First "commercial" Shoot - what to charge?

[Ronza]

I've got a store, referred by my friend who's after some product shots for their website. The products are wood carvings (Corbels) and the shots are simple, clean, 3/4 shots against a black background. Nothing challenging at all, equipment wise I won't need anything more than a light tent and some halogen lights.

Post processing will just require a quick RAW conversion and batch resizing and naming. I've spent an hour talking to the guy just then doing a few shots and showing him the results and I think there would be about 30-40 product lines to photograph in the same setup. At a guess, about 5 minutes on each image max - 3~4 hours ish. Not too fussed about copyright.

Bottom line - whats a reasonable rate to be charging?

[beetleboy]

First things first, you're under-estimating how long this will take you! I do it all the time!

Because I'm a freelancer at the studio, whenever I'm quoting I'm always being told to bump my price up cos it's bound to take longer than I expect! And it does. Every time!

I could tell you what we charge for our Jewellery photography but then I'd have to kill you (and there are a lot of witnesses around here!).

Seriously tho (in an attempt to be at least remotely helpful) you need to decide whether you want to charge this at an hourly rate or a piece rate. We charge a setup fee and then a piece rate which obviously makes it more economical for the client to get a whole batch done in one hit and will save you messing around with one or two pieces.

Hourly rate - I'd be looking at $350-400 for 3-4 hours
Piece rate - More like $15/piece (30-40 pieces = $450-600)

At the end of the day you have to be willing to stand up for the quality of your work. If you don't think it's worth that much, then you're approach will probably fall short of those numbers..clients respond very well to you if they feel they can trust that you'll take care of them.

Hope that helps.