Can anyone calculate how much it costs to take a picture?
As has been said, obviously apples & oranges & pears.
I have a spreadsheet buried somewhere with my actual numbers before I closed my studio 3-4 years ago, going back to around 1995.
I migrated to the computer in 1998 for all output. Scanning film at the time, 35mm, 645, & 6x7. So all of the post capture costs, once the image is in the computer, are basically the same for film & digital. Digital capture takes out the cost of the scanner, no scan time, no spotting, filing, lab trips, etc.
I was doing fashion when I quit, so I was making a lot of images. More with digital than film of course. Averaging maybe 600-1,200 images from a 6-8 hour digital fashion shoot.
My cost per frame at the time, for pro 35mm film & develop only was $.33 per frame. For 6x7 it was $1 per frame.
For 2 years after ther Canon 1Ds2 came out, I averaged about 30,000 frames each year for studio & personal work with it. I bought for $7,800, and sold it at a price so that my total net cost was about $3,000, for the 2 years of use, with CF cards, etc. I was already a Canon photog, so no lenses et al.
So the 1Ds2 net cost was approx $.05 per frame, based on my volume. vs
* 1Ds2 at $.05 per image
* 35mm at $.33 per image (which I **hated** and had given up in 1998) ,
* 645 at $.60 per image = ($20/33 images on a Pentax 645N, I could tolerate 645) , and
* 6x7 at $1.00 per image ($20/20 image on a Mamiya 7II)
* 4x5 at $5.00 per image
In 1998, 1999, and 2000 I shot an average of 5,000 frames of 6x7 per year, at $1 per frame. Plus some 645 for personal work & family stuff. I was aware of that because I did a studio budget at the beginning every year. For film, equipment, conferences, marketing, trips, moldels, etc. based on the previous years actuals.
But with the 1Ds2 I was also shooting 30,000/5,000 = 6x as much as with 6x7 film.
So call it $.05x6 = $.30 per "image set" with the 1Ds2, or about the same as 35mm.
But a lot easier capture than scanning. And I was never happy with my 35mm images, whereas the 1Ds2 replaced my 6x7 eventually (I sold after 1 year with no use.)
For the film,, I have to add in the scanner cost. From 1998 to about 2003 or 2004, I was buying new scanners which cost me, on average, about $1,000 per year. That was for MF, those scanners were pretty expensive. I had 35mm scanners before that.
First in 1998 was $2,200 or so Dimage Multi, used that 2-3 years, never sold it. Then I bought an Agfa flatbed instead of a Nikon 8000 or Multi 2 around 2001 so that I could scan 4x5
At a rate of 5,000 images per year, that is an additional $.20 per image for scanner amortization. So a net $1.20 to capture a 6x7 frame into the computer.
I would expect, had I gone MFD about the time I bought ther 1Ds2, the cost may have equaled the $1 per frame of 6x7. Instaed I moved to 4x5 film capture, at a cost of $5 per sheet (excluding equip & scanner) for those captures that needed it. I think I budgeted for 400 sheets of 4x5 my last year, 2006 or 2007.
Sorry, not just sick, disabled & doing nothing but staring at the walls!
Plus I have a photography undergrad and an MBA, so I followed the numbers pretty closely. Never made a decent image in my life, but I have nicely formatted spreadsheets to show for it!!
Cheers!
Michael
