1. Switch to VR or stay with Business as Usual?

The first question comes in various forms, but essentially, many have asked how to make the jump to VR, or when is the right time to switch to VR. It gets worded differently each time, but the question always has this either / or component to it. Either we get serious about VR or stay with what we’re doing … how should we decide? How can we know? Is the time right?

First off, let me get the disclaimer out of the way, the following is strictly my opinion, and what works for me may not work for you. But I’ve survived as a full time commercial photographer for 28 years and have been serious about VR for 15 of it, so there might be something here you can use. There are those who will disagree with some of my views, so ultimately, take what you can use from all the sources available to you and put together the plan that works for you.

I don't see the decision as "either normal work or VR work". I incorporate VR into my "normal" work, that is, it's one of the several products I offer. The following page on my website has links to INFO pages about these differing products:
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/pages/Page_info_02.html

IF I could do only VR work, I probably would, but I'm not to that point with it yet . . . soon, maybe!

But there is no reason to think of it as either / or. Here’s some background that has been responsible for shaping my attitude and accounts for my current approach to the VR market:

Some History:
As with many, I got interested in QTVR in the early 1990's, and learned all I could about it. By 1995 I was ready and waiting for the VR market to explode with work. Seems I was about ten or twelve years early, I feel now that it has just begun to make its move and will expand greatly over the next three to five years, then establish a foothold and level off (just my opinion, don’t take it to the bank). Every few years I’ve noticed others entering the market who react to it just like I did in the early nineties, i.e., this market’s about to explode! And they feel the urge to concentrate solely on VR.

Fifteen years ago, in the beginning days of VR, businesses were certainly impressed with it, it would generate a lot of excitement among clients, but not many sales were made. Although an impressive medium, the financial people in a corporation wanted to know exactly how it would make them money … exactly! Those of us producing it didn’t have a clear enough answer or case studies to point to. Without a direct path to making money, business owners and financial people didn't want to be the first to buy in. Unfortunately, low-end VR established a foothold in the Real Estate markets and for hotels online … two very low paying markets (at least then, hotels are loosening up). The term Virtual Tour became synonymous with "lo-res, low quality VR pans". That was bad for those of us targeting high quality markets.

Because VR was perceived as a low-end product, the market didn't want to accept it as a viable form of advertising. As such, it was hard to command a respectable price for the amount of skill that went into high quality work. Those of us who believed in the strong potential of VR were disappointed in that early perception, but hung in while watching for opportunities to drive VR to upscale markets. The way to “hang in” while waiting for the market to turn was to keep doing the kind of work you had been doing all along … clearly the time was not right for “switching to VR”.

I've seen slow movement in the sales of quality VR work since, and the downturn after 9/11 didn’t help, but in the last year or so it's gained some credibility and momentum, and once again I see high hopes for VR. I'm actually getting some pretty good work now, as are my friends in the business. Still, I keep doing "normal" commercial photography as well.

Thinking about my work in the last few years, my most recent work has come in through the VR door, but I find that it’s not uncommon to uncover a need for some of the more traditional photographic products as well. For example, I traveled to Boston recently to do ONE VR pan, but made it more cost effective for the client by adding some needed location photography to the mix. It was a win/win. So will I ever switch to only VR work? I don’t know.

To summarize my current approach, I’m looking mainly for interactive work in my sales efforts, both pans and objects, but I don’t pass up the opportunity to provide more standard photographic services as well once I’m in the door.

2. How do you achieve the quality in your VR work … through skillful lighting or detailed retouching?

Photographic Technique for VR
I see a couple stages to pass through in building your photographic skills for VR. Take it step at a time, get the basic techniques down before you go for the advanced techniques.

Basic Technique
Setting your camera to full auto with unfiltered on-camera-flash is the mark of the inexperienced photographer, and takes much of the control out of the photographer’s hands. You get what you get with luck playing a strong role in the results.

