Making Sense of Expensive Photos

[boingy300]

We used to buy the pictures, but the ones in recent years show us as a couple with lots of wrinkles. I think the film must have been better 20-30 years ago, because that couple looked much younger. Nancy

 

Nancy I have noticed the same thing! I am certain if we complain and RCCL realizes what victims we are, we'll get free cruises, or at least free facials in the spa- right? This digital is aging me. Where's my "Kodak" moment when I need it?! To heck with the technology phase. Where's that happy,fuzzy Doris Day type camera?

Karen

Gumbert Family Cruiser

[bucsat1]

You folks are missing my point! Lower the price and sell many more photos with much less waste. Good idea or bad, and where is the drawback for the cruiseline?

[teach01]

Guess how much money the cruise ship makes off of the one picture you purchase, when you multiply that by everyone buying pictures---they make a killing!

[jbond]

You folks are missing my point! Lower the price and sell many more photos with much less waste. Good idea or bad, and where is the drawback for the cruiseline?

I'm not missing your point. I agree with you and I have written it as a comment on every recent comment card. It seems to make sense, except that, I still walk off the ship with 3, maybe 4 photos, that's $60 to $80. Multiply that by the number of couples and you get around $90,000 per week on a Voyager class ship. So I guess the bottom line is , if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

As an aside, I do hope that all you folks who buy those phootos include them in your customs declaration. :D

[erin_cruisers]

As an aside, I do hope that all you folks who buy those photos include them in your customs declaration.

 

Ooops! :D

[Coolcruise02]

Thanks for web site for the photo release. Does anyone happen to have one for Carnival or Princess? Thanks :)

[luv2cruise99]

What I really hate is when they won't sell you the smaller photos unless you also buy one of the larger ones. On my last cruise, I wanted a 5x7 photo of my nieces and nephew all together for my desk at work. It costs something like $9.95, but they wouldn't allow me to buy just the 5x7. They said I had to buy at least one 8x10 before they would allow me to buy anything smaller. The 8x10 was too big for my desk and it costs something like $19.95, so that means I would have to spend around $30 to get the one 5x7 that I really wanted. No way! I bought nothing and we ended up taking the picture ourselves with a digital camera (it came out just as nice too!).

 

I will never understand the sense of turning away a customer who wants to spend money just because they aren't spending enough. Especially when the end product is just going to be thrown away if not purchased.

[DMage]

To add on to the digital print conversation, anyone at Disney recently would have seen a new system they use called PhotoPass. They bascially give you a card (like a SeaPass) and swipe it at every photographer who grabs a picture of you. Besides being able to view them all at once, you can also pull them up online several weeks later.

 

This would work great, as they could save it to a seapass card, and then would instantly know what pictures to play for which room if you wanted to view them via stateroom. Then being able to log onto RCCL.com and view pictures and purchase when you get home would be great.

[davehau]

You folks are missing my point! Lower the price and sell many more photos with much less waste. Good idea or bad, and where is the drawback for the cruiseline?

 

Based on working in the photography field, and talking with the folks onboard cruise vessels doing photography, the price point for photos is set based on maximizing the overall profit -- price vs units sold can be charted pretty well, and by putting your prices at the peak of the curve, you get the best return. Lowering the prices might mean more pictures sold, but not enough to compensate for the lowered prices. Also, from the photographer's side, you want to see your work priced at a respectable level -- underpricing is the one thing that can not only cause your business to fail, it can cause clients to overlook your work thinking it's not of value, and it can harm the field overall. This actually is one of the hardest concepts to get used to when entering the photography business.

 

As to the digital photography systems, more of the vessels are switching to this, however the costs associated with the switchover can be fairly steep. The Fuji Frontier developing and printing system, which many of the lines use, is pretty expensive. Fortunately, some of the cost can be recovered by the increased opportunity to develop/print passengers' pictures as well as those taken by the photo staff. To move to a on-demand printing system (using monitors to view pictures) is even more expensive, and can be tricky to implement. I wouldn't want to see the lines try to do such viewing by the in-cabin TVs, because the quality and color would be atrocious, and probably would reduce sales -- to properly display a studio-quality image requires decent monitor, preferably color calibrated. When I've worked with onsite viewing for land-based events, we calibrate every monitor used by the customers on-site, once it's placed and in the exact lighting conditions in which the customers will be using them. Also, in some instances, the convenience of being able to simply pick up a print and buy it now leads to more sales than if a customer has to view the pics, choose the ones they want, then return for the prints later.

[Riversedge]

Be careful about buying photos that they claim were taken that day. When we went to Alaska they had photos out of the glacier that they claimed had been taken the day we were there. Not true...the day we were there didn't have a cloud in the sky and the pictures showed clouds. They didn't like it that we pointed that out to them!!!

[wannacruise655]

Boy, RCL must do a much better job w/ pics than Celebrity, the pics we looked at on Celberity cruise a couple of years ago we terrible, even the ones we posed for on formal night... We didn't buy a single one.

 

Sounds like maybe RCL does a better job....I'd like to buy a couple of GOOD pics. can you say CHEESE !

[moneeman]

Of course the real trick will be if they can send just my photos to preview/purchase - to my stateroom over the TV. Facial recognition perhaps? RF signals from SeaPass cards?

 

But as said above, won't this be the end of an interesting tradition...often just the right time-filler in between activities. Huddled around terminals won't be the same.

 

I do look forward to sheet-based packages. Where something other than 5x7 or 8x10 can be efficiently offered / mixed.

 

Oh, and thanks SWA above, I hope to use your math to "save" enough to buy the new Canon RebelXT. Keep Love flying.

DNA1990,

 

I don't disagree with SWA's point, but be sure to include the cost of photo paper and printer ink into the calculation. Depending on the quality paper you use and which printer you have, you can spend 50 cents per picture just printing. It's true you only have to print the ones you like, but if you are like me, you will have to reprint a significant percentage to get the picture "just the way you want it". (Actually, it's my DW who tells me to reprint - the first one usually looks just fine to me!)

[mek]

I've reached a point where I only buy one or two photos per cruise. I like the embarkation photo, if it has the ship's name and date. One of the objections I have is that the photos are now 8 X10. I prefer the smaller ones for albums. Problem is they will reprint the larger photo into a smaller version, but still charge $20. IMHO - a big rip off!

[Linda/Ohio]

We still buy phots. Sometimes lots--sometimes one or two. This past cruise we bought a lot. It is nice to have some "formal" type photos.

 

In 1997 0r 98 they had a package of wallet sized photos of formal night. It was nice package and you could send them to friends and family in Christmas cards or the like.

 

Linda/Ohio

[mhenry]

One thing that we found works well to reduce the cost is "sharing". I always cruise with a large extended family. Each adult buys one print that they really like. Then we scan and print copies of each photo on the home computer to distribute to everyone. This way everyone gets a nice collection of cruise photos for only the cost of one.

[FlyingPhotog]

DNA1990,

 

I don't disagree with SWA's point, but be sure to include the cost of photo paper and printer ink into the calculation. Depending on the quality paper you use and which printer you have, you can spend 50 cents per picture just printing. It's true you only have to print the ones you like, but if you are like me, you will have to reprint a significant percentage to get the picture "just the way you want it". (Actually, it's my DW who tells me to reprint - the first one usually looks just fine to me!)

 

When I want prints from my digital camera I just upload them to an online site with a local store. They only charge $.27 a print and I can go pick them up within an hour. ;)

[NYDee]

I like to print my own digital prints. I use Photo Shop on many of them. However, if I want to print a lot of them to send to someone that doesn't have email (in-laws) I will take them to a local shop to print.