Do you want to tap into the lucrative ‘Lifestyle Portrait’ Photography market?

Are you someone who is interested in making money from digital portrait photography without the added & expensive costs of running a studio?

A no-non sense behind the scenes look at how to make profit from Digital Portrait Photography working from home.

You will learn how to operate a successful & thriving business from home.

Whether you are a beginner, experienced, part or full-time photographer, this report will unlock the secrets to profitable portrait photography.

Enter your Name & Email below to receive your instantly down loadable 35-page free e-book. Your email privacy is always respected.

Our friends at Triple Scoop Music have kindly arranged a super 10% Discount Code for you guys. They have a huge collection of Royal-free Music and I use them for my own work all the time.

Triple Scoop Music is the music licensing service loved by the world’s top photographers. Unlike traditional “royalty-free” music services with lower-quality or generic music, Triple Scoop Music has thousands of hand-picked songs by acclaimed artists from around the globe, including Grammy and Emmy winning songwriters. Each music purchase includes a lifetime license that empowers you to include the music on your website, within slideshows for your business or your clients, as a soundtrack to your promotional videos and much more. The bottom line is that great photos deserve great soundtracks and Triple Scoop Music makes finding great (and legal) music options to grow your business fun and affordable.

Use the special discount code sfdigital10 at Triple Scoop Music and save 10%

Enjoy

Oz

From 27th August 2010 – 31st October 2010 (inclusive) customers in the UK and Republic of Ireland are able to claim £200 / €230 cashback on purchases of the D300S and a NIKKOR lens worth over £400 / €460 made in a single transaction. Simon Iddon, Enthusiast Product Manager at Nikon UK says: “The D300S is a superb camera that is popular with both still photographers and creative image makers. Incentivising customers to invest in an additional NIKKOR lens that further enhances the creative possibilities ultimately maximises enjoyment of this award-winning product.

Built upon the widely acclaimed D300, the D300S incorporates the same DX-format 12.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, professional 51-point autofocus system and commended EXPEED image processing in a discrete compact body. Thanks to its HD movie capability, faster frame advance rate of 7fps and dual CF and SD memory card slots, the Nikon D300S is a digital SLR camera that broadens the possibilities for creative image makers. All claims must be received by 30th November 2010.

Terms and conditions and information about how to claim are available at www.nikon.co.uk/cashback. Offer subject to availability. For more information about Nikon’s lens range please visit www.nikon.co.uk

Celebrate 10 years with Vistaprint!

Vistaprint is #1 in the online print industry! Delivering high-quality products in low volume for a great price. Products range from business cards to postcards to invitations and T-Shirts.

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary, they are giving away 10 FREE products!  Offer expires Septmeber 30, 2010.

Design your own sticky notes with caricatures of your family or choose from the gallery of designs for your stylish FREE tote bag!

Don’t forget convenient labels to label books and other school items.

Top 10 Products for FREE!

- Business cards
-Return Address Labels
-Postcards
-Rubber Stamps
-Banners
-Photo Calendars
-Pens
-Sticky Notes
-T-Shirts
-Mugs
-and more!

There is a huge market and demand for headshot photography for business cards, passports, advertising, website, brochures, press kits, model & actor / actresses portfolio, etc. Every business needs this for their staff. This is a simple head & shoulder shot of a person against a plain or coloured background or backdrop. This is called ‘headshot photography’

There is a continuous requirements for headshot photography and they need to be updated every 2 years so it reflects the person’s age, hair style and colour, etc. These shots are needed for publicity & PR, brochures, business cards, website, security badges and so on. Not only businesses require these, but people like actors, actresses & models need them too for their portfolio.

Lets start with what you need to do headshots. The headshots needs to be flattering and designed to enhance their features and minimise flaws. Make-up and hair should ideally be done professionally if these are for model or actor / actresses portfolio. Wardrobe should be thought about before the shoot and you should allow for multiple wardrobe changes.

If the headshots are required for business use or for staff pictures, you don’t need wardrobe changes, however, you will need to work pretty fast as you don’t want to waste time of the staff sitting in front of the camera for long periods of time and costing the company valuable man hours. If you are slow and use too much of their time, you will lose that company as your customer. It is even more important when photographing directors or members of the board. Quite often you will have only about 2-3 minutes per person. They are busy people and you need to work extremely fast.

When doing headshot photography for corporate clients, you will be asked to come over to their office and shoot the images. Here again, you need to cause minimum disruption to their working environment. Don’t take over the office with your light stands, cables, leads & equipment. Keep your kit to a minimal.