Lighting the whole scene while balancing inside and outside exposure values is the mark of the experienced professional still photographer, but this method is not practical for VR photography for multiple reasons. So, where’s the middle ground?

The great majority of my VR work is shot as close to available light as I can make it. Our perception of our world is, by definition, lit by available light. That's what our brain is used to "seeing" and what it expects to see. Some professional photographers and art directors see available light as a "shortcut" method, but when done well, I see it as the preferred method. I believe available light is the backbone of good lighting in a scene. Fully lighting a VR scene is not only impractical from a time and budget sense, but our brains tell us that something is "wrong" in the finished image, something doesn't "look right". By staying as close to available light as possible, we appease the brain, it will accept our rendition of the scene more readily, even if we've taken some other shortcuts.

There are a minimum of three potential problem areas we need to account for in available light photography for VR:

1. contrast
2. conflicting color balances
3. neutrals in the scene

EXTREME CONTRAST - More often than not, an available light environment is more contrasty than film or a digital sensor can reproduce; it's a fact of a photographer's life. We learn to conquer high contrast by filling in shadows and thus reducing the actual contrast range of the scene.

My No. 1 method of conquering high contrast in VR scenes is to use balanced-filtered-fillflash. When skillfully employed, balanced filtered fill flash creates a low level of detail in otherwise blocked-up shadows. And the term filtered fill flash means that the flash has a filtration added that will bring the color of the flash into line with the color of the primary light source in the environment. If the primary light source is fluorescent, then the flash must have some level of green filtration on it to make the flash's white light comparable to the green of the fluorescent light. To make it more complicated, all fluorescent lights don't have the same color balance, so the most accurate way to determine the proper filtration over your flash is to use a color meter to determine which filters are appropriate to match your flash output to a given fluorescent light environment.

The term fillflash tells us this light is a subtle light, it's not the main light of the scene, but rather a fill light, a balanced fill light. The photographer exercises control over the strength of the fill light. The nuances of lighting makes it successful or not, and balanced-filtered fill-flash is all about nuance. Successful balanced-filtered-fill-flash does not call attention to itself either in color balance or exposure level.

In the photo "Champions.jpg", the overall brightness in faces as well as the clear detail under the one hat in the scene is a direct function of balanced-filtered-fill-flash.

I metered the stadium lighting using a Minolta IV Color Meter, then gelled the flash with two CC filters so it would be extremely close to the same color balance as the stadium lighting, a 40CC green filter as well as an 81A warming filter. I "programmed" a delicate fill ratio on my Nikon SB-25 flash, a fill ratio that is most subtle, but without it, the faces would be dull, the eyes would be sunken, and there would be zero detail under the bill of any ball player's cap.

The same technique is used in the majority of my interior VR work. The balanced filtered fill flash is a very key ingredient in my work. It gives me the most effect for the least amount of work.

For tungsten lit environments, you can fill with incandescent light if you'd like, or gel your on camera flash with an 85B filter designed to translate standard white light to a 3200ºK tungsten color balance.

Summary: keep the fill light subtle and make it match the color balance of the predominant lighting in the scene.

CONFLICTING COLOR BALANCES - Besides filtering auxiliary lighting so it matches the color balance of the primary lighting in the scene, color balance issues also come into play where an interior scene contains an exterior view. The daylight balance of the exterior portion of the scene can conflict strongly in both color and intensity with the tungsten or fluorescent balance of the interior portion of the scene. The two must be brought into balance. In some cases, you'll see daylight mixed with fluorescent light mixed with tungsten light.

My primary recommendation when shooting scenes with conflicting color balances is to shoot digital RAW files. RAW files are simply ones and zeroes, they are not photographs yet, but rather numerical formulas. With RAW files, you can set your color balance to whatever color temperature you'd like after the fact. So, in the simplest mixed light scenario - daylight window view mixed with fluorescent or tungsten interior view - you neutralize each still shot of the VR panorama to the color balance best suited to that section of the scene. The troublesome spots are where window views blend with interior views - skillful use of Photoshop is called for there.

