Dear eSteemed friends,
Starting your own business it's always a pain in the ass but almost everyone wants to do it. However few people actually start a business, because most of our time is invested in earning a fixed wage to cover our expenses and in the little time left we are too tired to even think of other possibilities.
Therefore I decided to talk about a small business that it won't take up more than 1-2 hours/day at the beginning and that can grow into a steady, more-than-enough income. Yes, i'm gonna talk about building your own Photo booth that you can rent at all kind of events (weddings, parties, corporate team buildings etc.) And you don't really need any kind of experience, except using a computer.
And when I say building your Photo booth, i really mean building it from scratch. Buying one is also an option but prices range between 5-8k dollars for a good, versatile equipment, which is quite expensive if not a rip-off and obviously it'll take longer for the investment to pay off . All the equipment i'll enumerate are heavily tested on my own Photo Booths and no problems occurred while using them for 3 years now.
First of all you need a printer. I opted for a DNP rx1 which costs around 600$ on ebay. Other options are epson, hitti, canon etc. What you need to look for when choosing a printer is:
- print speed (a 10X15 cm photo is printed in 12 seconds - basically all the above mentioned printers have similar print time)
- The autonomy (DNP rx1 can print up to 700 photos 10X15 cm without changing the paper which basically covers 12 hours of Photo booth-ing)
- It's a must for the printer to be able to cut the photos in half 5X15 cm (strips) because people are going nuts about this.
- service & consumables - while you can buy the printer from amazon or ebay cheaper, i recommend purchasing it from a local dealer because, in the unfortunate event it breaks, you can service it faster and avoid shipping costs etc. Also if you buy it locally make sure your supplier can also provide the paper and ribbon (consumables).
Now you need a camera. Given the fact that people will be 2-3 meters away from the Photo booth, you won't need a very fancy camera. What you do need however besides the camera is a power charger. Otherwise you'll keep replacing batteries every hour or so. I use a canon Eos 1200 D and ack -e10 Power Adapter. Around 400$ is a good budget for camera and adapter.
What to look for when choosing a camera is: it must have automatic focus as well as manual (for fine tuning) and live view option.
Lights: well... lights are very important in the process of taking pictures. 80% of the quality of the picture is in the lights so maybe you shouldn't try to save money when choosing the lights. I am using a quantuum pro 200 w for now with wireless triggers, but as far as i know it hasn't been produced since last year. At this point i'm looking at Strobe Studio Flash Light Kit 900W as a replacement. It's not very cheap but for roughly 300$ you get Strobes, Barn Doors, Light Stands, Triggers, Umbrellas and a Soft Box which gives a lot of versatility while using it. All can be found on amazon, but again i recommend buying it from a local dealer.
Now that you have a printer, camera and lights, you need a computer to tie them together. At this point i'm using a 23 inch Dell touch screen monitor with a Intel NUC with i5 and 8GB of Memory. This configuration is more than enough to run all the process you need for smoothly operating the Photo Booth. An all in one computer with touch screen is also a good option, especially that you'll have fewer cables. About the touchscreen... it's nice to have because people can easily interact with the Photo booth. But if you are on a low budget you can drop that and simply have a manual trigger for taking the photo. around 500-600$ is a decent budget for the computer (touch screen included)
Finally, we need a software to operate the Photo booth. Basically the software is the master mind who does everything. You can edit photo templates, customize the time between taking photos, use it with green screen, take videos and gifs and many more. There are some free software out there that you can give it a try. However if you want to be able to offer you clients a wide range of services (photo, video, gifs etc.) i'd recommend to buy a dedicated software. Here's a list with the best software out there: http://www.twelveskip.com/business/photobooth/1439/photo-booth-softwares . I use darkroom 2.5 version (nb6) and i'm very pleased with it. It does exactly what is says and for 300$ i have 2 license - this means i can operate on two separate photo booths. Just a heads up, don't expect from this software to work like windows. From time to time they crash and there still are some bugs that need to be fixed.
Okey, so up till now we spent 2200$ and we have all the equipment for a single Photo booth and one spare license, in case business goes well. All we need now is a shell that keeps them all together.
The shell is also a very important piece because it keeps the equipment together and secured. Here are some models I made with the help of a third party.
I had several shells done at a print&sign company which charged between 300-700$ depending on the model. I had to go through several shells because i didn't know what to ask for from the beginning. In my experience you need to know the following:
- it has to be as small as possible, or the shell should be made out of 2 pieces in order to be able to carry it with a regular car
- it has to be as light as possible so as not to heart your back when carrying it around.
- it has to be made out of a rigid, durable material - preferably aluminium or 3mm alucobond with iron or wood inner structure for holding the equipment.
So guys, as you can see under 3000$ you can start your own photo booth business. I must say that the equipment above described is the best value for money i came up in my research. Indeed there are several additional costs such as marketing costs ( website, ad-words campaign, facebook campaign etc.) that you'll need to think of, if you really want to turn your photo booth into a real money maker. But i'll address those cost and other tips & tricks in terms of marketing in an following post. For now happy photo booth shopping!
H.