$25 bucks added to an event you and your finance spent at least a $1000 for (2 race fees, race nutrition, gas, hotel, food, etc).
For a picture that (If you like it) will last a lifetime. I am sure that you have wasted that much money on a lot of other purchases in your life. (Going out to dinner being one of them)
You stated that it is rare that the 2 of you finish within minutes of each other to get this type of a photo.
You are still engaged so this could be a lifetime photo for 25 years from now.
Seriously just pony up and buy it or don't.
In the bigger scheme of thing it is a not really a conversation in my opinion.
BTW yes, I have bought photos at races and declined others.
Some I really wish that I have bought, some I bought and I have not looked at since.
Others I have used regularly for the memory of the day, Social Media, work etc....

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2017 Cervelo P2
2017 Cervelo S2
itraininla.com
#itraininla

Thanks for the life lessons

Triathletes are getting bent over. My mountain bike pictures I have paid maybe $10 to download and they are incredible with studio level lighting in the woods. Road race photos are free, local takes the pics and loads them up on facebook, lower quality but free. I have 1 good triathlon photo, my sister took it with an iPhone.

how do I post inline photos?

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Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

I think the price is fine for the amount of work they put in and I am more than happy to support the photographers. However the quality of the photos in most events are mediocre IMO. If they take better shots, mainly on the bike, side photos showing the full bike, rather than a front shot of your helmet, then I would probably spend the money.

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NOLA half had photographers where we got out of the water, two spots on the bike course and the finish line, and that was it. Most of the local events here do free photos, and provide more shots (at comparable or higher quality) over the span of a sprint tri than that 70.3. Was a little disappointing.

I've generally been happy with the photos, sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't.

For the pics of my last race, the most memorable one wasn't even of me:
https://www.finisherpix.com/...a-2016.html#83869470

With registration fees where they are, WTC probably already gets plenty of buyers at these prices. They've done the math and figured they won't get 3x the volume at $10. Particularly taking into account the impact on package purchases.

What surprises me are the local running races that want $25+ for a photo. When registration is <$100 you get a more price sensitive buyer. Many of those where I would have paid $10-15 but not $25.

I like the fixed price model for photos and it would be great to see it more often. Some races include one photo for free, others all photos free. WTC/FinisherPix's packages aren't a bad deal compared to single photo prices. I wonder how much WTC would have to add to registration fees to offer everyone free photos. $20?

Tri Nut wrote:

I think the price is fine for the amount of work they put in and I am more than happy to support the photographers. However the quality of the photos in most events are mediocre IMO. If they take better shots, mainly on the bike, side photos showing the full bike, rather than a front shot of your helmet, then I would probably spend the money.

Unfortunately, most photo companies want us to shoot you dead on. For one, the number on your helmet is clearly visible for sorting (this is done manually). Second, sports photography companies, it's more about getting as many photos with as little throw away photos as possible. So shooting dead on almost guarantees the photo will at least be in focus.

You're right from the side looks awesome. But many companies would prefer you don't shoot that way because of the room for error. For the photographer it's definitely more fun to shoot from the side.

https://www.flickr.com/...ms/72157652670818858


I shot these at IMTX last year when I went catch my friend who was doing the race for the first time.

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I'm a tri ricer. I can't ride fast. And swimming and running are necessary evils to owning a cool looking bike.

Agree completely. I understand it is a tough business to make money at but it seems they've developed into a vicious cycle. The vast majority of us are not going to pay an exorbitant fee for a picture we are probably just going to put on social media. I can not in justify spending $25 or more on a picture that I'll probably make my profile picture for a few months and then never do anything with again. I have to believe if a low-res $5.00 version of the pictures were available that they would sell by the handful. Those that want to print a nice picture and put it in a frame (does anyone still do that?) could have that option. But frankly, I wouldn't pay $25.00 for a picture of me shaking hands with Jesus on the summit of Mt. Everest let alone finishing a race.

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

The whole business model seems a bit dated technologically.

Why not just run a 4k video camera continuously? Run it near a timing mat to tag the timing of individuals. Put a low res video on the web and your email link will start the video near your passage. You pick which frame your awesomeness shines best. Click buy for 99 cents and the back end auto-magically emails you the full res frame, ~8MB size. Done and done.

Seems like a pretty easy business model to understand.

One poster said WTC pays these photographers a flat rate of 500 for the day. Say they have 10 photographers on the course. So $5,000 in initial costs. Dont know the cost of tagging and hosting but say that's about 2k more.

