The market for photography services is more complicated than many people expect. Businesses need great photography for their food, products, events and corporate shoots in order to market well- a beautiful photograph makes the difference between a great website, event, or marketing campaign and terrible one. Therefore, photography services are highly sought after by different businesses.
This guide by ThunderQuote aims to provide you with a rough gauge to calculate your total budget related with hiring a photographer or getting a photo booth for your event.
Note: If you are seeking a photographer firm, you can save time and get up to 5 quotes from trusted local photographers / photography studios / firms on the ThunderQuote platform for free.
Before we dive into the different costs, you will need to consider a few essential questions:
1.What do you need the photography service for?
The purpose of your event is an essential question in determining what kind of photographer you would want to hire. This is because photographers have their own set of specialization. The most common specializations include – Food, Product, Baby, Sports, Wedding, and Portraiture etc. Event photography, on the other hand, is more general. Therefore, if you’re looking to hire an event photographer, it will be likely that most photographers will be able to do the job.
- Location
If you are getting a photographer to take photos of your products, it will be most likely that it has to be shot in the studio. This is to ensure that there will be sufficient control of the lighting and it also allows the photographer to try shooting from different angles.
Need someone to take photos of models? Most blog shops do both indoor (Studio) and outdoor shoots. The purpose of having an indoor shoot is to take photos of the apparels in a clean background so that it will be more pleasant to look at while scrolling through the hundred of different styles you may provide. Outdoor shootings are good for blog shop covers. You will be able to get a variety of shots in different settings.
To simply things for you, these are the three different types of locations:
- Office (For Corporate Shoots)
- Studio (Product)
- Event (It will be better to indicate what kind of event and what lighting will there be at the event)
- Outdoor (The photographers will normally ask you if you have an outdoor location in mind)
- Urban environment
- Beach
- Underwater
- Nature/parks
- Aerial
Photo credits: Odyssey
Event Photographer
An event photographer normally costs ($80-$250/h). However, if your event has more than 400 people, it will be highly likely that you would need 2 photographers. Generally, a photographer will be able to take photos of 200 people MAX and it would be impossible for him to cover more than that.
Some tips for hiring an event photographer will be to learn about your photographer’s style – you should decide on the photographic style you like best for your event. Would you prefer an artistic shot? Formal shot? Or photojournalistic style shot? Consider the reviews and references given by other clients and hire the photographer best suited for your needs!
Food Photography
A food photographer will cost more than an event photographer. It generally costs from $100-$300/h. Food photography is a specialized area, which requires a photographer with a lot of experience. Having a food stylist is extremely important. He or she must be someone who pays attention to the small details – from how much water to spray on the salad leaves to the order of ingredients in the burger. Thus, try to find a photographer who has a background in food styling. This will save you the trouble of finding a food stylist separately.
Product Photography
The difficulty level of taking the product will be taken into consideration when deciding how much it costs per hour. For example, if your product is round, shiny or tiny, your photographer may charge an extra 30-50% on top of his usual rates. Product Photography will cost from $100-$300/h. You may also need to decide if you want to hire a product stylist to make your product look more presentable and aesthetic.
Add-Ons
There are various additional charges on top of the photographer’s rates.
- Renting of studio/ Outdoor shoot
- Renting of studio costs around >$100-300
- Renting of an outdoor area costs around >$80 (much more if it’s an area like MBS -> $500++)
- Printing of photos
- Printing of photos will range from as low as $2 (Per 4R photo)<
- How many photos you want to be taken
- For product photography ($20-35 per Product)
- For portrait photography ($100-150 per Portrait)
Photo Booth Services
Photo credits: Magical Printable
A standard photo booth will include ($600- $1500):
- Standard backdrop
- Standard props
- Assistance on site
- Customized Overlay
- Overlays are design printed on the photo i.e. your logo/ Name of the event
- Unlimited Prints
- May differ for different companies, some photo booth companies may limit the number of prints in order to fit into your budget
- Availability for 2 hours
- Transport
Add- On
Additional hours
If you want an extra hour on top of the two hours, it may range from $150- $250.
Props
The Props included will be the standard props – which means it will be props which the company has with them currently. Photo booth companies will generally allow you to choose standard props according to the theme you’re going for. However, if you would like to Customize props, there will be an additional charge. 5 Customized props with just text may cost from $100-$200 and 5 Customized Illustrated Props will cost around $230-$350.
Backdrop
Photo booth companies generally have a list of different backdrops you can choose from. However, if you require a customized backdrop, it may cost from $300-$700. This price range is dependant on whether you require the vendor to do the designing for you.
Apart from taking all these factors into account, one good way in determining if the vendor is good will be using this checklist as a guide:
- Fast service
- Good aftersales
- Quality work
- Experienced
- Worked on many projects previously
- Follows framework
- Creative and out-of-the-box
- Multi-disciplinary
This price guide is only an estimate and you should not rely on it entirely! The best practice would be to compare prices from different vendors and find out which one suits you the best.
For help on finding a photographer or photobooth service, ThunderQuote is able to help you in getting 5 free quotes from highly experienced photographers and photobooth services just submit a Request for Quotation for free to find and compare them!
ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.