Here are a couple samples:
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/pages/gallery_VRPan_02.html

The following shot required merging five different color balances:
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/pages/gallery_VRPan_09.html

NEUTRALS IN THE SCENE - Whites should be white, and blacks should be black. That's about it! In an ideal world, you're working with one color balance and, if you shoot RAW files, you can balance to a neutral tone in the scene and everything will be fine color-wise.

However, sometimes the scene is really mixed-up color wise and you can't make it all balance out. That's when to remember this rule of thumb: if the whites appear white and the blacks appear black, your brain will presume that everything else is as it should be. So in really troublesome scenes, desaturate the whites and blacks to force them to neutral.

Following is a scene where I used that technique.

The colors are crazy, but your brain keys in to neutral whites and blacks and all appears to be proper. Before I desaturated the whites, they displayed "crossed curves" with greenish shadows and pinkish hilites (same was true of the white tones in the image, "Champions.jpg").

Advanced Technique -
Once your basic technique becomes second nature and you don’t sweat bullets when photographing a mixed-light scene, you can start taking on more advanced technique. Remember the concept of baby-steps, go ahead and stretch your comfort level, but limit it to one small step at a time.

In my opinion, the skill-set of the photographer is the prime differentiator between high quality VR and low quality VR. What's causing some movement upward in the industry is that buyers of our services are beginning to realize that VR, just like any other photographic market, relies heavily on the skill of the photographer. It took a long time for the market to realize that. For the first ten years, VR was perceived as a commodity, and with a commodity, the lowest price wins.

It's always the job of the professional photographer to represent a scene as the brain needs to see it. The experienced photographer knows this and works hard to accomplish it, to represent this three dimensional scene in a two dimensional medium using dimensional techniques, the prime one being lighting.

Further explanation of this is illustrated through the following example: Think about the challenge of photographing a very high contrast scene, let's say you're in a restaurant with lots of windows and a compelling outside view. Your brain takes in the entire scene without compromise, you see the lovely view outside, and you see with equal clarity the interior view. Your brain does not get tripped up by the extremely high contrast in the scene or the conflicting color balances of the outside daylight competing with the inside tungsten light. But the photographic process, whether film or digital, does NOT fare so well. At the very least you'll have to resolve an impossibly high level of contrast, and you'll have to deal with the vagaries of mixed light sources, not easy for experienced photographers, and impossible for newbie photographers - which a lot of VR photographers are. Add having to photograph quickly while customers are waiting for the restaurant to open, and you have quite the challenge on your hands. That's why the market is beginning to realize that there's a difference in the experience level of VR photographers and the resultant quality of their work.
I've enclosed before and after shots of such a situation.

- Before1.jpg is an available light shot exposed for the bright outside view and
direct sunlight streaming into the restaurant,

- Before2.jpg is an available light shot exposed for the interior view,

Both shots are unacceptable as is.
- After.jpg takes elements from each of these two unacceptable shots as well as from a third shot captured using only a single strobe, on-axis with the camera, and bounced off the ceiling to light the scene with a soft, yet flat light. Using this exposure as part of a multilayered photoshop document allows us to infinitely control the lighting ratio using transparency of this soft and flat exposure to fill the harsh shadows in the scene. You can be so precise with this technique that you can control the lighting ratio of the final image long after the shoot is over.

This is an advanced technique I have developed which allows me to capture the scene rapidly, and "build" the final shot after the fact with speed and total control. I only need one light with me on the shoot, and I can actually determine my lighting ratio in post production after the shoot is over! The entire process is fast and flexible! It combines skills I've learned in 28 years of commercial photography with the current digital tools.

3. How do you set your pricing? What do you charge?

Pricing -
This is such a bucket of worms that I shouldn’t answer with too much detail, but I’ll take a shot.

