Photography Resources Newsletter

Friday 25th July 2008

Staring Your Own Photography business,
eBay and Summer Plans

I see the Future

Scrying can involve Crystal Balls or peering into water

Image taken with Nikon D300, with 18-200mm at 52mm, ISO 400, 1/60th, F6.3

Summer has at last arrived, and perhaps you have had a few days out with your camera. I heard from one reader she had managed to get some good shots of the Tall Ships in Liverpool, and several others had found the clouds particularly interesting over the last week.

This is perhaps the time we need to take a few hours out and give ourselves a target to get specific photographs this summer, perhaps a project with a theme or perhaps a lost of places we would like to go. Its difficult of course to do this as a diary event except if its an event taking place on a specific date, when its a choice of get it or not.

We have pencilled in two weeks where we plan to get away, allowing us to get a variety of photos, but arranged so we are back each time in time to get this newsletter up, having built up a few pages in advance, so that you still get some new information to see. In theory we should have got some of this in hand by now, but last week and this has a lot of articles and they have used up all the time available. This weeks location guides follow on from last weeks and features a number of places that you can go utilising Tesco Clubcard Deals tokens. We have added new symbol to highlight these.

Next week we will have a theme week, looking at photography around a specific topic, but also it will be time to move the calendar on within the photographers dairy and add another month.

Ever considered Your Own Photography Business ?

We have a lot of articles this week, but the start point is a three page article on starting your own photography business. Although written from the point of starting out, it should also be of interest to those who already have a business and may be looking at moving forward. While its written specifically from the point of a photography business many of the pages could be applied to setting up many other businesses as well.

This starts by looking at the way you identify what would be ideal for you and check its viability, moving on to looking at what pre-work you may need to do, as well as explain business structures like companies, partnerships and sole traders before moving on to creating a business Plan and Marketing Plan. The three page main article has articles linking from it and they in turn have more. We have rewritten a few other existing pages and linked up several others, allowing this to form a new section, and over time we will be able to expand on this both going from the establishment process through running and exploring more markets.

As you could start and go off down various routes, becoming lost, on this we suggest that you read the main three page article without following any of the links and then go back through exploring deeper. The Photography Business Topic Section menu will assist you to reach most of the other articles when you need to, this comes off the Photography page of the Topic Index.

EBay and Getting Items Cheaper than normal on eBay

We also have a couple of articles relating to eBay, one looking at effective ways to get the most from eBay and the second looking at snipping, which is a method of biding via a program on eBay, where the program puts a very late bid in for you just seconds from the end, so that there is no time for anyone to outbid you. It also allows you to use groups, allowing you to select a range of items to bid on telling the program the maximum you want to bid and it keeps going until it makes the purchase for you at or below the figure you have set. As prices go up and down all the time, depending on on how many are bidding, this approach allows you to get the one at the lower price, but without having to sit watching your computer for a week. Use of this is not against eBay rules.

Nikon Firmware and Software Updates

We have updated our sheet showing the latest versions of firmware and software. Changes include firmware updates on the D3, adding extra menu choices and a minor adjustment for the D300, plus a new upgrade to Nikon Capture NX (original not NX2). Nikon Firmware and Software Versions

Nikon and Rip off pricing

Nikon have updated their page on grey imports, the art of importing items yourself from another country rather than paying highly inflated prices charged in the UK, some times more than twice as much. For example the NX to NX2 upgrade they just changed the dollar to a pound sign and added VAT making it well over twice the price here. They justify this in part by having to comply with different electrical standards. Lenses and software don't have electrical supplies and the cameras only have a plug and short cable that plugs into a battery charger, the battery charger is the same standard one available everywhere, so this makes little sense.

We see no justification in the mark up made in the UK, although we would agree it's more expensive with our level of red tape and taxation than some places, it's not that bad. I used to suggest people buy half their kit here and import half, but now I think we should all buy all our new equipment from overseas, so that the dealers here are put into a position where they have to stand up to Nikon Europe and demand that UK consumers are treated fairly, and we pay the same or near the same prices as available elsewhere. This would remove the need for grey imports.

They also threaten not to honour International warranties, issued by Nikon, which is a specific sales feature of Nikon worldwide. The concept of International warranties is that you can safely buy lenses, flashes and the like while on holiday knowing that you have a full International warranty and be able to get a local repair should the need arise. If anyone actually ever has a problem getting anything repaired under an International warranty we would like to know.

Summary of Articles Included this week

Starting Your Own Photography Business - Part 1

An Income from Photography

Business Structures and naming your business - Part 2

Partnerships

Limited Companies

Naming your business

The Business Planning Stage - Part 3

Business Plan

Business Plan Checklist

Marketing Plan

Market Review