Poor Onboard Photography Quality

[mermaidofmanhattan]

The ship pictures always look a little tired and old-fashioned (and not in a good way) to me, but it must be terribly boring for the photographers to shoot the same thing week after week. And they are too expensive for what they are.

 

Years ago when I was working on a ship and we sailed weekly from Venice to Nice, I went out in San Marco Square with one of the ship's photographers (and my can-can costume from the "French Show")--I have brilliant, inspired photos from that session! He did beautiful work and I have them forever.

[richstowe]

Has anyone else noticed the quality of onboard photography going downhill recently?

Maybe the passengers are getting uglier?:D

 

Love the facial recognition system on RCI. Not sure if this is being brought to Carnival.No hunting for pix.

[Aplmac]

Didn't buy many of the photos, but what we did buy were fine.

Amazing that the OP waited until she got home to her magnifying glass ..to complain? :confused:

The place to make the purchase-or-not decision is on board the ship, wouldn't you think?

 

If her pics were substandard, why were they purchased? :confused:

 

 

We buy 5x7s and 6x8s only

 

The 8x10s are way too expensive -and simply too big!

.

[RTRMom]

No they were great on our cruise in April. And the photographers weren't rushing us, rather they wanted to take like 10 pictures each time! But we ended up with a lot..because we never get pictures of just my husband and I.

 

We always take the kids pictures, so it was nice being able to take a bunch and pick and choose which one we wanted.

 

 

Edit to add: I take 500 pictures myself easily on a five day cruise, but I don't really trust other people to take our picture with my dslr camera. And we rarely travel with other adults. So the ship's photography is the only way we get pictures of ourselves together.

[RWolver672]

Amazing that the OP waited until she got home to her magnifying glass ..to complain? :confused:

The place to make the purchase-or-not decision is on board the ship, wouldn't you think?

 

If her pics were substandard, why were they purchased? :confused:

 

 

We buy 5x7s and 6x8s only

 

The 8x10s are way too expensive -and too big!

.

 

The OP never said she bought any of them. She just commented on the poor quality of the pictures being taken now.

 

For anyone that thinks the prices are too high, try going to a professional photography studio and see what they charge just for the setting alone, not to mention what they charge for the pictures afterward.

[italianfemmy]

As a full time photographer who owns 2 very successful photography companies and used to edit photos for magazines, I thought I would chime in here.

 

1.) You have people that have never seen a photo of themselves other than the ones they've taken with their own really cheap cameras. These people are often extremely impressed by anything that's not extremely dark or completely out of focus. Some of the photos I see pop up on my FB wall sometimes that are just plain awful get the most amazing compliments on them. This tells me that the average consumer isn't well educated on what makes a great photo in the technical sense.

 

2.) Someone in here wondered why someone would purchase photos if they didn't love them. In some cases, the photos the ship took are the only ones that some people have to remember the evening they got dressed up more than they ever have in their lives. These people often want these images to preserve that moment in time and show them off. If the photos aren't amazing but they're still photos, this is often enough for people who are left with no other choice.

 

3.) Price - for what you get, I'd have to say they cost too much. But, if the photos were consistent, well lit, well posed, etc., I'd say it's actually on the cheap side. Most of my pro colleagues charge anywhere from $30-$60 per 8x10 print. Some of them even charge way more than that and consider every print an "art print". I don't treat my 8x10's as art prints because anyone can go make an 8x10. I do treat my large prints as art prints though and those come at a premium.

 

4.) Ship quality. The ship processes thousands of photos a day. It's like a mill operation. They have an automated process that applies the same skin smoothing and the same contrast to every photo. Herein lies the biggest problem of all. It's impossible to have the same lighting ratio for photos taken outside in bright sunlight as it is for photos taken in the studio setting. And while one would think that the row of photographers set up with 20 different backdrops could sync their lighting ratios to match, they just don't. You wind up with photos that have different lighting ratios, varying shadows and highlights and most importantly, people of different races that have different skin pigmentations.

 

As someone who has retouched and done realistic skin work which I call digital plasty for years for magazines and models and now for my boudoir and wedding clients, I know first hand that it takes a different level of fine tuning and tweaking for every single person. In photoshop, there's something called a Gaussian Blur... when you run it, it makes the whole photo have that hazy, soft, plasticy look. It reminds me of the ship photos. It's not flattering for virtually anyone, although when reduced to lower opacity, it can work for some people. I'd never use this method though because technically, I Know it's just awful.

 

With that said, a ship is catering to thousands in a day. I am catering to an individual client or two a day. I take my time to be an artist and to perfect the look on each and every single person. The cruise ship has no way possible to do that. Well, actually they do but it costs a lot more.... most ships have a dream team which are more highly skilled photographers that take just you or your family around the ship and take photos with better camera equipment, better lighting and really take the time to spend on you. Those photos are individually edited and aren't run through the mill process and they come out looking much better. Photos from these shoots are typically the ones the ship will use around their photo gallery to show off the quality of their work.

 

Sorry for my loooooong post. :-)

[mizLORInj]

I've found it depends on the photographer. Last cruise we had some that were just not clear (out of focus), even in the dining room, but from one already-set-up station in the hallway we got some clear photos. So we increase our chances of good photos by going to a couple backdrops and then see which come out best.

You'd think Carnival people who are printing would notice which photos are clear and which aren't, and then talk to the photog about having clearer photos. . .they are forfeiting money with the unclear photos.

[richstowe]

For anyone that thinks the prices are too high, try going to a professional photography studio and see what they charge just for the setting alone, not to mention what they charge for the pictures afterward.

True there is a huge price difference but you are comparing someone who was slinging drinks on the previous cruise

with a professional who has huge expenses. Not a fair comparison.

On the occasions where I have had pictures taken by an professional photographer (perhaps a little mean to Carnivals people),

their success rate was much higher then Carnival's. They don't need to take 50 photos to get one or two good ones.

[italianfemmy]

True there is a huge price difference but you are comparing someone who was slinging drinks on the previous cruise

with a professional who has huge expenses. Not a fair comparison.

On the occasions where I have had pictures taken by an professional photographer (perhaps a little mean to Carnivals people),

their success rate was much higher then Carnival's. They don't need to take 50 photos to get one or two good ones.

 

You're completely right. Although, Glamour Shots charges something like 80 bucks for one 8x10 and honestly, they do the same blurred dream processing crap on top of their photos. These places get away with it because the majority doesn't know the difference.

 

I just saw some photos posted in another thread on here and if you're reading this, I apologize as I don't intend to hurt feelings.. but the person posted photos that were taken on the ship and someone replied that they were fantastic. The photos were way over smoothed and looked fake as a result. Not to mention, the lighting fell off too rapidly for the group shots and the poses were just posing 101. Some people just don't have an eye for being able to see the difference between a truly amazing photo and a photo that's just average at best. And that's okay because there are things I suck at too... like history and science. :-) But, my point is that these places can charge whatever they want because some people will always think that they're the cream of the crop.

 

This is why I take my pro cameras with me now and we meet up with another couple that wants a few nice shots of themselves and we take their photos and even edit them free of charge in exchange for them taking ours. I do all of the settings for the lighting and everything and then just have them push the button for me. We wind up with much better shots this way and we can look at them and check the light, the focus, the composition, the blinking eyes, etc. and then ask them to take more if they're not what we wanted. I know everyone doesn't have this luxury though and it's truly a shame that the system is taking advantage......