PRICING & PRODUCT

Many photographers struggle to price the job correctly as the product required by the company is just digital files. Remember that the copyright always stays with the photographer, you give the rights to reproduce the images for their business use.

The way to cost the job is very easy. Direct costs for headshot photography is very minimal and the major factor is your time. So if you think the job will take 3 hours, then charge 3 hours x hourly rate + any direct costs i.e travel, etc. It is up to you how much mark-up you put on your total costs.

Lets have a look at a ‘real life’ job. The brief was to create headshots for 5 employees. I was to photograph the headshots at their head office.

As you can see from the images of the room I was going to do the headshots in, there wasn’t any plain wall available which I could use as my background. I had a Lastolite background but if I can use a plain wall, there is no need to set up the background up and saves time.

Then I noticed the frosted windows and that is what I was looking for. I only need a little bit of space to do the headshots in. I set up my portable lighting kit which consisted of a Nikon SB900, a diffused umbrella and a light stand.

I used a Nikon SU800 Commander unit to trigger my remote Nikon SB900.

The SB900 was set to Group A Channel 1 and so was the SU800 Commander. This is very important, they must be able to ‘talk’ to each other. Pressing the little test button (orange coloured) on the SU800 will trigger the flash and you know that they are set correctly.

The other important factor to consider is the sensor on the flashgun must ’see’ or ‘receive’ the infra-red light from the SU800. This is very important when shooting outdoors but not indoors. The infra-red light is reflected from the walls even if the sensor on the SB900 or SB800 is away from you. A good discipline is to always keep the flash gun sensor facing you as you can see from the image below. This is why I use a diffused umbrella and also I like the soft diffused light when using a shoot through umbrella.

I use a Lastolite 80cm Umbrella – Translucent White and this works fine for me. What I would recommend is the Lastolite all-in-one lighting kit. This is portable & light weight. As I said earlier on, I need to be really fast to set up and shoot. It takes me less than 2 minutes to set up a lightstand, Nikon SB900 or SB800 and an umbrella. No wires around me and all works really well. The Lastolite Lighting kit is £82.99p from Warehouse Express.

Now to setting up the exposure. I get my subject and do a test shot. The ideal lens for this is either a Nikon 85mm, 105 or a 70-200mm. I use the Nikon 105mm for this kind of shot.

Here is the set up shot. 1/100 f/5 ISO 320. The output of the flash was set to around 1/16. As the flash is pretty close to the subject, I don’t need to fire it all full output. This is critical for fast recycling of the flash gun and you don’t need to wait around a few seconds for the flash to be ready. I’m pretty much firing the shots one after the other.

Here is the final image as shot.

It would have been very easy to make the background completely white by using a second flash gun on the background. But I preferred the light grey graduated colour on the background and kept it that way. I usually take about 8-10 shots of each person in 2 different poses. This will give you enough choice to pick the best few images. You don’t need to give all the images, just the best 3 images per person.

Click the link below to search for any of the items directly from Amazon:

Photography

To recap:

- Keep things very simple
– Be quick to set up
– Don’t take over the office
– Dress smart. No jeans & trainers!

Hope you enjoyed this article post and feel free to write any comments or feedback.

Oz

Nikon UK announces ViewNX 2, a comprehensive new version of its popular bundled software package that enables users to easily import, browse, edit and share images and D-movies.

Building upon the successful ViewNX software, ViewNX 2 is a feature-packed, user-friendly suite supplied with Nikon digital cameras and available for download. The software now offers a range of tools dedicated to editing D-movie files captured by today’s DSLR and compact cameras.

In addition to basic data importing and browsing, ViewNX 2 incorporates various frequently used adjust menus and tools such as resize, brightness control, crop and straighten, as well as sophisticated RAW processing functions.

Zurab Kiknadze, Product Manager Lenses, Accessories & Software, comments: “For many, ViewNX is the core software application to import and organise images. View NX 2 makes everything easier and smoother, and features a wealth of added benefits for D-movie shooters too”.

Present movies in style
ViewNX 2 includes several simple and intuitive editing tools which enable users to create great looking movies. The software allows you to trim and then merge clips together, apply a variety of attractive transition effects with the addition of still images and soundtracks of music to generate stylish and animated films to share with family and friends.

Refined, intuitive User Interface
The UI has been redesigned for maximum efficiency. Smooth graphics and an intuitive layout make it even simpler to access and use its wide range of creative tools. Different display options have been added to perfectly suit the task at hand; in addition to the ‘Browser’ and ‘Edit’ options, ‘GeoTag’ allows users to view images on a map relating to where the images were taken. And to make viewing and editing even easier on the eye, the background colour can be altered according to the brightness of the images.

