It seems that they are drastically over-charging for their digital copies. I consider their prices laughable… I literally laugh when I look at them. 1 picture for $35 from my last race.
I would consider purchasing the 5 or 6 shots from each event for about $20 X 10 events in the last year or so = $200.
So far they have gotten $0 from me.
There is absolutely no marginal cost for them to sell the digital prints - except forgoing the possible money they would make from selling the prints - which clearly myself and (I would think) many others would never consider.
My understanding of their economics is obviously limited but I would think that someone who made selling the digital prints at a price that the majority of people would be willing to pay would make more money in the end. Am I wrong?
Killboy from Killboy.com sits out with a few photographers all day and every day at the Dragontail in North Carolina and takes pictures of cars and motorbikes going through the 318 turns on that 11 mile stretch of road. He charges roughly $5 per shot and the images are shot on nice 8.2 mp cameras.
I totally agree. I would have bought lots of pictures from many of my previous races for a reasonable price, but the lowest I’ve seen was like $15. $35 is laughable indeed.
Are you referring to the “most recent” ones as the Lonestar photographers? I was pretty shocked that -
They only got 5 photos of me, total
They then tagged 6 photos of other people (including people wearing different-colored swim caps) as me
They offer you a CD with ALLLL your pictures (the few they bothered to take) for $70, or you could download them (as high-resolution 1024x1536 pixel) for $75.
Still going strong on having spent $0 on race photography with no change in sight.
Killboy from Killboy.com sits out with a few photographers all day and every day at the Dragontail in North Carolina and takes pictures of cars and motorbikes going through the 318 turns on that 11 mile stretch of road. He charges roughly $5 per shot and the images are shot on nice 8.2 mp cameras.
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One of my friends lives in Atlanta, and he rode his BMW bike through Deals Gap. He said even at a normal speed, it was one of the hairiest rides he’s been on. (Of course, he’s only owned the bike about 3 years now…)
Lower cost and more photographers should set up at events to print on site. You have to get the athlete to purchase when they are in the moment or it is lost.
So I’ve been getting back into photography and am looking to start making some $$ doing it.
One of the things I wanted to do was just that…do pics at races…and sell them much cheaper than I’ve seen them for. $5 or $10 for a digital seems pretty reasonable to me or maybe $35 if it were to come framed or some other finishing work that I’m shelling out cash for.
The problem I’ve run into is that usually the race has a hired photographer(s)…and legally, I can take pics of friends and give them away, but I can’t just take pics and sell them for $5
The more I started researching this, the more pissed I got about it…and the more complex it got…so I decided to just not pursue it.
Frustrating since this seems like it would be a simple thing…let anyone who wants to take pics…take them…and let the market dictate price.
The last couple of days I’ve been pretty bored at work and have looked through almost all of their pictures. I found 7 of myself. I looked at what they said were pictures of me and there are three that I found, 1 that I did not, and 5 of other people!
They are all good quality but definitely not worth $75
Yeah same for me, I went through ALL the photos they had of everyone and it seems that they found all of mine (and the 5 that aren’t me). The pictures are good-ish (actually I really like two of them) but again, definitely not worth $36 ea.
After replying I went back and looked at other tri’s I’ve done and this is by FAR the fewest pictures I’ve had taken. I had something like 45 pics of me from the Austin tri (as a solid MOP’er) and around 20 for the other ones I’ve done.
I’ve come pretty close to pulling the trigger on a couple of shots from Kreutz photography, but not quite. Those are $16/ea. They do include cropping and color balancing, but I still feel it’s excessive.
How is that possible? If the event is in public venue and you take pictures, why can’t you sell them even if the race has an exclusive contract with another photographer. It’s not like it’s in a closed photo shoot. No different than a local paper taking photos of the event, owning the rights, then selling them to other news outlets.
So I’ve been getting back into photography and am looking to start making some $$ doing it.
One of the things I wanted to do was just that…do pics at races…and sell them much cheaper than I’ve seen them for. $5 or $10 for a digital seems pretty reasonable to me or maybe $35 if it were to come framed or some other finishing work that I’m shelling out cash for.
The problem I’ve run into is that usually the race has a hired photographer(s)…and legally, I can take pics of friends and give them away, but I can’t just take pics and sell them for $5
The more I started researching this, the more pissed I got about it…and the more complex it got…so I decided to just not pursue it.
Frustrating since this seems like it would be a simple thing…let anyone who wants to take pics…take them…and let the market dictate price.
Then again, I AM a pretty simple person.
I understand a RD contracting with an “official” race photog for “retail photo rights”). That official photg recieves perks such as the race number/name list; email addresses of participants; access to the trans area, etc. However, what would prevent the “unofficial” photog from being on the course during race day, taking the pictures, putting them on his/her independent website, listed by bib number- Making clear of course that this is not the “official” race photog. In fact I would suggest avoiding using the name of the race altogether to avoid any potential legal issues, e.g., Triathlon Event in Lake Placid, NY. Maybe some other attorneys on here can brainstorm on this, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do this. You may wind up with a strongly worded cease and desist letter from an attorney, but I would be skeptical that they would be able to enforce it.
It would be great to get a race photographer’s perspective on this. How can this economically make sense to them? The price points are just too high for them to make a lot of money.
Futhermore I’d like to know why many don’t offer digital images that I can just dump into my own Iphoto album. I would probably pay $35 for a hires digital image from a good photo of myself. I might pay $10 for lousy video res JPEG images.
But for prints that take up space and degrade over time, I’m not keen on paying more that a buck.
it’s nuts. but the greatest part of the ride is the Smoky Mountain Pkwy. Nice long sweeping turns.
Little advice - don’t show up at Deal’s Gap with a fuel injection bike when you’re used to a carburetor. snapping it’s not fun when you have over 300 twists.
I recently moved to CT from TN and rode the Tail of the Dragon all of the time.
Please support killboy. In fact, he was one of the TA’s in a class I took at UT while getting my masters. He is a great guy and we had a ball trading war stories of our two-wheeled cousins (his had a motor and mind didn’t).
At the right time of day when there are not too many motorcycles, the Tail of the Dragon is by far my favorite ride.
How is that possible? If the event is in public venue and you take pictures, why can’t you sell them even if the race has an exclusive contract with another photographer. It’s not like it’s in a closed photo shoot. No different than a local paper taking photos of the event, owning the rights, then selling them to other news outlets.
The difference, as far as I understand it…is that the laws/rules are much more lenient when it comes to newspapers. Newspapers fall under “editorial” use vs. commercial use.
I understand a RD contracting with an "official" race photog for "retail photo rights"). That official photg recieves perks such as the race number/name list; email addresses of participants; access to the trans area, etc. However, what would prevent the "unofficial" photog from being on the course during race day, taking the pictures, putting them on his/her independent website, listed by bib number- Making clear of course that this is not the "official" race photog. In fact I would suggest avoiding using the name of the race altogether to avoid any potential legal issues, e.g., Triathlon Event in Lake Placid, NY. Maybe some other attorneys on here can brainstorm on this, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do this. You may wind up with a strongly worded cease and desist letter from an attorney, but I would be skeptical that they would be able to enforce it.
I don't have a good answer to this. I guess it undermines the "real" photographer? *shrugs* especially if I'm selling the pics at a reasonable price or worse yet...giving them away!
You would think that when you buy someone a digital SLR for christmas, the least they could do is remember to bring it with them when they come watch you race.
