SLR Professional Photography Studio Kit

[jtoland]

Hi Guys

 

Just had the head come to see me and he asked if there was a way we could do Professional Photo's for students ourself instead of getting some one in to do them. i was wondering if any one had does this themselves and what kind of kit they have and where they got it from.

 

Thanks

JToland

[Norphy]

There's so more to good photography than the camera that they're using. There's also the lighting, the framing, the backgrounds and when all is said and done, the personality of the person taking the photographs. A good photographer will be able to bring the best of the person that they're photographing, they'll be able to make them laugh and smile and ultimately take a good photo. A good photographer will be able to take better pictures of someone using an iPhone than a bad photographer would be able with a £5000 full frame SLR.

 

Plus a professional outfit will have the facilities to print them and make copies for the parents.

 

If you want anything more than just ID photos, I'd advise you to get a professional in.

[plexer]

By we I guess your head means you?

 

This is something that's more for creative arts types people I guess but I agree with what's been said above.

 

Ben

[Pyroman]

Amazon sell photography kits with a backdrop and a couple of lights for not a lot of money. When we had our last ones done they had one of these Lastolite 1.8mx2.15m Collapsible Reversible Knitted Background - White/Mid Grey (LL LB67GW) - Wex Photographic with a light in it for the background and then a flash with an umbrella for the front lighting. You could look at soft boxes. Have a look at

for ideas

[7UD9]

One thing to note if you plan to use these for SIMS. To bulk import photos into SIMS you need to be a Capita registered photographer (I'm guessing that means you pay them a fee). We did our own quick/simple ones for the new year 7s before the proper photographers came in but we couldn't bulk import without the license file provided by Capita (through the registered togs).

 

Also, as Norphy said, there's far more to it than simply having the kit. I consider myself an amateur photographer but if the school bought all the gear and asked me to do it I'd probably decline as I know I couldn't do it at the same quality as a pro, there would be a pressure from parents expecting a high standard.

 

I'd also argue the value for money aspect too, for decent gear you're going to need to spend a fair amount. Once you have the gear there is the time to learn/train, the time of actually taking photos and then editing time. I imagine whatever you pay a reasonable professional would work out much better value as their process will be far more streamlined and efficient.

[arwen]

If they are adamant that they want you/some other school person to take over the photographing, then there are plenty of collages and Unis doing night courses that teach you to become a better photographer. If I was in your position I would price up some decent kit (doesn't have to be too fancy, and ideally a brand that the lenses are plentiful) and factor in the cost of a course, plus what hourly/event rate would be reasonable if the photograph taking is for after school events. Edited December 12, 2014 by arwen

[jtoland]

Thanks guys I will put it to head and see if he wants me to do it or not

[Garacesh]

As someone whose mother is a professional wedding photographer, @Norphy hit the nail on the head. Professional photography ≠ expensive kit* and there's way more to it than point-and-click. If you're after anything bigger and better than a passport photo, there's a reason pros charge.

 

* Although to be fair, she's easily spent more than my yearly salary on equipment. But that's 'cause she gets the bookings and gets to charge the big bucks.

[dhicks]

Just had the head come to see me and he asked if there was a way we could do Professional Photo's for students ourself instead of getting some one in to do them.

 

If you want to get pictures of pupils on a plain white background, then the studio flash kits available on eBay / Amazon actually seem to work okay - reasonably portable, easy to set up, produce the right effect. You'll need some time to practice getting the equipment set up correctly, though, and it'll probably take a while to get set up each time you want to take photos. Professionals who do this do this all the time and the whole process practised and refined, your head will need to understand that it's going to take you a while to get sorted - it's not going to be a case of quickly nipping down with a camera.

 

You'll need help, too - probably a couple of other people to chivvy pupils into the right place and have some system of recording which pupil is which image number. It turns out it's actually quite easy to write your own script to import images directly from a DSLR, there's a Python library available, so you might be able to put camera images straight into your MIS or VLE. If you have the space, you could turn a small cupboard into a photo booth, with lighting all set up properly so pupils just need to sit down and have their photo taken.

 

For group photos, I'd echo what Norphy said above - the tricky part, especially with younger children, is to get them all looking at the camera at the same time. You need to somehow limit the number of adults they have to focus on to just yourself - taking some photos at the nursery nativity play the other day, I realised we had a whole group of parents and teachers all yelling "look this way!" from different places in the room, which didn't help.

 

If you're not sure which camera to get, you could try hiring one to start with - I've just been and hired a lense for some film work as I'm not quite sure if it'll produce the effect I'm after, which has got to be cheaper than buying it and then finding it doesn't do what we wanted.

[Love_Sausage]

Not sure why on earth you'd want all the hassle of doing it yourselves, ours come in for free, give us the photos for SIMS and deal with all the selling and hassle afterwards, then send in a cheque with our commission on the sales. The sheer amount of time that's going to take someone in-house would cost a fortune.

[Pyroman]

If you want to get pictures of pupils on a plain white background, then the studio flash kits available on eBay / Amazon actually seem to work okay - reasonably portable, easy to set up, produce the right effect. You'll need some time to practice getting the equipment set up correctly, though, and it'll probably take a while to get set up each time you want to take photos. Professionals who do this do this all the time and the whole process practised and refined, your head will need to understand that it's going to take you a while to get sorted - it's not going to be a case of quickly nipping down with a camera.

 

You'll need help, too - probably a couple of other people to chivvy pupils into the right place and have some system of recording which pupil is which image number. It turns out it's actually quite easy to write your own script to import images directly from a DSLR, there's a Python library available, so you might be able to put camera images straight into your MIS or VLE. If you have the space, you could turn a small cupboard into a photo booth, with lighting all set up properly so pupils just need to sit down and have their photo taken.

 

For group photos, I'd echo what Norphy said above - the tricky part, especially with younger children, is to get them all looking at the camera at the same time. You need to somehow limit the number of adults they have to focus on to just yourself - taking some photos at the nursery nativity play the other day, I realised we had a whole group of parents and teachers all yelling "look this way!" from different places in the room, which didn't help.

 

If you're not sure which camera to get, you could try hiring one to start with - I've just been and hired a lense for some film work as I'm not quite sure if it'll produce the effect I'm after, which has got to be cheaper than buying it and then finding it doesn't do what we wanted.

 

In my experience, the kids in group photos were brilliant, it's the staff that are a complete pain to wrangle. When we had our last lot of class photos the photographer and deputy actually asked me to be a staff wrangler and get them to behave and all look the right way. As soon as the flash goes off the staff all turn and talk to each other so getting multiple shots was a right pain!