Equipment business question...

M38A1

I'm investigating an opportunity whereby on weekends/special events, spectators would want to drop some cash on having their picture taken in a historic military vehicle or aircraft cockpit. These events would be airshows, kids birthday parties, farmers markets and so forth.

From a technical perspective, several years ago it was easy using a Polaroid camera/film. Take their cash, dress them up, put them in the vehicle, snap their picture with the Polaroid, and by the time they were out of the costume the picture was done. Repeat as long as there is a line.....

So in today's environment sans Polaroid, what are some suggestions on how technically to do this? I was thinking along the lines of a tethered camera that drops the picture on a laptop, then run a 4x6 color printer from that. This involves the need for a generator to run the laptop/printer.

Generally, how much would one charge for such an image?

And finally, are there recommendations on 4x6 color printers that provide good results in a commercial environment? This operation would be outdoors as well so an EZ-Up canopy would most probably be used to cover the gear.

Eagerly waiting on input.....

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ColoradoSkier

Canon Pixma iP100 - http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=184&modelid=16505

Glort

I think this is POTENTIALLY a winner.
I stress again, POTENTIALLY.

Firstly, can you secure access to an item of interest? Aircraft would be a winner, I can't imagine a truck having nearly the same "cool" or interest factor but something like a tank may work.

Also keep in mind age groups. May be hard to shoot a 4 yo in a plane where easier to do a 10 yo and keep in mind what appeals to diferent ages and to adapt to them. You may be able to take along a "Booster" seat for the little ones. Also thing of maybe some props such as goggles and a flying cap or jacket.

How are you going to pose the subject and what will the owner of the property you are shooting them with allow? I doubt an aircraft owner is going to want everyone sitting in the cockpit of a plane but standing in front of the thing with goggles and jacket would most likely be fine.

I would find someone with a war bird on the show circuit and see what they want out of the deal. You would also need to talk to the organizers of the shows and find what they want as their cut. You may be able to sell yourself as an attraction to the show they can promote and if that is the case, they better be looking after you.

Now for the technicals, you have to be laughing now over the days of paranoids.

I would suggest going much further than crappy 6x4's!
You are cutting yourself off at the ankles if you did this with something like you are talking about.

I would go 8x10's/ A4's ONLY.
You can get so much more for an A4 and people will pay for it. If you are doing it right, you should have people lining up so do the business like thing and make all you can from it.
You can do single prints, you could offer a package sheet printed on the 1 A4 page (1x5x7, 1x6x4, 4 wallets...) and you could offer a memento print like a mag cover or some other overlay with the place, date etc.
I would start out offering all and if one dosent sell or turns to be a pain, drop it and if you get 50 requests for something you don't have, have it next time.

You can easily program photo shop actions so you bring up the pic on the screen, hit one single button and the desired print spits out the printer with you doing nothing else except maybe putting the persons name in on a novelty print like a mag cover.
For this I put a stop in the action, position the image within the overlay template, add the name, hit the button again and the thing shoots out the printer.
Ideally you would have someone doing this with you for max speed. One shoots, one prints and deals with the clients.

Shooting tethered is best and you wouldn't need to spend a lot on software to get going. I know the canon tethered SW works fine and I imagine Nickoff if you are bent that way have something similar.

Open the shots and find the best, drop it in the layout, show the client if you have to and hit print. Take their money, smile, next please.

As far as generators go, NO, you don't need one. Even a small desktop machine will use relatively little power in this application and inkjet printers use nothing so a good size deep cycle battery ( use a couple of big car battery's if your cash strapped to start with) and an inverter and your there. You can easy work out the run time by knowing the draw of the hardware and dividing that into the capacity of the battery. You may have to find someone to work it out but if your stuck PM me and I'll tell you the numbers to find and do the sums for you.
It would not take much to power a computer and printer all day long.
A generator would in most cases be overkill unless you are doing long days.
Amount of prints you produce will have very little effect ( with an inkjet printer anyway.)

I would build a setup in a rolling case, Put a good shade over it either attached or have a sales tent and you would work like that. Quietly, independently, cheaply. Good signage of course goes without saying.

Now lots of people will tell you inkjets are no good and you need a much more exy Dye sub. I don't want to start an argument but I will say inkers are far cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and easier to get supplies for. NO, they don't last as long but at probably 1/20th the price of a dye sub, who cares? You will make your money back on day one and you can also get bulk ink systems that reduce your cost per print to peanuts.

As for price, from what I have seen prices for prints there and here are similar even if the international value of the relative $$ are not so I would suggest $25 as a minimum and $35 as a max for an A4/ 8x10 size print in whatever layout you, or more importantly , the client, likes.

