........especially these days where digital is free, kind of diluting the value ( all day 2000 shots on a DVD for £250 is common)
Digital is anything but free - but the most important part is that for professionals, time is money - let alone buying kit, whether it's film or otherwis.
I have a Nikon D800 and a D700 (not eactly cheap), 16Gb CF cards aren't massively expensive these days but I process on a 27" iMac using Nikon Capture NX2, Photoshop and/or Lightroom. As I'm not a pro, I don't have an hourly rate but let's say £20-30 an hour isn't unreasonable for a skilled technician. Ignoring digital, Hasselblads and Mamiyas don't exactly grow on trees.........
Based on Paul Mitchell's timescales in previous post (which sound very similar to my experience) and assuming depreciation of kit / need to replace / upgrade over time) it amazes me that professional wedding photographers are prepared to get out of bed for less than £1,000 for even the most basic package.
Some cheeky buggers also want professionals to hand over a CD / DVD so the bride and groom, their family and friends can all post photos on the web and/or get prints done / albums made without the photographer seeing a penny for it. Unless it was a shoot for a friend, I would never surrender my copyright unless a significant fee was agreed.
If peoples' perception is that the time spent shooting the wedding, travel costs, photographic techniques learned and people skills honed by professional photographers adds no "value", they should make do with snaps taken by their friends / family on their big day - blown out highlights, heads chopped off, blinking, squinting and out of focus / poorly exposed photos as may be....
I have sympathy for those genuinely desperate to completely under-value and under-price their services but the end result is that they cannot sustain those price levels for long and they are taking food off the tables of real professionals whose only crime is to want a fair price for their product.
