Marathonfoto.com - General running

Marc.S

26/09/2011 at 09:50

Am I the only one who thinks their prices are obscene? I am a professional photographer myself and I understand how much work goes into this, but as someone who has covered F1 races, we dont even charge multi million pound F1 teams the kind of money these websites want for what are (99% of the time) average photographs,

And boy do they spam your inbox, I think they would make 10x the money if they sold them much cheaper, I dont know anyone who has bought one personally, but if they were like £4/5, I think most of my friends would have at least bought 1 over the years,

I just think the prices they charge are beyond ridiculous,

/rant

26/09/2011 at 09:57

I agree, I'd have bought some over the years if they were cheaper but I cannot justify spending that sort of money on photos in which I always look like sh1te!

Intermanaut

26/09/2011 at 10:26

The prices are set at what people will pay. I find the quality of the photos to be the biggest issue. Without exception, they're all shit.

Marc.S

26/09/2011 at 10:32

thats just it, i think people dont pay it, i'm sure some people do, they must do in order to stay operational, but by being greedy i think they lose a huge number of customers, lower profit per image would bring in a far bigger turnover,

but yes i agree, the pictures are very rarely good, perhaps as a photog myself i'm picky but many people agree, there was one photog though at the silverstone half marathon this year, he/she was shooting people as they were in the pitlane exit, his/her photographs were very good, not many of them but they were very well taken.

fat buddha

26/09/2011 at 10:45

I've very rarely bought race photos - and only for the iconic finish ones like 1st marathon, 1st Ironman etc.

as others have said, most are shit anyway - why do I want to see me looking like a dribbling idiot struggling to do my best yet again??

overpriced repeats of previous photos of me - waste of money

Edited: 26/09/2011 at 10:46

cougie

pirate

26/09/2011 at 11:20

They have to charge a high unit price as not many people buy them. I know I don't.

Marc.S

26/09/2011 at 12:37

i guess its catch 22, if they risk a low price they might not make enough money, so they sell high to cover costs, but in doing so alienate 99% of their customers, maybe they should trial it on a big race, the company wont lose out.

fat buddha

26/09/2011 at 13:53

"maybe they should trial it on a big race, the company wont lose out."

they already cover a lot of big races - they're one of the biggest commercial race photo companies out there (US based but cover events globally - look at the list on their site) - so I guess their pricing policy falls into them being a big corp as they'll have lots of overheads smaller companies don't have

Tricky Dicky¹

26/09/2011 at 14:21

The Brussels 20K event is done bya different company and they sell the whole pack of photos they have of you for something like 12 EUR for the original full-res files. There's normally 6 or 7 photos as well as a few generic event type piccies as souvenirs. I suspect they sell a whole lot more in volume and net a great deal more revenue.

There must be a hure proportion of first (and last?!) time marathoners doing events like VLM that make it worthwhile to charge at such a high pricepoint because they know they will get a high take up rate.

I did Berlin yesterday and MarathonFoto were the chosen snappers. Will be interesting to see if their pricing policy is any different compared to the UK events.

Badly Drawn Bloke

26/09/2011 at 15:58

Rotterdam Marathon give their pictures away, or at least they did when I did it. I'm assuming the company that has the contract to take the pictures still make a profit.

Wilkie

26/09/2011 at 16:07

I've never bought a race photo. They are always horrible and usually ridiculously expensive.

Amsterdam mara and half the pictures were free when I did it. You could just download them from the web site. (Still horrible, though!)

David Bennett 2

26/09/2011 at 16:26

I found it made very little difference how much you charged as to how many you sold from £4 to £10 a (small) print. I've given up now. Too much hassle for too little reward in the end. Digital downloads made it all easier, but the level of profit wasn't great at local races.

The big big companies all subcontract out, so you need to pay the subcontractors a fair amount each to get out of bed. What is the day rate for a photographer with £5000 worth of equipment on his chest, Marc? Of course a number of those don't normally do running photos, so aren't used to getting anything like reasonable photos.

And some people don't like the way they look in races anyway... I'm pretty critical myself... The odd one or two I think have been ok, but mostly I look rubbish.

If a race were to pay me a couple of hundred each race, I'd give the photos away for free, but I wouldn't do it for nothing. I guess Amsterdam and Rotterdam do something on a larger scale.

Wilkie

26/09/2011 at 16:31

I guess they build it into the cost of entry to their races, which is not cheap.

I've seen pictures of me during races which I have liked - but they've been taken by a friend rather than a professional photographer. My avatar is an example

Marc.S

26/09/2011 at 16:43

David, its not so much the photographers who i'm blaming, i dont quite know how marathonfoto works, ive never worked for them, but i'm assuming they pay a flat rate to their photogs,
like you say, most dont have super high end rigs and the quality isnt high end, but the bigger companies are charging high end prices.

i guess my biggest issue is that they charge a premium price for an average (at best) product,

Emmy H

26/09/2011 at 16:46

I've only bought a couple (the "firsts" for me). On other races, i've had friends there who have taken pictures and they've been a lot better!

Badly Drawn Bloke

26/09/2011 at 18:10

Wilkie - I found both Rotterdam and Amsterdam (didn't get to run the latter) were very well priced. Cheaper than Berlin that doesn't even give you a t-shirt let alone photos.

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