Take Control
ViewNX 2 features many image-editing options, such as Crop, Straighten, Auto Red-Eye Reduction and Auto Lateral Color Aberration, along with crucial features including file-format conversion and a wide range of labeling and rating options, making it easy to navigate and sort through countless images. Integrated RAW image processing allows further control over the final output with numerous useful editing functions, such as white balance, exposure compensation, contrast, brightness, sharpness and many more. The software also increases the printing choices available, with new options such as background colour selection and metadata inclusion.

Sharing made simple
ViewNX 2 is closely integrated with my Picturetown, Nikon’s popular online digital image storage and sharing service. Images can be easily uploaded to the service with a simple drag/drop operation, and users can browse my Picturetown images online as well as directly in ViewNX 2.

With the addition of many new features based upon the feedback of Nikon’s users worldwide, ViewNX 2 takes Nikon’s already impressive free software package to the next level and empowers creative image makers of all levels to get the very best from their shooting.

Please visit http://nikonimglib.com/nvnx/ to download the free software.

Here is a little gift for all our loyal visitors & customers. Our friends at Host Gator have arranged this fabulous discount of $9.94 off any hosting packing when you use the code:

SFDigital2010

Host Gator has a fantastic Control Panel for configuring a Wordpress blog which is very very easy to understand and install.

Enjoy!

Oz

Your photography business probably gets enquiries from potential clients  via email and your contact us page on your web site and you try to send information, quotations, pdf brochures to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a booking by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send them any further information?

If you are like most photographers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a booking when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find them important enough to follow up with later. When he/she doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, they will take their business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first email by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He/she can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what do they care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative email. Your second email marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first email. Fill this email with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first email. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each email so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving them a reason to book NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to book immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he/she hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get them to actually respond. Ask if the price is too high, the package isn’t the right, or if he/she is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, the feedback can help you modify your follow up emails or products, so that other prospects will book with you.)

The timing of your follow up emails is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he/she gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours later. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell them about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last emails are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

If you would like to see this in action, sign up for the 7-Day Challenge on the right hand side bar. You’ll receive an email each day for seven days and you’ll see and experience email marketing at first hand. You too can be sending out emails like these to your clients. If you need any help setting up a series of emails, then just contact me and I’ll be happy to help.

Try AWeber Email Marketing Risk-Free

AWeber is one of the best companies for email marketing. They are the market leaders in this field and you too can set up your email marketing very quickly and easily. Sign-up for a risk-free trial period.

Oz

I’ve had quite a few emails regarding the Nikon D300s. Here is a little bit about the camera and also a video from our friends at B&H, New York. 8 years ago when my wife & I started SF Digital, our first purchase for the business was the Nikon D100. We had two bodies and each did around 150,000 clicks without the shutter going down!!! We were photographing Events, mainly Equestrian sports like Show Jumping, Dressage, Cross Country, Mounted Games, Pony Clubs and so on.

I loved the D100. It was a superb camera and the whole digital revolution was starting and since then the advances in technology & software has given us the Nikon D300s. This is I would say one of the best DX format Nikon cameras around at the moment.

The D300S is a compact DX format professional SLR that extends the options for photographers who value creative flexibility. Incorporates Nikon’s D-movie with in-camera editing function into a discrete body, letting you switch quickly between capturing superior stills or movie clips in stereo* sound. It boasts a highly sensitive 12.3 megapixel CMOS sensor and supports a phenomenal 7fps continuous shooting. CF and SD card slots enhance workflow flexibility,  letting you capture stills on one card and movies on another. Nikon’s acclaimed 51-point AF system offers broad coverage and high sensitivity in low light. Selectable Picture Controls streamline post-production, and the high definition 3-inch LCD screen supports D-movie and two Live View modes. Protected by a tough, yet light, environmentally-sealed magnesium alloy body, the D300S will change the way you approach the craft of photography.

Key Features

12.3 megapixel DX format CMOS image sensor. Self-cleaning sensor unit minimizes the effect of dust.

7fps continuous shooting (8fps when shooting with the optional MB-D10 battery pack).

D-Movie records beautiful, high-definition (HD) movie clips in stereo sound* with start/stop Edit function.

Dual card slots: CF and SD card slots for enhanced workflow flexibility.

ISO 200-3200: extendable up to ISO 6400 (equivalent) and down to ISO 100 (equivalent).

EXPEED image processing engine with 14-bit A/D conversion and 16-bit image processing for superb tonal gradation.

Multi-CAM3500DX 51-point AF system. Individually selectable or configurable in 9-point, 21-point and 51-point coverage settings.

Quick response with approx 0.13 second power-up and 45 millisecond shutter release time lag.

