What I am seeing right now in this industry is what I went through in the mid 90's when photography changed from film to digital.
I had spent a few years at art college, then a number of years as an assistant and then started out on my own at the beginning of the 90's. Because assistant wages were so low when it came to starting out on my own I had very little gear and had to buy a lot of expensive lighting and medium and large format film cameras on hire purchase. It meant for the first 5 or 6 years of my photography career I was heavily in debt.
Unfortunately for me within 6 months of paying off my large format Sinar camera the photography world started to go digital. I needed to keep up so then found myself having to buy digital cameras which within 6 to 12 months were obsolete and those early digital cameras for pro use were very expensive. On top of that every time I bought a new camera I needed the latest computer to handle the increasing file sizes. I remember at one point paying over $1000 for an extra 250mb of ram.
It was simply a money pit for about 10 or so years and to compound the issue photography fees were under pressure because of a huge increase in numbers wanting to do it as a career, fueled by the digital age. As well as that the "home publishing" era had started and photography with the new cameras meant that much simple work I used to do was now able to be done in house.
I essentially lost a decade of income just trying to tread water.
I am watching the exact same thing happen right now. The zenmuse gimbal being a good example and now probably FreeFlys latest effort. Also quads such as the Phantom are helping bring more people in to the hobby and that in turn means more people thinking about the possibilities available for commercial uses.
So the lessons I learned in the digital photography switch over I need to try and follow now in the multirotor thing we are all trying to do. What lessons are they?. Well the first one is to be aware this is another money pit right now and if you dont have the work for your machines already in place, dont buy the latest gear hoping it will generate the work you want. If you dont already have the clients that will supply you with the work dont expect the latest gear to magically bring clients to you. Stay within your client base level of work until such a time as you know that any new gear can pay for itself within a year at most.
There will be a small percentage of people doing this who will be able to make the latest gear pay for itself quickly but the majority of us will discover that after investing $20k in gear a year later will have only made $5k in profit from that gear and when technology is going through a steep growth curve in an industry as it is now.
I started out in this 2 1/2 years ago, currently I am only just in the black with respect to how much i have spent and how much I have invoiced, if I was to account for how much time and effort I have invested I would be horribly in the red. So for me at present the AP side of things is not a viable commercial entity, its not actually providing me with an income on its own. Its become an add on to what I do. I think it might possibly be something that can generate a liveable income but I also know it might just be a money pit with respect to my situation and circumstances.
I had spent a few years at art college, then a number of years as an assistant and then started out on my own at the beginning of the 90's. Because assistant wages were so low when it came to starting out on my own I had very little gear and had to buy a lot of expensive lighting and medium and large format film cameras on hire purchase. It meant for the first 5 or 6 years of my photography career I was heavily in debt.
Unfortunately for me within 6 months of paying off my large format Sinar camera the photography world started to go digital. I needed to keep up so then found myself having to buy digital cameras which within 6 to 12 months were obsolete and those early digital cameras for pro use were very expensive. On top of that every time I bought a new camera I needed the latest computer to handle the increasing file sizes. I remember at one point paying over $1000 for an extra 250mb of ram.
It was simply a money pit for about 10 or so years and to compound the issue photography fees were under pressure because of a huge increase in numbers wanting to do it as a career, fueled by the digital age. As well as that the "home publishing" era had started and photography with the new cameras meant that much simple work I used to do was now able to be done in house.
I essentially lost a decade of income just trying to tread water.
I am watching the exact same thing happen right now. The zenmuse gimbal being a good example and now probably FreeFlys latest effort. Also quads such as the Phantom are helping bring more people in to the hobby and that in turn means more people thinking about the possibilities available for commercial uses.
So the lessons I learned in the digital photography switch over I need to try and follow now in the multirotor thing we are all trying to do. What lessons are they?. Well the first one is to be aware this is another money pit right now and if you dont have the work for your machines already in place, dont buy the latest gear hoping it will generate the work you want. If you dont already have the clients that will supply you with the work dont expect the latest gear to magically bring clients to you. Stay within your client base level of work until such a time as you know that any new gear can pay for itself within a year at most.
There will be a small percentage of people doing this who will be able to make the latest gear pay for itself quickly but the majority of us will discover that after investing $20k in gear a year later will have only made $5k in profit from that gear and when technology is going through a steep growth curve in an industry as it is now.
I started out in this 2 1/2 years ago, currently I am only just in the black with respect to how much i have spent and how much I have invoiced, if I was to account for how much time and effort I have invested I would be horribly in the red. So for me at present the AP side of things is not a viable commercial entity, its not actually providing me with an income on its own. Its become an add on to what I do. I think it might possibly be something that can generate a liveable income but I also know it might just be a money pit with respect to my situation and circumstances.
