Biz 101

I'm a Nikon man through and through

— Identity withheld, but “he hopes to become a professional photographer.”

Cameras are a dime a dozen (with the new price increases, they cost slightly more than a dime). It's not the camera, but the system that is important. There's never a perfect system, be it Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony…

First of all, I'm not a Canon man, a Nikon man or… For years, I've used Pentax cameras, now I use Canon cameras, some Canon lenses and some Canon accessories, but I'm not a Canon man. Big difference! I'm not defined by the camera, I'm defined by: “I try to do the right thing” according to my morals. Sometimes, I'm too selfish and then I kick myself in the… Sometimes, I'm extremely proud when customers carry my photographs everywhere and show them to everybody.

Last week, I received a call from an “old client” but it wasn't the “old client”, my contact left about a couple years ago and there's a new person, Brenda. Brenda called to check if I was still available “to do some quick photos.” I didn't argue and said yes, so she sent me an email asking for an “accurate estimate of the cost” with some description of the work.

The dictionary definition of an estimate is:

to form an approximate judgment or opinion regarding the worth, amount, size, weight, etc., of

The important words are:

• Judgement
• Opinion
• Approximate

But that's not what Brenda wanted. Brenda wanted a quote with a fixed price and wanted me to stick to that fixed price even when they would change the specifications and what the job entitled.

Which photograph do you prefer? This will be for a mail-in to construction companies.

Photograph A

or Photograph B

Which version do you prefer?

Thank you. For comments, you can use the Contact Me form.

• Did you know that Case is the second largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment and the third largest manufacturer of construction equipment? Maybe you know that.
• But did you know that Case is part of the FIAT empire? Yes, the Italian car manufacturer of the FIAT 500, of Ferrari or Lancia fame.

I just had another request of:

It will be good exposure

Basically they want free work.

1. My standard policy is usually yes, if you are also working for free.
2. My standard policy is usually yes, if it is a cause that I really believe into.
3. My standard policy is always asking for credit…

And that got me thinking (these days, I need something to provoke into thinking.) What if we change the parameters just slightly:

“It will be good exposure” but the request comes from a huge for profit organization like CNN, NBC, BBC… with a 3 minutes interview.

I'm in the process of creating a new web site for my commercial photography. I have most of the content, the photography and much of the text. So I decided to look around. I'm not looking to steal anybody else's web site. I'm just looking to see how other commercial photographers integrate their photography with a blog. As I was looking around, I found that some commercial photographers do not want anybody to come to their web sites.

By now, you must have heard that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy. All the noise from the web is that Kodak is a bankrupt company because, although they invented many of the digital technology, they were not nimble enough… Those are mostly people that repeat what everybody else copied from the web. The problem is that these people don't have a “long enough” memory. Kodak's problems started long, long before the digital area.

What The Duck has this great cartoon about “Kodak's death”

Here are the 3 main events that caused “Kodak's death”:

Nikon announced their Nikon D4 in January 2012. The next day, Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in customs wrote the following blog post DSLRs are a dying breed – 3rd Gen Cameras are the Future in which he slams Nikon/Canon and the big/standard dSLRs.

Please note that:

• Stuck in customs has 1+ million visitors per month
• Trey Ratcliff sales were in the 7 figures in 2011
• Trey Ratcliff employs 11 part and full-time people (that's what he mentioned in Feb-2011 in an interview)

Trey announced that:

It's almost the end of the year, 2011. Most websites will do two posts:

1. The year in review
2. Forecast for the next year

I'll save you time and money, but first the important part:

The year in review: don't you already know it? Didn't you live through it? In anyway in the big scheme of things, a lot happened, especially natural catastrophes that we still live with the consequences even today (I'm talking about photography):

Last Saturday, I went to Reifel Bird Sanctuary, things didn't go well.

Sandhill Cranes Cleaning Themselves   click on image for gallery

1. It was “supposed” to be nice weather.

One of the standard advice to a blogger do a “Top 10 List”. I've never like either doing or reading top 10 lists.

I always find these lists as superficial. It's usually a title followed by one or two sentences that do not explain anything.

When was the last time that a top 10 lists gave you the information that you needed? I can't remember one occurrence.

With some many photographers, everybody screams at the top of their lungs that you should specialize. Notice that this is often coming from a generalist that specializes in pressing the shutter button.

Here's a guy that takes specializing to the n^th degree: Martin Waugh of Liquid Sculpture. He lives in Oregon and makes a very good living making photos of water/liquid drop. Very nice, very profitable.

If you are looking for water drop photos or videos, he's your man.

I've had this customer for a few years. Peter used to phone, but over the last couple of years, it's been all via email. The jobs were not big, half a day here, a day there… Last spring he told me that he was leaving. I took him out for coffee and a nice cake.

Last month, September, I got a request from Hank, who took over Peter's job, to photograph…

… With talent in a diverse range of photographic genres and solid technical skill in both production and post-production, I'm flexible enough to tackle almost any assignment thrown my way…

I'm currently focused on…

— Anonymous Photographer

Some people think of themselves as God's gift to the world. This remind me of this garage that according to the sign “specialized” in:

• cars
• trucks
• domestics: Chrysler, Ford and GM
• imports: Japanese and German

I drive a Mazda.

I came from Pentax, ditched my complete Pentax system and switched to Canon. 2½ years later, I'm still rebuilding my system. It's amazing all the little things/accessories that one accumulates over the years. Luckily, I didn't switch to Nikon! It turns out that all Nikon photographers are incompetents! Looks like Joe McNally, Tim Page, Hernst Haas, Steve Curry … don't know what they are doing.

A photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses, and a good lens is essential to taking good pictures.

Nikon's Facebook page

1.

I have a “semi-lower end” Manfrotto ball head. It's OK, nothing great, the price was also “semi-lower end”, under $200. I also use it as a levelling head for my panoramas. It does the job, but I know that I will need to buy a new head. I've been eyeing an Acratech GP ball head, $400 + the plates. The Acratech ball head is very light and can be reversed to become a levelling head, but...

Linhof has come out with a brand new ball leveling head: the Linhof 3D Micro Levelling Head.