My first go at printing on site...

[pxl8]

I shoot a fair bit of black tie dinner/ball events for a local social magazine and normally manage to pick up a job or two by chatting with the punters. I realised I was missing a trick by not printing on site so last night I took an Epson R360 along with me to see how I'd fair.

I only picked up the Epson in the afternoon so I had a bit of a crash course in getting it to print from CF cards and working out the best settings. It's not very fast at churning out a 6x4 but the quality is better than I expected.

The Epson doesn't display filenames on it's screen so to keep track of the prints needed I labelled my CF with letters and then it was simply a case of writing down which image number for each card.

On the night I did the shots for the magazine first, a few of people arriving and lots of table shots of people enjoying themselves. This was a good chance to have a laugh and joke with the punters and let them know I'd be doing prints later. I also asked the event manager to mention me on the PA and he did a great job promoting the idea.

We'd set up the printer in the reception hall which everyone had to pass through on their way to the toilets or out for a smoke so we're got a fair bit of attention just from that. My wife, ever faithful assistant, was handling the printing and packing of the images - each image was put in a clear sleeve along with a business card and then inside a board backed envelope. Anyone who wanted could address the envelope and leave it with us for (free) posting, only one person took up the offer.

For the 3 hours from the end of the meal until last orders we had a fairly constant queue of people wanting their photo taken plus a few groups of 8 or 10 that wanted a group photo plus each couple. Some people were happy to just have a print from the table shots I'd taken earlier, others wanted extra shots as well. Prints were £5 each for a 6x4", I've yet to do a final tally as I did a few deals for some of the larger groups/orders but I think it's around 50 prints sold which means even after the cost of the printer we didn't do too bad for 3 hours work, about double my slightly cynical estimate.

For each shot I'd the couple/group see the shot on the camera lcd to make sure they were happy and re-shot until they were. It was a bit of a gamble doing this but I think the worst was a lady who was a blinker due to the pre-flash and took 5 shots to get it right. But at least I knew people were happy with the shot before it was printed.

Overall it's certainly something I'd recommend having a go at if you get the opportunity, it was good fun having a laugh with the punters and we made a fair few quid at the same time

 

[dsb]

sounds like a good idea, how much were you charging per print?

 

[pxl8]

£5 for a 6x4"

 

[Janice]

Im assuming you used jpg in cam raw doesnt print straight off does it.

I did my first camera to print session last weekend and I was well chuffed as were the takers.


I saw a guy take photots at a do (a backdrop and lights etc) and had the camera tethered to a laptop so people could see the bigger picture and then printed from QImage.

One woman and man had 10 different shots done and bought them all ! (Is that big headed or what!!)

Good luck with it..... hope you do more.

 

[pxl8]

Im assuming you used jpg in cam raw doesnt print straight off does it.

I saw a guy take photots at a do (a backdrop and lights etc) and had the camera tethered to a laptop so people could see the bigger picture and then printed from QImage.

Yep, shooting jpg which was fine as it was mostly bounced flash anyway although I wished I'd switched to raw for the band shots as the coloured lights are much easier to deal with from the raw file - live and learn

I think taking the laptop would have been useful when it came to finding shots from earlier in the evening, will try it next time.

Glad to hear you had a similar happy time printing on site, it's nice to get the instant feedback from people and know you've done a good job

 

[JPS]

Pxl8 - I've got a black tie function to do later in the Autumn - my first one, any advice on what aperture to use at the group tables. There will be about 8 people per round table in a hall with no natural light and only the ceiling lights and my Sony flash. I obviously need their faces as sharp as possible in their little groups.

Thanks

 

[pxl8]

Round tables can be a bit of a pain as you have to move people to get everyone facing you. With 8 or more I get half the table to go stand behind the other half who stay seated. With this kind of set up I normally use around f/5.6 (f/8 if there's plenty of ambient light) and bounce the flash off the ceiling. DoF at the wide end of my 17-40 is more than enough to keep the faces sharp. I shoot manual and set the shutter around 1/50s and set the ISO fairly high so the ambient exposure is about a stop under. Here's an example from last night of one of the few round tables, laid for 6 but only 4 dining.

Always used bounced flash or a really good diffuser and add a stop of FEC for good measure. The white shirts and table cloths really fool the metering and make direct flash a non-starter.

 

[mmcp42]

depending on the camera, some will write jpeg and raw

 

[pxl8]

Yeah, it was my own fault. I'm a raw shooter normally but the printer meant I had to shoot jpg and I just plain forgot. Next time I'll shoot raw and print direct from Lightroom instead

 

[trebs]

We do this a lot with a couple of dyesub printers. Fast turn-around and happy punters
£5 for a print is good, nobody will moan at that at all.


Personally though, I'd rethink that watermark, something a little slicker, more pro looking.
I often make custom frames before an event title with date, and my name on there.
That's a simple PS action that's made the night before and they just batched over all the images. People love all that stuff.

 

[pxl8]

Personally though, I'd rethink that watermark, something a little slicker, more pro looking.

The watermark is from the web gallery, it wasn't on the prints.

 

[theMusicMan]

I was impressed with a photographer at a sports event my son attended earlier this year (before I got into DSLR's).

It was a rugby event down by Woking somewhere, and there was a tog going around taking pics of all the players during their games or warm-ups. He had a mobile studio set up in his van, all surrounded by a nice covered pergola where all the images had been printed in 6x4 with a reference number. One joined a queue with said reference number to hand, and he showed what packages he could do, and once chosen, within minutes we walked away with 1 x 10x8, and 4 x 7x5's.

Excellent service, very impressive.