Sport Photography

[BradSut26]

Im creating a small time business for selling my Photographs of High School sports to parents and athletes. I was wondering if any of you guys could help me determine how much i should sell different sizes for prints and CD's. Thanks

 

[Rosshole]

one million dollars...

 

[D-B-J]

depends on the quality of the prints, the size, etc. do you have a local shop you could check out? Maybe ask around the parents and see what they find reasonable?

Sorry, but i myself have no idea. Goodluck though!

 

[KmH]

Can't help with pricing without seeing some examples of your work.

It will also depend what part of California you are in.

Being it's high school sports, have you talked to the school(s) yet?

 

[BradSut26]

Ive talked to the school and they are allowing me to hand out flyers for my photography at the games to parents and such. here are some of my more recent photos

 

[KmH]

They are all underexposed. The last 2 badly so, but most buyers won't know that - unless they are also photographers. #3 has some serious posterization going on in the background.

Compositionally they are weak, you have some motion blur in the first 2 indicating you are likely pushing your gear to the limit to get shutter speed. Faces and expressions are important for selling sports photography and these 3 have that. :thumbup:

All 3 would have benefited from supplemental lighting, preferably strobed light (flash). Strobed light would also address the under exposure and the fight for shutter speed, because the duration of the strobed light would stop the motion.(most hot shoe flashes have a duration of about 1/1000 at full power, and even shorter duration at lower power settings)

Shutter speed would then be used to control the ambient light exposure while the lens aperture would control the strobed light exposure. Having the players properly exposed while having the background a stop or 2 darker would make the players 'pop' adding value to your photos.

You don't give any indication about the market the school is in so:

I would recommend selling lo-res digital files and 4x6's for $5 or so an image, if that, and 8x12 or 8x10 for $10 ea . Digital files should cost the same as a print. You are selling the image you made, not the media it is on (paper or a CD). Watermark all of your photos. Unfortunately, basketball teams don't have as many players as the field sports.

As your photos improve you will find it difficult to raise your prices (all businesses do), so you may want to start with a high price and discount, reducing the discount as your photos improve.

About the most you could sell a 4x6 print (lo-res 400x600 digital file) for is $10 - $12 each, which is about what experienced, reputable sports shooters, who show up for a high school game with $20,000+ worth of camera and lighting gear, can get per photo.

About 90% of your sales will be 4x6's, and lo-res (400 px by 600 px, watermarked) digital files for social networking use.

Being high school students most of the players cannot sign a model release on their own, their parents have to sign for them.
A model release is not needed for editorial use, but would be needed to use the images for self-promotion and self-publishing.
Having signed, valid model releases would also allow use of the images for stock sales.
However, the quality of your images would likely have to improve quite a bit to be acceptable to a stock agency.
You could have your own stock web site but would need to promote it to those companies that may want to use the images and the quality of the photos would still be an issue.

 

[gsgary]

Those are nowhere near good enough to sell,motion blur and underexposure and bad noise due to underexposure sorry

 

[tuumbaq]

You may want to invest into a coupe of strobes before you can starts selling images.It would help you getting sharp and properly exposed images

 

[CNCO]

how are you going to use strobes at a live event????

 

[bigtwinky]

remote triggers.
NBA has them setup all over the place

There is more to lights and strobes than that little popup on your camera

 

[CNCO]

duh i know, i use a sb-900. where would you put a strobe? most events prohibit the use of flash. the crowd would get annoyed with flashes.

 

[bigtwinky]

duh i know, i use a sb-900. where would you put a strobe? most events prohibit the use of flash. the crowd would get annoyed with flashes.

Lots of places using clamps. The crowd won't get any more annoyed than then hundreds of people using flash with their P&S cameras.

Well, if you are shooting 3000 images in a 1 hour game, then maybe they might.

At pro games, they hang them on the ceilings, along ramps... there are plenty of places.

At lower level games, it might be harder. But then, there are less people, so stands in corners might work.

Or get better gear for high iso shooting

 

[CNCO]

right now my main gig is minor league hockey. no way can i put a lamp on the ceiling. i wish. my d80 is ok but i want a d7000 because of the higher iso capabilities

 

[Formatted]

no way can i put a lamp on the ceiling.

Get some SB-900s, a remote D3s and some clamps then your in business!

Sports photography is one part of photography where your gear matters.

 

[JDaves]

If your going to go into the sports photo business you will need the basic gear. You will need strobes for the gyms. If you use the on camera speed lights your photos will look like the moms pictures from the stands. I saw my business more than double after I started using strobes. I use 2 Alien Bee's B800's with pocket wizards. If you don't know what I am talking about you may need to do some on line studying of professional sports photographers web sites so you will learn how to best shoot a game.

Also you don't have to put the strobes in the ceiling, just get them as high as you can from the playing area. Also bouncing the light is better than direct.