So $7,000 in total costs.

Now they have ~2000 racers they would need 700 (35%) to buy one photo at 10 a pop. Or 280 (14%) at 25 a pop. Or 116 (~6%) at 50 dollars a package.

Maybe the upfront costs are more but the relative percentages wont change. Plus since the online storage costs are trivial they can run a sale in 3--6 months time and try to eek out some more profit from the customers at the margins.

I love when they send the "last chance" offers 6 months later. And the price is EXACTLY the same. I didn't buy it in the afterglow of the race. Why the hell would I buy it six months later?

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

Meanwhile the entry fees slow go up. You know, to pay for the overhead. ;)

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I'm a tri ricer. I can't ride fast. And swimming and running are necessary evils to owning a cool looking bike.

As I look at the package deal for download, they are charging $59.99 for the download of 44 images. That is $1.36/image, which obviously is a pretty good deal on a per image basis. If I was to buy each image individually for $25.99/per (obviously nobody would do that) it would cost $1,143.56. No question you should get a discount when you buy something in bulk, but this seems to be one of the weirdest disconnects between bulk buying and a la carte that I have seen. I would expect 15-20% savings off the top of my head in buying something in bulk vs one at a time. So in my mind, they are either under pricing the packages, or over pricing the individual images.

If I was them I would do the following:
1.) Keep pushing the package deal for $59.99
2.) Lower the per image price to $10.00
3.) Offer a 3 picture pack that is at a reduced per image rate, so say $26

IMO you still get the 1-3%, or whatever that number is that buys the package no matter what, which will cover most of the fixed costs. Then you have the people who just want a few pictures, they would never buy the $60 package, but would consider the 3 pack option. Heck, they may start to do the math on the 3 pack option and up-sell themselves to the $60 option. And lastly, you have the reasonably priced option of selling one-off pictures, and some of these folks may be eventually up sold to buying a 3 pack.

I think a scenario like this gets more people at least considering spending money on pictures.

Yep, package deal.

I normally do not buy anything, but have for various nationals and worlds.

At USAT Du Nationals in Bend, they have various package deals. The best was at time of registration for all the pictures originals, then with frames, and the HD video
for like 50 bucks. I bought the package for both races. I now will work on taking the video, and all the pictures I have, and make it into one video with probably the glad to be
an American audio playing in the background, like I did for my Edmonton world stuff. Only live once in life.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

That is what I assume is going on. There is a race that I do where the photographer sets up on the bike course during the a section of climb that is 9%. That way the bikes are going nice and slow and they can get 6 different pictures of you coming up, since you are going so slow. But I look like an idiot out of aero and with an aero helmet on going 12 mph, so they get lots of quantity, but a terrible picture. Now if they did it by the side, they would only get one or maybe two shots as you go by. Obviously the climb is a much lower risk place to get an acceptable quality picture.

At $26 I thought it was cheap. Pics at other events (even on a cruise) can cost considerably more, and the profit levels are considerably higher I would imagine (less rejects when you have total control of the environment).

They have done so many of these events the numbers are well known and unless the demand changes the model won't either.

In the age of iPhones there is no/little value to photography. Everyone thinks they can do it, and few have much of a clue to the amount of effort/training/hardware involved in making quality. So be it, people don't have to buy.

One rather frustrating thing about FinisherPix is that the photographers use the full frame to take their shots, then FP slaps their banner on the bottom and cuts a lot of shots off at the ankles. They have access to the full frame shots but won't share them. If that's the case, the photographers really need to be zooming in less tightly to leave room for that big banner.

Or even worse: first full and the damn photographer takes all the shots out of focus. The one photoset I would have bought... but come on guys, focus!

The two pics I would have considered from Lake Placid finish were both out of focus. Go figure.

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

Think about this they could charge of 10 for a photo and get me to buy one or 26 and get me to buy 0

Seems to be the going rate for pictures and honestly I rarely see a race pic that I've got to have. Generally when the pics are good, I'll buy the package for around $50-60 and maybe use a pic to pop on my Facebook page. Honestly race pics seem like finisher medals.... what are you going to do with it?

That said I think finisher pix is going to be at Nationals, hope they get some good pics... and have a reasonable package to purchase.

My guess is they target the 'bucket lister' and they are happy to pay the fee for their bucket list experience.

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