For my recent book, “Building a PC for Beginners,” I’d have to provide more photos than I’ve ever had for a project. My initial estimate was around 100 illustrations. By the time I was done, the number had ballooned to 155. The book was only 128 pages long. For the first time in my life, a book I made would have more photography than text.
This did not particularly faze me. I actually love taking pictures and I consider 35mm film to be an artistic medium, just like paint and canvas. While I’m not much of a practitioner of the craft, I feel competent to illustrate magazine pieces I’ve done, always giving editors a good number of shots to choose from.
But the number of photos this would require worried me. You see, this would not be a matter of simply taking 155 photos. That would only be 5 or 6 rolls of film. When you look at a book or magazine article, for every image used, dozens are discarded. Some photographers find that getting 4 keepers out of 100 exposures is a good ratio.
Now, that’s general magazine photography. Illustrating an instruction book is much more efficient, because all the shots are posed and the lighting is controlled. If, for safety reasons, you bracket your shots and take each shot from at least two angles, you’ll probably get a usable image. That would mean shooting at a ratio of 6 to 1.
A little math led me to a terrifying conclusion. 100 photos in the book would mean 600 exposures. That’s 17 rolls of film at $5 a roll. Getting local processing, so I know my negatives won’t get scratched, costs $12 per roll. That adds up to $289.
But of course that would not have been the actual bill. To get the 155 images I used would have required 930 exposures at a ratio of 6 to 1. That would cost me $442 on filming and processing.
Like most other people who write, I have accepted that the life of the wordsmith requires a vow of poverty. Actually, with me it has required a second job. The thought of spending hundreds of dollars on a book that hadn’t sold yet worried me. I felt like I was sure to get it back, but I didn’t know how long it would take. Also, I really wanted to maximize my profits on this project.
In my heart, I knew what it would lead to. I would shoot less film and take more risk of not getting a good shot. I would lower my standards for some of the images I selected, and possibly lower the quality of the entire project. My finished work might be unpublishable. As we all know, even if the quality of our prose shines, bad photos will kill a sale.
The lowest quality was unacceptable. This was an instruction book. The images had to be sharp and show the reader exactly how each step should be performed. Also, I didn’t want to reduce the total number of images because of the theme. Building a computer for the first time is a daunting proposition for most people. I didn’t want uncertainty in the reader’s mind. More images meant more security for the first-time builder and less doubt about whether they could finish the project.
Also, if the book seemed easy to follow, there was a better chance that they would take it to the register and spend some money. Think about it. What do you do when you browse a bookstore? I bet you look at the front and back covers of a book, read the copy on the jacket, and if it’s good, read the first page. Then scan the images.
The cover and flap interest you, but you make your decision based on whether the author can write clearly on the subject and whether the images highlight the points you needed to answer. If both jobs are done well, you will most likely buy the book. If one or the other is suspect, then I’ll probably put it back on the shelf.
My writing may not win any awards, but I can tell how to connect part A to part B as well as the next fellow. Photography would make or break the project. He needed to find a way to get the job done right, at a price he could afford.
Of course, the answer was quite obvious. He needed to get a digital camera. Previously, I had thought about buying one, but they seemed terribly expensive for the cameras I saw that were limited in capacity. In my opinion, they were a rich person’s toy, a glorified instant camera that could never deliver film results. Furthermore, they seemed fragile, with complicated circuitry, lenses that relied on servos, and batteries that died after 50 shots.
I was tired of buying appliances that broke down and had to be fixed. Computer repair is not a problem for me, but cameras are a different world. If it went wrong, all you could do is take it back to the store.
Perhaps, I never would have “gone digital” if it wasn’t for an added advantage these cameras would give me. If the shot was good, I would know it at that moment. There would be no waiting for the film to return from the laboratory. Through bad experience, I knew that even bracketing my shots and covering each step from two angles, mistakes could happen. An important part of the procedure may be blocked by someone’s hand. A shiny surface could create a “hotspot” that would go unnoticed until it was too late. All kinds of things could go wrong.
I could redo the failed shots later, but they would require a lot of work. My plan was to do all the shots in sequence as each step in building the computer was done. What would happen if you missed a shot of one of the first steps? Let’s just say the pictures of the motherboard mounting on the case were bad. Anything that had been installed on the computer after that point would have to come out. The hard drive, CD/DVD, floppy, cabling, everything would have to be removed to recreate the shot I needed.
All told, it seemed like time to hit the camera store. Fortunately, there was a sale on. There was a 3.4 megapixel Fuji available for less than $100. The price seemed right, and it had a feature I wanted badly, a ten-second timer that let me jump in front of the camera and get into the picture.
Do not misunderstand. I’m not some kind of egoist who wants to be in every picture in one of my books. But my hands would have to be. One problem with making an instruction book is finding someone to be a hand model, going through the steps. This way, you wouldn’t have to depend on anyone else. I could set up a shot and, with the camera on a tripod, go ahead and take whatever steps were required, knowing that in ten seconds the shutter would click.
My first day with the camera went well. It was a challenge getting used to a new piece of gear, however I had the comfort of seeing those shots finished right away. They looked good, but I knew the real test would be when I downloaded them to my computer and watched them on a big screen.
The camera came with a program called FinePixViewer for download. I moved the shots to an older version of Corel Photo-Paint which I like to use.
When I opened the first shot, I was in love. Detail that he had never thought possible was there. I could read the smallest print on the motherboard. The colors were rich and vibrant. Cover photo ideas started dancing in my head.
The next test was to test them in black and white at 300 dpi, just as they would appear in the book. While I believed they would do well, experience has taught me to check everything, check it thoroughly, and check it early. Sometimes rich color photos get a bit darker when converted to black and white, but they were fine. I was really onto something.
My little camera ended up saving me over $300. It performed exceptionally well throughout the project and seems strong enough to handle many more, dispelling any concerns I had about brittleness. All photos used in the book, plus the cover photo, were taken with the camera.