First off, realize that pricing is such an individual thing, that anything I say is only true for me, and only in my market, you have to decide what's true for you in your own market. Having said that . . . Remember that I consider VR as one more product, not my only product. As such it needs to conform to my overall pricing strategy.

I structure my pricing for VR so I'll make about the same as I make on straight-up commercial photography. For my skill level in my market, I charge $1500 US per day for photography and $125 US per hour for post-production work. I'll add extra for meetings and planning if extensive, as well as pre-production work & project management, and I add all expenses to that marked up 17%. I also charge 50% of the day rate for travel days.

The usual pricing question I get asked by a potential client is, "How much for a VR Pan"? Here's how I answer that: There are two types of pans: single shot and stitched. The stitched ones are better quality by far, but take more time and skill and therefore and cost more. The single shot ones are fast to produce, lesser quality, and therefore cost less. I don't do the same degree of retouching on single shot pans as I would on stitched pans because they typically serve a lower market.

Here is pricing I throw out to begin the negotiations:
Stitched pans
1 or 2 $ 750 ea
3 or 4 $ 600 ea
5 to 9 $ 500 ea
10 or more $ 400 ea

Large qty ask for a special quote single shot pans
1 to 5 $250 ea
6 to 9 $200 ea
10 or more $150 ea

These prices usually keep the work within my commercial goals. If there is something unique about the work, I make a pricing exception, either up or down. And remember, this is the starting point for negotiations . . . other factors can push the pricing in either direction. I’ve charged as much as $2,000 for a single pan, and I’ll charge less if a prospective client wants hundreds of pans.

PLEASE DO NOT THINK of THESE PRICES AS SET IN STONE . . . just a starting point for my own negotiating process. YOU have to work with what’s appropriate in your market. If you think of VR as one more service you offer, it helps incorporate it into your existing pricing strategy.

Here are some samples of my stitched pans:
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/ContRmLg.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/LakePowell.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/RHGolf06-1.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/Sheila-E.mov

Here are some samples of my single-shot pans:
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/Bath.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/LivRm.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/Coit.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/Lamberton.mov

http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/Beach2.mov

For object movies, the profitability typically works out similar to my other photographic work when I charge about $500 per single row object, however, post-production is such an issue with object movies, that I'll consider the nature of the object on every job. Fuzzy stuffed animals: $300 per row of 36 images 10º apart. Highly reflective objects: $1200 - $1500 for the same deliverable.

I recently created objects of sunglasses, 180º single row objects for each of 25 products. Lighting sunglasses efficiently is about the most challenging thing there is in the studio, you’re essentially photographing mirrors, mirrors that rotate! Here's where you can see a sample of the sunglasses objects (I will describe the lighting in a future article):
http://www.stclairphoto-imaging.com/FlashyFly.mov

Please email me and let me know if this has been helpful.

About the author:
Pat St. Clair has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Miami University (O), 1971, and a bachelor’s degree in professional photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology, 1979; he has been photographing commercially since 1978. St. Clair serves a corporate clientele that includes agencies of all sizes as well as direct corporate clients such as Eastman Kodak Company, Palm, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, 3Com, DaimlerChrysler, ExxonMobil, Microwave Data Systems and more. He was an early adopter of digital technology and has worked with Eastman Kodak Company on digital capture projects and digital image quality issues for the last eleven years. He has worked with QuickTime VR since 1994, is a charter member of the IQTVRA (now the IVRPA), and was a speaker at the first four VR Summits in Boulder, CO, Washington, DC, Sedona, AZ and Savannah, GA. He is onboard to speak again at the 2006 VR Summit.

He owns and operates St. Clair Photo-Imaging in Rochester, NY. More about Pat St. Clair and his work can be found at St. Clair Photoimaging
Questions? Comments? Email Pat St. Clair: pat[at]stclairphoto-imaging[dot]com