown out the highlights. With film, there could have been some detail on the negative, and by burning the print, you may have salvaged something. In a jpeg file, there is nothing there. Burning the print digitally would only make the white go gray.

The safest solution is to never let the histogram touch the right edge of the graph. The other solution is to shoot in the raw format. My cameras are set so that the histogram appears on top of the image in the LCD screen on the back. In the middle of a wedding, you don't have the time to really look at the image, and viewing the screen has little value other than to confirm that you indeed have an image. The histogram, however, will show if you have any blown out highlights, and you can adjust your exposure to compensate. If you really do study your image in the middle of the shoot, you have lost contact with the subject, which is not a good thing.

As with an in-camera meter, you have to apply some common sense. If you have a bride in the shade and a sky with brightly lit clouds behind her, your histogram will put those clouds over on the right, even though your exposure may be correct for the skin tones in the shade. You can accept this or you can adjust your lighting by adding light to the foreground to balance the background. Just keep in mind that the image will not be the way your eye sees it in the viewfinder.

Many cameras also have an information feature that tells you if you have blown out highlights. After exposure, the preview image on the LCD screen will blink on and off (or turn black in some brands) to indicate a problem. The histogram gives you more information and is easier to look at in the middle of a sitting or at a wedding. My cameras are always set on histogram viewing because I shoot in bright light often, such as on the beach. Often, I can hardly see the preview screen in the brightness, but I can always read the histogram.

If you don't trust your meter or senses and use a digital camera on any of its automatic exposure modes, you then have to learn to use the +/− exposure compensation button on top of the camera. It is far easier and more consistent to have the exposure controls set on manual and to compensate for the bad histogram with the f-stop or the shutter speed control. Having previously used large-format cameras, I learned to adjust my exposures when changing light conditions warranted it. If the change is extreme, I rely on my trusty light meter.

OFFICE PRINTING

Every business needs some method of printing out business letters and other forms. There are many types of inexpensive printers on the market that can do this job. I just bought an office center that is a fax machine, inkjet printer, copier, and scanner all built into one for under $100. However, the printing is not the best quality and wouldn't impress a potential customer.

A laser printer is much nicer but usually costs quite a bit more. Again, there are many choices for you to select from.

There is one other type of printer that, as far as I'm concerned, is made precisely for photographers. These are the wax printers made by Xerox. Instead of using cartridges or toners, a wax printer creates its colors from little blocks of wax. I currently own the Xerox Phaser 8400, and in the past three years, I have put over 300,000 sheets of paper through it.

As a basic office printer, the Xerox prints beautifully. The letters look like raised printing from a print shop. They are crisp and clean. The machine can produce 20 pages per minute at a relatively low cost per page.

The real advantage is that the machine will print a full color page of pretty good quality (not perfect) photographic images on plain printer paper for about 10 cents per page. By pretty good, I mean that the photo images are clear enough for a client to see all the detail in the images, but not good enough to copy. I use this machine to proof my senior and portrait sittings. I can actually make a 5 × 7 or even a 8 × 10 proof for a large group because it is so inexpensive to do so and they still can't be copied very well. The machine is also good for proofing a complex retouching job for customer approval if needed.

The machine can be obtained for free if you agree to purchase the supplies from Xerox for three years and commit to print a certain amount of pages per month to qualify for the deal, but after three years, you own the machine.

The current machine sells for $950 (duplex model). If you choose to purchase it, you can save on inks by buying from suppliers other than Xerox, who are ususally substantially cheaper. However, if you want to save money at the start, the free program is worth looking into. Visit www.freecolorprinters.com for more information. This program is run by Xerox, so it is on the up-and-up.

I also use the Xerox to produce full-color brochures for all of our work. My wedding brochure is a twelve-page booklet with plenty of photos, maps and graphics. My family one is similar. I print special flyers all the time to promote frames or other items. All of these are in full color and look pretty good compared to those printed on a laser printer or an inkjet printer with plain paper. I print up to 15,000 flyers a year in full color.

John Hartman sells a program that uses this machine to automate the proofing process. He also has a program to produce house portraits, which can be a good moneymaker in the off season. All of his promotional materials are printed on this Xerox; in fact, he is the one who told me about the machine years ago. I have gone through two machines in the past seven years on the free program. The current offerings are an improvement over my current machine (as is the usual case with all things digital).

INKJET PRINTING

Since the last edition of this book, inkjet printing has grown dramatically. It is now of sufficient quality and stability to be used to produce customers’ work and competes