I only offer A4's in my equine biz although I will do 2x5x7's on the same print if asked but that is rare. I also prefer bigger prints because they add a lot more WOW! factor to the concept and they set you apart from looking like an amateur by doing the same size they do.

I would put the prints in a clear plastic bag or sleeve with maybe a backing cardboard with your name emblazoned on them so as people walk around the show others see them.

Like I said, I think this idea has a lot of potential if done right but also see if anyone else is doing it and how they approach it. If you are the only one or one of a few, I'd say you would have a real earner on your hands if you can get the right bit of gear to shoot them with.

Good luck!

M38A1

So here's sort of what I'm looking at.....

There's a sub-culture of folks who like collecting cockpits and restoring/refurbishing them. The following is an example of an A7 that would be about what I'm considering.






The basic premise is, secure something like the above and use it for revenue generation. That can come in the form of providing pictures in flightsuits/helmets in the cockpit at airshows, kids parties, farmers markets, corporate events, scouting events, car dealership lots and such.

Simply by being something the everyday driver doesn't see, I also envision a gorillia type opportunity whereby vehicle wraps could be applied with a companies advertising and simply pulled around town as a mobile billboard. For sure it would be an attention grabber, and thus the name/wrap of the company/brand/logo/message would have a greater chance to stick with the potential customer.

Other than the upfront cost, I see an insurance cost, storage cost, maintenance of some extent, trailer registration and the picture taking equipment. Little thinks like flightsuits zipped in the front and cut/velcro'd in the back for easy in/out, helmets and such are reasonably available/priced.

Does anyone see potential in this type of adventure?

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Glort

Potential, Yes,

Difficulties also.

The main difficulty I see is setting the thing up so people aren't taking their own pics instead of buying yours.
With a prop that big, it may take some thinking to isolate it from others taking their own pics which these days is something I don't think should be underestimated.

Maybe this could be something like some clear plastic screens around the thing so people could see what it was but the reflections off the plastic would make photography difficult.

In saying this, your really going to have to figure out exactly what pic/ angles you are going to take that is going to be a must have that people will pay for. Part of a plane seems to me to provide some difficulties with getting enough background to set the context. Maybe you could get away with something much smaller like just a cockpit and a printed background of an airfield .

I dare say there are other such things around maybe in an amusement park setting or whatever so if you could work out how they are set up and adapt similar strategies, you would be on the right track.

I think if you can work out the strategy with the images and preventing providing a free background for others, there is good potential here.

M38A1

Glort wrote: »

...setting the thing up so people aren't taking their own pics instead of buying yours.

...have to figure out exactly what pic/ angles you are going to take that is going to be a must have that people will pay for.

...Maybe you could get away with something much smaller like just a cockpit and a printed background of an airfield .

Well, I've thought about that a bit and in a draft form came up with a couple ideas. I shoot the shot and provide the print for "X" dollars, you use your camera and it's "Y" dollars (somewhat less). The only way they're going to get close to or, in the cockpit, is paying either X or Y first just to get to the boarding ladder/stairs, so rogue shots won't even be an issue unless they just want a shot of it from the ground and 'their loved one' not in the picture.

The shot angles would either be from ground level up at the individual who's inside the cockpit giving a thumbs up, smiling or whatever. This would provide a contextual reference of them in the plane and plenty of plane side. Most probably shot from the non-ladder side to give an unobstructed view of them in the cockpit and the whole side of the plane. Placement would be somewhat critical to ensure buildings are not in the background, but a hanging 'cloud' backdrop could probably take care of that. Or.... shoot them inside the cockpit and a wide-angle lens taken from the top of the stairs shooting down at them inside the cockpit from about 45 degrees in both x and y planes.

The pics above are actually the type aircraft I'd like to secure, and I've seen a couple that were A7's but didn't have near as much fuselage as the one above behind the cockpit still attached. I'd try to limit the distance to about two feet behind the cockpit and use that for storage of tables, flight suits, helmets, ez-up canopy etc. Smaller aircraft would most probably not have the "WOW" factor to the public, but would be cheaper to acquire, transport etc. I actually have a lead on a complete Cessna O2 push/pull plane from the Vietnam era that might be a possibility.

One aspect of the larger airframe is that if I wanted, I could attempt to locate companies who would be interested in having it 'wrapped' in their company logo/colors/message, then pull that around town much like the Hummers, Mini-Coopers, VW Bugs have done with corporate wraps. This would also be in the same advertising space as the "A-Frame" billboard trucks running around town with their mobile billboards. The biggest plus to this approach is, a big old jet cockpit on a trailer will get a LOT of peoples attention and most probably generate some discussion about it, thus generating more interest in the corporate advertising route and/or photo opportunities, parties, corporate events. Well, that's at least my un-scientific thoughts.....

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