hollow4
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howardm4 wrote:
isn't 'renting to yourself' borderline ethical? I understand lease-back from someone else but in fact, you own the equipment
How is it not ethical.
Lets say the cost of renting a light is $200/day and you charge 10% on top of all rentals for admin fees. Then lets say the day rate is a $1,000. The bill to the client would be $1,220 and you keep $1,020.
Now lets assume same job but you own the lights and dont charge a rental fee or usage. Your day rate is a $1,00, that's what you get, and you have to pay for the lights, the repairs on the lights, the modifiers, the bulbs, the insurance on the loss of the lights. lets say wear and tear add up to $150 per light per shoot. now your take home is 850. you are actually worse off by $170.
Now lets assume you rent your lighting to yourself, or you include a usage fee in your bid. your day rate is 1000, your usage fee is 190 per light per day. your bid to your client is less than the original rental rate, at $1,190, which is a savings of $30. Now lets look at the wear and tear cost, 150 but you charged $190, so you made $40 by using your light. Your take home is now $1,040.
How about looking at it this way. You have two camera's that you use, one is 1ds mkIII and a Phase One p65+. One being $6,112 and the other being above $40,000. Would you charge the same thing for using the different camera's? I wouldn't. So if you have the same client who has two different needs, one is a brochure and the other is a series of extremely large prints (which you print on your Epson 9900). The Canon is the clear choice for the brochure photos, you dont need the massive resolution. The Phase for the large prints, you need every pixel you can get. Clearly the cost are different for each job, and you need to price accordingly. It doesnt make sense to change your day rate, that would be a massive red flag to someone reviewing your bids. Instead change your equipment rates, this spells out your cost to the client, they have a breakdown of how you got your number, its comparable from bid to bid that you give them. They dont know your actual cost, but you do. You can charge as much or as little of a premium as you want. Think of it as a profit center. Your gear should earn you money, not just cost you money, otherwise whats the point.
Don't mistake good business and billing for the appropriate things in the appropriate way as being unethical. By buying and then renting/charging you adjust your billing to be lower than if you rented but increase your take home pay at the end of the day your a success. But if you buy great stuff and dont adjust accordingly you will eventually hurt your take home pay. You may make money, but your missing opportunity, so in some respects your failing. Dont think of this as your screwing someone. Instead think of it as you are charging appropriately and breaking it out for them. In essence you are renting your gear to yourself.
Hope this helps. Remember though you need to charge appropriately and it needs to be easily identifiable.
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.... greater than Profoto? Why? Their power switching takes place in the same way. What in fact do you mean by 'analogue'?