Myth of digital efficiency

[George Kara]

Forgive the CPA in me but truly - the myth of high end digital being cheaper overall when compared to film doesn't appear to add up.

Here is a real example. Please tell me the errors in my computation.

Over on Ludicrous Landscape, there is a gentlemen selling a P45 for 17K or best offer. It has 5006 actuations according to the jpeg image.

So lets do the real world numbers in this exact circumstance.

Original purchase price approx $ 30,000
Sales - use tax est. at 7% 2,100

Total estimated costs excluding
all other digital related hardware
and software $ 32,100

Lets say you can purchase
for 16K 16,000

Depreciation of asset over
two year period $ 16,100

Number of total captures 5,006

Cost per image $ 3.22

This is only for the capture related costs. This excludes the photographer's time
in developing and correcting the digital negatives. It also excludes the delivery cost of the product to the client. Please note no costs for computer, cf cards, monitors, cables etc. are included above.

So please where is the cost/time savings derived?

George

[John Voss]

Lets say you can purchase
for 16K 16,000

Depreciation of asset over
two year period $ 16,100

Believe me, I'm no fan of digicams, but more than total depreciation over two years? Are you kidding? Take a look at used digital camera prices at KEH.com and notice that even 4 megapixel Nikon D1s, for example, are still are being offered for hundreds of dollars.

Oops, I should have checked. The Nikon D1 is a 2.65 megapixel camera.

[Donald Miller]

Thanks for the heads up...I am going to see about buying it.

[ViewIIguy]

Believe me, I'm no fan of digicams, but more than total depreciation over two years? Are you kidding? Take a look at used digital camera prices at KEH.com and notice that even 4 megapixel Nikon D1s, for example, are still are being offered for hundreds of dollars.

Oops, I should have checked. The Nikon D1 is a 2.65 megapixel camera.

How many people are actually going to buy a D1 though? Digitals certainly don't hold their price, and then it's pretty hard to sell them after about 5 years or so period. We run in to a good many people trying to sell us used digitals at the shop, and it just doesn't make sense. They're not too much different than computers, no one wants a 5 year old computer to do serious photoshop work on because everything has gone so far since then and what not.

Take for instance the fact that we bought two Canon d60s when they came out for about 2500 dollars. 6MP cameras, nothing wrong with them, but if I sold them today I could maybe get 200-300 dollars. That's if anyone wanted one at all, which is so very unlikely.

-Will

[Ed Richards]

How about if the art director is looking at the computer while you are shooting and approving/modifying the setups, and the models and other costs are running $50K a day? Want him to hang around while you develop film or persuade him to look at Polaroids - assuming you can even get the film?

Sure, you cannot make the numbers work shooting landscapes for fine art prints, but in a commercial environment those 5,000 captures might be $500k in business. Just shooting 5,000 sheets of 4x5 transparency film with processing will be about $25,000, plus scanning say, 10% of the sheets at $100 per scan is another $50K, you are now at $75,000 to get to about the same place, with a whole lot of extra work dealing with processing, scanning, etc.

Digital looks like a bargain to me.

[sanking]

But what are you comparing costs to? If one is working professionally they are more likely doing color, and the best color is printed from digital files. So every one of those digital shots, had they been done on film, would have required a high quality scan. So if you want to compare to film, say MF, you will need to count the cost of your scans. And the cost would need to be based on use of a high end flatbed or drum scanner.

I have done the calculations for my own work flow and have come to the conclusion that medium format film is a much better value for me than high end digital, say a Canon 1DS Mark III or a P45 back. But I can see that a working professional dealing with dozens or hundreds of images per week there would be clear advantages, both in time and money, to straight digital capture over film capture and scan.

Sandy King

Forgive the CPA in me but truly - the myth of high end digital being cheaper overall when compared to film doesn't appear to add up.

Here is a real example. Please tell me the errors in my computation.

Over on Ludicrous Landscape, there is a gentlemen selling a P45 for 17K or best offer. It has 5006 actuations according to the jpeg image.

So lets do the real world numbers in this exact circumstance.

Original purchase price approx $ 30,000
Sales - use tax est. at 7% 2,100

Total estimated costs excluding
all other digital related hardware
and software $ 32,100

Lets say you can purchase
for 16K 16,000

Depreciation of asset over
two year period $ 16,100

Number of total captures 5,006

Cost per image $ 3.22

This is only for the capture related costs. This excludes the photographer's time
in developing and correcting the digital negatives. It also excludes the delivery cost of the product to the client. Please note no costs for computer, cf cards, monitors, cables etc. are included above.

So please where is the cost/time savings derived?

George

[jetcode]

I went to AC Graphics in San Rafael today. If you need quality framing or mounting for less money in the bay area that's the place. I go in and see this gorgeous mounted print of my neighborhood, that is, the beautiful mountain backdrop here in the San Geronimo Valley. Admiring the print from a distance and then up close I asked the owner what he took the image with ... a 6mp Nikon ... it was a great print and great image in the 16x20 range. I then compared it to my 4x10 generated image printed a bit smaller. They were virtually identical in quality and I printed my image at 600dpi. Granted I could have tweaked the sharpness in and kicked the detail up a notch or two in my print but needless to say I was impressed with the result of a 6mp camera.

As far as cost per print what about the transportation and development costs, the time lost getting film developed, scanned, etc. That all adds up. The user of a digital back may pay $3.22 an image but the image is nearly instant.

[Gene McCluney]

The bottom line for working photographers is, if the client demands digital, you have to do digital. It is certainly not economical to purchase a medium-format digital back to do "hobby" or "art" photography, not by a log shot. But if you are already in the high-billing commercial or fashion photography field, and want to continue to work, you have to provide digital. In larger markets one can rent medium-format digital backs. So, hypothetically, if the referenced digital back costs $32,000, and the photographer is selling it after 5000 exposures, over a two year period. What if his billing (derived from this digital back) for that period was $250,000.??? It is certainly possible to bill that and more for high-end work over a 2 year period. If you consider this scenario the back only cost him $0.02 per shot (5000 shots) out of his billing for the shots.
That is assuming he sells the used back for $16,000. I may be wrong on my calculations, but the bottom line is spending $16,000 to make $250,000 is for sure a good investment.

[jetcode]

The bottom line for working photographers is, if the client demands digital, you have to do digital. It is certainly not economical to purchase a medium-format digital back to do "hobby" or "art" photography, not by a log shot. But if you are already in the high-billing commercial or fashion photography field, and want to continue to work, you have to provide digital. In larger markets one can rent medium-format digital backs. So, hypothetically, if the referenced digital back costs $32,000, and the photographer is selling it after 5000 exposures, over a two year period. What if his billing (derived from this digital back) for that period was $250,000.??? It is certainly possible to bill that and more for high-end work over a 2 year period. If you consider this scenario the back only cost him $0.02 per shot (5000 shots) out of his billing for the shots.
That is assuming he sells the used back for $16,000. I may be wrong on my calculations, but the bottom line is spending $16,000 to make $250,000 is for sure a good investment.

not to mention you write the digital back off as an expense ...

[David A. Goldfarb]

Not to mention that if one is also paying rent for a studio in a major city, particularly in New York, $30K for a camera setup starts to look like a modest expenditure.