We get this question all the time. "What is the difference between you and another photographer?" Let's take a look.
Affordable
Let's face it, having an event adds up quickly. When you consider what is involved you can understand why. LAdigitalPhoto is focused on getting you the most for the least amount of investment. Consider this when you think about what we do for you before and after that fact. We strive to be available to you as much as possible. Tom is often working on our site or edting and as soon as you hit our site, he will message you if he can. We are also available via text anytime at 714-394-4263 or email to tom@ladigitalphoto.com. We often spend up to an hour of time with clients who consider us before we book them and likely another hour after that just making sure we understand your vision. Then you have travel time, travel costs, insurance, event insurance, engagement sessions and that related travel, then the editing of your engagement session. Just up to this point we are about 5 hours invested in you and your event. Then we have the event itself usually another 5-8 more hours of time and then another 10-16 hours of editing time, uploading of the work to your online gallery, the costs of hosting the client gallery... you get the idea. Our rates based on our experience are are as much as 30-50% below others out there. Why? Because we love to work. Many who charge more are what we call weekend warriors. This means they have other jobs to work around, that means they have another priority besides you and your event. So they charge a lot, make you wait a lot and usually provide much less.
Experience
I can certainly attest to the fact that experience has its merits. Would you rather have brain surgery done by the doctor just out of school or someone who has been doing it for 20 years? Would you let your cousin work on your car to save money just because they thought they could or at least had the tools to try? Taking photos of the event is not enough to cover the event. You have to know what is going to happen. Where do you need to be to get the photo you want, setting for the camera before it happens so when it does happen you are ready. Tom has 20 years of full time event photography experience and no one on the team has under 8 years.
Full Resolution Files
Back in the day of film, the most important question was "how many roles of film do you want me to shoot?" Yep, roles of 24 or 36 images were all you would have to bring to an event. Now, we have 128-512GB cards that allow us to shoot thousands of images. So with that in mind, why do photographers still cull their photos down?
The most common reason is pride. Photographers feel only their best of the best are worth showing. We get it. But what we realized is that these are not our memories. A lot happens that may never be printed or included in an album. In today's day and age of digital photos and social media, many of these photos end up getting shared there or simply looked over, to see moments a couple would not normally even know that happened on their wedding day. So we always provide every shot. On average it works out to approximately 200+ images an hour. Imagine if we only gave out the best 300 or 400 when 2500 images were captured. You would miss a lot. Not with us!
Unlimited Photos
Now you might expect to see this in a description of a Photo Booth, but our team does not have any shot limits during your events. If there is something to cover we are on it. We have been known to hit upwards of 600 images in a one hour mass at a Catholic Church and that is with only one photographer. Overall we tend to average between 150-200 images per hour. Since many photographers only give you their very best of the best 200-300 images edited, you can see you will certainly have a lot to have missed. Our goal is to get those key moments and also be able to get you so much more that you would have never had a chance to view and relive.
Turn Around Time
The industry expectation is that your photos are provided to you within a 2-3 months or as much as 6 months or more, maybe the best 20 as a sneak peek in a few days. We go above and beyond this and get you back every image within 5-10 days and more commonly by mid week following your event. Not months, not weeks, but days. Those images are available for download via our client gallery at full resolution. This means you can print huge photos and are not limited to online only viewing or small 4x6 prints. Yes, there are still photographers who may have low pricing upfront and then hold your photos hostage and make you pay for each image they give you at a medium resolution, maybe 8x10 or 4-6mb file size each file. We use professional cameras that capture from 18-50mb files sizes each! So if you get an offer from a photographer and they are providing your files on a usb drive or worse a DVD or CD rom, run! USB drives are fine but have an additional cost that you will pay for and if you lose it, well let's not go there. I mention this because we used to provided USB drives and our clients would lose them all the time. If another photographer is offering an 8 or 16 mb thumb drive it's a sign your images were severely culled or you are not getting them at full print resolution. For most weddings, if we gave a USB thumb drive to you, it would have to be at least 128 mb in size.
Digital Download
Our process allows you to save the files to your own computer or as many computers as you have or even have your parents get a copy too. That is up to you. We keep the files online in your gallery for a minimum of a year and as of late we are averaging 4 years long Yes, you can also order prints in a lot of sizes and versions from framed to acrylic and canvas as well, or do them yourselves. Digital download is the standard for us now for the last 6 years. If you are being offered a DVD or even thumb drives now, you are getting either a ton of DVD's or you are getting smaller files than were captured. This limits your ability to print your event photos to larger sizes, even as small as an 8x10 when you may want a 24x36 one day.
Instant Photo Sharing
In today's world, being able to share photos as soon as they are captured is a big deal. If I had to guess, I would say that 90+% of all photographers would not dare try to share their photos without editing and corrections. Well, I am here to tell you we can capture the vast majority correctly in camera and we have tech that allows us to edit in the cloud. What does this all mean? It means from the time we shoot an image to it appearing on any smartphone either near us or ones you select or invite not near the event, it only takes seconds to send that image to those guests or those who could not attend. It also allows your guests to be present. There is nothing worse than someone getting in the way of a shot. With the announcement of us sharing our work as it happens, the vast majority of your guests will be present and put their phones away. So our photos will include their faces and not their iPhone 6. We provide this at no extra cost to you.*
*As of March 7, 2023 we were notified that Aircam is possibly selling their tech, so we might have a time that we are unable to support their system and provide these photos instantly... don't worry we have ways around this by sharing images to view on an iPad during your reception. No, it is not the same, but it is still way more than most will provide on a day of shoot.
Flexibility
When we book you we know, especially now, that your date may need to be flexible. So what do we do? We move your deposit to you new date, period. If you don't keep us in the loop we may have to schedule another photographer for you from our team, we ask that when you reset your date, you message us and ask for a few dates for us to check and confirm we are available. If we are not, we will help make sure you get one of us you love. Because we second shoot with each other at events, our work has to be the same, so you will be happy no matter who is chosen. Online photographer groups we read are all over the place on this topic. Legally you likely don't have much of a fight if your photographer refuses to help you. We think that is pretty petty. Our goal is to make sure you are happy, not create a situation that you will regret. Most of our clients are referrals so we know how important it is that our clients love us and not just our work.
In the end, you have a huge decision to make. Since we can do photo, video and photo booth services, we remain one of the very top rated companies in the business and we can't wait to share your memories with you and your loved ones.
Travel Fees
We simply don't have any from San Diego to San Luis Obisbpo. That's right NO TRAVEL FEES!
[ You can chat with us anytime by selecting the Chat with Tom at the bottom of the page. If you are on a cell phone and there is a red dot, we have already messaged you! ]
Originally posted March 2021
Updated March of 2022
Updated February 2023
Updated August 2023
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