race event photography questions

greenpea

I have a question to all you out there who shoot racing events (i.e. skiing, marathons, cycle races, etc).

Does the event coordinator expect you to have liability waiver?
What sort of equiptment do you use (specifically lenses)?
How much memory do you generally go through?
Do you use smugmug to sell the images? How do you price them?

I realize these are all total n00b questions, but there is a local race that didn't have an official photographer last year, and I know the coordinator/main-sponsor, so contacted him about possibly shooting the race.

Thanks to anyone who can provide any guidance.

greenpea

bump.

Anyone? There's gotta be someone out there who does marathon, or bike racing, or ski racing photography and is willing to share a little advice.

Jeffro

greenpea wrote:

Does the event coordinator expect you to have liability waiver?

I shoot MX at a local track...no waiver.

greenpea wrote:

What sort of equiptment do you use (specifically lenses)?

My primary lens is my 70-200L f/2.8 IS, but I also use my 17-40L f/4 and 550EX flash, from time to time.

greenpea wrote:

How much memory do you generally go through?

5-7GB's. (Shooting large jpeg)

greenpea wrote:

Do you use smugmug to sell the images? How do you price them?

Yes. I looked around at other sites, and took into account the time I invest in taking them and posting them....meaning does the price make it profitable.

greenpea wrote:

Thanks to anyone who can provide any guidance.

Does that help any?

xtnomad

greenpea

Jeffro wrote:

I shoot MX at a local track...no waiver.

The organizer had some concerns that the ski area might require a concession permit and a $2 million liability waiver (!??!)

Jeffro wrote:

My primary lens is my 70-200L f/2.8 IS, but I also use my 17-40L f/4 and 550EX flash, from time to time.

I was concerned I would need more reach like 80-400, but I figure I'll be about the same distance from the subject as you are in MX.

Jeffro wrote:

5-7GB's. (Shooting large jpeg)

Time to buy a couple of memory cards.

Jeffro wrote:

Yes. I looked around at other sites, and took into account the time I invest in taking them and posting them....meaning does the price make it profitable.

Looking around a different marathon photo web sites, it looks like most start their pricing around $5 to $10 for a 4X6.

Jeffro wrote:

Does that help any?

Thanks, this does help a lot.

Nikolai

Some info
Small jpegs (from 20D/30D) are gonna do just fine, nobody is going to order 30"x40":-), so a couple of 2Gb cards will run you the whole day.

Depending on your location/position you may need different focal length. 70-200 looks like a good starting point, but it really depends...

$10 for a 4"x6" seems reasonable. Should you decided to offer 5"x7" and 8"x10" it'd be more like $15 and $35 respectively.

HTH

greenpea

Nikolai wrote:

Small jpegs (from 20D/30D) are gonna do just fine, nobody is going to order 30"x40":-), so a couple of 2Gb cards will run you the whole day.

Depending on your location/position you may need different focal length. 70-200 looks like a good starting point, but it really depends...

$10 for a 4"x6" seems reasonable. Should you decided to offer 5"x7" and 8"x10" it'd be more like $15 and $35 respectively.

HTH

Thanks Nikolai. Maybe I will actually make some money off of this gig after all. Now I'm just waiting for approval to do the shoot.

spider-t

greenpea wrote:

I have a question to all you out there who shoot racing events (i.e. skiing, marathons, cycle races, etc).

Does the event coordinator expect you to have liability waiver?
What sort of equiptment do you use (specifically lenses)?
How much memory do you generally go through?
Do you use smugmug to sell the images? How do you price them?

I realize these are all total n00b questions, but there is a local race that didn't have an official photographer last year, and I know the coordinator/main-sponsor, so contacted him about possibly shooting the race.

Thanks to anyone who can provide any guidance.

I shoot marathons and triathlons as a contracted photographer, so I don't actually do the selling myself.

I use a d2x and 70-200/2.8 VR lens. For wide shots, I keep a 24-120 around.

Other good things to have for race coverage are a monopod a pack stool a good backpack for your gear, and a bicycle. You often can't drive on the race route, but you'll need to get to a few locations for good coverage.

I shoot jpg/small/normal setting on my d2x and the files are plenty large for what folks want to do with them. My job is to get a good shot of everyone that passes me, so I end up with 4000-6000 shots at the end of the race. Usually 2-3 2gig cards will do the trick. But again, I'm not shooting large or fine.

Get the race to put a link to your gallery on their site and set something ahead of time up so the particpants can sign up to see their images after you post them (I use ymlp or googlegroups to gather email addresses).

The best way to sell images is to have them actually see pictures of themselves soon after the race. If can get their bib numbers and email addresses you can send them to the images you have of them. The race promoter may have this information.

Have fun out there.
Trish

greenpea

Just an update in case anyone was curious.

There are 2 events I was hoping to get to shoot. The first one (the big one) is tomorrow, and its not going to happen for me. Apparently shooting ski races at a ski area is a big bureaucratic mess. They expect you to have a consession permit for the area and a big (million+) liability insurance policy.

The second event is in about 3 weeks, and I was able to get in under someone elses insurance policy and consession permit. However, I had to agree to give 5% of all revenue to the US Forrest Service in order to get to shoot it.

At least I know what is involved and who is involved in case I decided to try and do this again next year. I suppose when you are the first person to offically shoot an event, this is the sort of stuff you have to put up with. When I started down this road, it all sounded fun, mixing my two passions skiing and photography...now I'm not so sure.

spider-t

greenpea wrote:

Just an update in case anyone was curious.

There are 2 events I was hoping to get to shoot. The first one (the big one) is tomorrow, and its not going to happen for me. Apparently shooting ski races at a ski area is a big bureaucratic mess. They expect you to have a consession permit for the area and a big (million+) liability insurance policy.

The second event is in about 3 weeks, and I was able to get in under someone elses insurance policy and consession permit. However, I had to agree to give 5% of all revenue to the US Forrest Service in order to get to shoot it.

At least I know what is involved and who is involved in case I decided to try and do this again next year. I suppose when you are the first person to offically shoot an event, this is the sort of stuff you have to put up with. When I started down this road, it all sounded fun, mixing my two passions skiing and photography...now I'm not so sure.

Don't be so easily discouraged if this is your passion. If you need to give 5% to the Forrest Service, raise your prices accordingly. And a $million liability policy may sound like a lot, but it is the standard minimum that pros carry. You can get a policy for about $200/year. Check out Marsh or Firemans Fund.

-Trish

greenpea

spider-t wrote:

Don't be so easily discouraged if this is your passion. If you need to give 5% to the Forrest Service, raise your prices accordingly. And a $million liability policy may sound like a lot, but it is the standard minimum that pros carry. You can get a policy for about $200/year. Check out Marsh or Firemans Fund.

-Trish

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm in for one shoot this year, and I'll see how it goes.