Suggestions on a future project

[DelCan]

This year our church held a Christmas party for about 100 needy children. We had a Santa Claus and each child received a gift and sat on his lap. I had an idea and wanted some help with the logistics of it.

For next year I would like to shoot a pic of each child with Santa, print it, put it a card/holder and hand it to them. I have the camera equipment, laptop and Lightroom. I have a desktop HP printer but I was wondering if I should use something different for printing. I would imagine the prints would be 4X6 or smaller (depending on the card/holder we find). I will handle the cost of everything.

I would like to give them real prints, but we may or may not ever see these kids again is why I want to do everything on location. Getting help assembling them will be no problem.

Anyway , any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

I've done something similar to this several times.

Your HP printer is fine, but a dye-sub printer would be much better. The prints are laminated and durable, so you want have any problems with ink or smudges. And the printers are usually fast too...I have a Sony that will kick out a 4x6 in about 8 seconds.

The operation is actually quite simple. Tether your camera to your laptop via USB, and use Lightroom to import the photos automatically as you take them (there's a tethering function in LR). You can even import with a preset (for white balance, vibrance, contrast, etc.). After it imports, you select "Print One".

Your biggest expense will be the printer. Try and pick up a used Sony UPDR-150 (I've seen them as low as $250 on ebay), hopefully one that comes with half a print pack or something. A print pack costs $225, but comes with 1100 4x6 prints.

A cheaper option would be an old Olympus P-11 (about $30 used), but they're harder to find and don't work on Windows 7. They're also a lot slower, taking about 60 seconds to print out a 4x6. It doesn't seem like very long, but trust me...you'll want something with speed.

[DelCan]

Thanks Photoboothguy!

I got a long time to look for a printer and I never knew they made a printer like that. I might have to find a couple of paying jobs to get that! LOL

Looking around Ebay I found a complete photo booth for $7,000. Maybe I can stuff Santa and the kids in that.... Just thinkin'

Crap, I haven't looked at the prices of photo printers in a while. One auction for a Sony UPDR-150 just went for $750...I got two of those sitting unused in my house. Selling those two could pay for another photo booth

And $7000 for a booth? Wow, they only cost me about $1500 to make.

If you're looking for a new printer, DNP bought out the Sony printer division, and makes some pretty nice printers. I'd recommend the smaller, lighter models. Hiti makes good printers too. And Imaging Spectrum is the best place to get one.

[DelCan]

Thank's for pointing me in the right direction!

[SwissJon]

Why don't you get something small, like a Selphy CP800? It's a Dye Sub printer, so the prints are dry when they come out. You can use the camera in tethered mode in LR. Print directly from there to the printer, and a 108 picture pack with ink and paper csts about $35 with the printer costing you $100.. It's not fast, but the quality is excellent (I have one) and since it's already dry, you can cut it to size and put it into the keyring straight away.