Lumière d’Argent

I have sold all my Canon lenses but the 100 macro. I sold them on eBay. I had setup a spreadsheet with my expected prices, based on an average of recently completed transaction on the same items.

Having bought the most expensive ones new, I expected a moderate loss. I made a profit!

Here is a table of what happened:

The big ones sold for more than I paid for them new! I mean, if I just bought again the same stuff new, I’d still be left with some change (after the currency exchange loss, eBay and PayPal fees and shipping).

Must be an effect of the current Dollar/Euro exchange rate.

This is great, anyway. It leaves me with the freedom to do much better than I expected. so I went through some painful weeks of thinking about what would be best. I am about to decide

Stephane :: Mar.05.2008 :: Gear, Lens, Sales :: No Comments »

In a word, they work great. Print quality is great, support is responsive, must be excellent… for US-based customers.

After having set up a few galleries, I got an order from a customer in Germany. That felt great! The customer places his order, I get the notification from Exposure Manager, I produce the print files and uploads them and the day after Exposure Manager prints and sends them. More than two months later, the customer is still waiting. Including for the re-print Exposure Manager offered at no charge.

I know Exposure Manager is not to blame, at least not 100%. It appears the problem is solely our unreliable european state-owned posts. It does not make the slightest difference for any of their employees wether the mail arrives or not. And it shows.

I would not write this if it was my first problem with them:

• I had a parcel taking six weeks from the South of France to here (about 900 km).
• The SmugMug test prints took a month to arrive. Of which about 25 days in my local post office.
• Our Luxembourgish posts knows: they subcontract international parcel deliveries to TNT. And when it is for France they advise not to write on the parcel what it is, because it raises the chances of theft by the post personnel. I never had a problem sending.

The only thing I could blame Exposure Manager for is that they did not listen to my advise and sent the re-print through the same way instead of calling DHL or UPS or whoever with global presence. I’d have paid. Apart from that, they always answered my mails quickly and patiently (I can get nasty). The month following the order I got a check from them with my profit. They fully refunded the customer. I did not cash the check but I could have. I have no doubt about their quality.

For me, though, it is back to the drawing board.

Stephane :: Mar.04.2008 :: Printing, Sales :: No Comments »

I thought ExposureManager used EZPrints for the actual printing. They don’t. I learned from their recent XMas email that they have built their own lab in 2006. This could explain the results are different, and in my opinion better, than what I got from SmugMug.

Stephane :: Dec.25.2007 :: Printing, Sales :: No Comments »

They arrived with an apology from the local Post. SmugMug was not at fault, nor was EZPrint. They proceeded diligently, but there was a mistake done in the post here.

The prints arrived rolled in a tube and the tube was in… nothing. The parcel was just the tube. Nothing happened and the tube appears strong enough to protect the prints, but all in all it does not give the same impression as the parcel I got from ExposureManager. I thought they used the same lab, but they don’t. Also, there is a prominent SmugMug label on the tube, inviting the customer to contact them in case of problem. As I said before, the customer buys from SmugMug, not from me, and is reminded so.

I had ordered the same prints on the 3 different papers. To my surprise, I actually prefer the glossy one to the luster. There is a bigger surprise: metamerism failure. All three papers show a tint under some lighting.

Under natural light, glossy is neutral, matte is slightly warm and luster is green. Under tungsten, luster is neutral and the other two are pink. I don’t notice anything similar with the EM print on luster. They both use Fuji Frontier printers and both use the same Fuji paper, so I don’t know.

All three prints are from the same file and all three were ordered at the same paper size. They are supposed to print borderless yet one of the three has a white border on one side. Precision appears to be so-so. The problem here is that, unlike ExposureManager, SmugMug does not allow for proper separation between the file used for screen presentation and actual print files. Borderless prints are useless for framing! How can’t they understand that?

All in all, this shows amply that SmugMug can not be a solution to sub-contract orders fulfillment.

Stephane :: Dec.25.2007 :: Printing, Sales :: 2 Comments »

I am in the process of reworking the galleries. Some people have expressed interest in buying prints and others are asking for family portrait sessions.

I have looked at different hosters/printers and concentrated on Smugmug, Zenfolio and Exposure Manager. I opened trial accounts with all three and setup prototype galleries. All three are impressive in their different ways.

Smugmug seems to be the dominant player. They certainly do many things very well, especially support and customer service. They maintain a very active forum that helps to work around most limitations. They have good looking standard galleries that can be customized almost at will.

Zenfolio is the new kid on the block. They have a very modern website, with the fastest display and the best looking standard galleries in my opinion. The allowed customization is more limited than Smugmug but I feel that less is needed too.

Exposure Manager seems to be the oldest player. They have the worse looking galleries and the least user friendly website.

All three use the same print-house: EZ Print. I ordered test prints from SmugMug and Exposure Manager. SmugMug waived the printing and shipping costs to allow for a true cost-free test. I was not charged, but I never received the test prints either. I promptly (6 days) received the prints from Exposure Manager, sent by Fedex and very well packed and protected. The prints are flawless, the Fuji Lustre paper is very nice. I put the print next to the one I did at home from the same file and had to look hard to find minute calibration differences. Very satisfying experience.

I have no doubt my experience of not receiving prints from SmugMug is not typical at all. And if I had complained about it, they would have printed another set and sent it at no cost. There are ample testimonies of their excellent customer service.

I did not ask to get them because at that stage I already had decided for Exposure Manager.

The different reasons come down to the business model. If I setup my galleries with them, the customer still buys from SmugMug more than from me. It is very clear all along the ordering process. Smugmug is a photo sharing website with extra services for professional photographers.

Exposure Manager, on the other hand, is much more like a sub-contractor. The customers do not see them, they see me. And that’s important. For example, Exposure Manager gives me the customers details like names and addresses, while SmugMug does not.

So I went with Exposure Manager and their much cruder galleries. The templates they provide are not very good looking in my opinion. However, with some HTML work, it is possible to customize quite heavily and get it close enough to what I want. I’ll refine later.

Next stage: expanding the galleries to include much more older works.

Stephane :: Dec.15.2007 :: Printing, Sales :: 3 Comments »