Quiet shooting mode: perfect for discrete photography, the sound of the camera’s mechanisms are noticeably reduced.

Picture Controls streamline in-camera image processing by enabling customization of image parameters before capture, and offer complete control over sharpening, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation in various color modes.

920,000 dot 3-inch VGA LCD monitor with wide, 170- degree viewing angle.

Active D-Lighting enables superior high-contrast images by automatically applying tone compensation at the moment of capture.

Durable, magnesium alloy body: water and dust resistant.

Durable shutter unit tested to 150 000 cycles.

HDMI video output interface enables connection to high-definition video systems.

Intuitive ergonomics with optimized button placement for fast and comfortable handling.

This is now Nikon’s flagship DX-format camera body and delivers an exceptional degree of power from a agile body. The D300S’s Multi CAM 3500DX AF sensor module offers an exceptionally wide area of AF coverage. With 51 points strategically positioned across the frame.

One of the most interesting features is the Scene Recognition System using the precise colour and brightness information from the 1,005-pixel RGB sensor. Scene Recognition System pushes the accuracy levels for autofocus, auto exposure, i-TTL flash control and auto white balance to an unprecedented high. In playback mode, the Face Detection System lets you instantly zoom in on a human face in the LCD monitor.

Video on a DSLR

I’ve written about the video on a dslr before on here. With the D300s you enter a whole new dimension of creativity. You can create HD quality (1,280 x 720 pixels) at 24fps movie. You can also attach an external microphone through the mic terminal. A good quality microphone like the Rode VideoMic Directional Stereo Microphone is a professional grade shotgun microphone and sits neatly and safely on the hot shoe.

The sensitivity of the internal and the external microphone can be adjusted to low, medium, high or auto sensitivity level.

Select low for sensitivity in loud & noisy environments and high for quieter environments.

An external microphone also allows you to distance it from any sound generated by the camera  – such as the lens movement during autofocus shooting.

The D-Movie function has undergone various improvements since its launch in 2008 and now comes with an external microphone terminal for clear stereo recordings that add an exciting new element to your movies.

Another way to enhance the dramatic impact of your movies, far beyond the reach of ordinary camcorders, is with the unrivaled line up of NIKKOR lenses – from ultra wide to fisheye to super-telephoto.

There are two modes for the video:

Tripod Mode
Gives you control over the depth of field with a selectable aperture of up to f/16 (in A & M modes).

Hand-held Mode
The D300s can automatically adjust the aperture setting to match changes in the brightness of your scene.

The dual card slots for Compact Flash & SD memory cards is a ‘must-have’ in any pro camera body. Gives so much peace of mind knowing that your images / movies are being backed up in-camera instantly. With more movies shot, the card capacity is getting bigger and I don’t have any problems shooting with a 8GB or bigger CF card.

The battery will give you approx 950 shots depending on how much you use the superb 920k-dot LCD screen for playback function and also video. Using the MB-D10 Multi Power Battery Pack increases the shooting to up to a phenominal 2,950 shots per charge and enables high-speed continuous shooting at a rate of approx 8 frames per second.

For the flash, I would recommend the Nikon SB900 Speedlight. Event though the D300s comes with a pop-up flash, you just can’t beat the SB900. One great little feature of the built-in pop up flash is the ability to trigger wirelessly any SB600/800/900 flashguns as a remote. The built-in Commander Mode for the flash allows you to control up to 2 groups of flashguns.

This is a superb DX-format 12.3 megapixel camera body with approx. 100% viewfinder frame coverage. If I wasn’t using the FX format D series Nikons. I would certainly be using the D300s.

Following on from last week’s post on Press Release, here are some tips to help you write an effective press release and increase your chance of having your story published. You need to make the editors’. freelancers, reporters or journalists job easier by presenting the release in a format and style that appeals to them.

Headline

Should be brief, clear, concise and to the point. Should grab and attract attention. Headlines should be written in bold and in bigger font size than the rest of the body text. The headline should be in present tense

Body

The press release should be written as you want it to appear in a news story. Start with the date and city in which the press release originated. The first sentence is very important and ‘must’ grab the attention and then the next 1-2 sentences then expand on it. The body should be compact, avoid using long sentences and paragraphs.

Your first paragraph must sum up your story. Provide as much information and facts as possible. Include who, what, when, where, why and how. The length of the press release should be no more than a couple of pages, usually it is less than a page for photographers.

Company & Contact Information

Include your company details. Journalists would need to mention your company details in the article. Describe your company, what you do, its core business and the business policy.

Mark the end of the press release with three ### symbols, centered directly underneath the last line of the press release.