Most couples getting married have little to no idea what it costs to operate a small photography and videography studio, most think you just come to a wedding for a few hours, take a bunch of pictures or video and you’re done.

That’s FAR from the truth, so today on the blog Carole and I want to show you what it costs to operate a business that does both photos and video.

Wedding Photography Gear

A good professional will have a lot of expense in good-quality gear.

From the main camera and a backup, memory cards, batteries, lights, flashes, harnesses, zoom lenses, and prime lenses, bags, and the like, it can easily add up.

Since we’re focused on our business today, Wedding Photography And Films, let’s share with you what we have and what it costs.

Carole is a Sony girl and she has three camera bodies, a Sony a7ii and two Sony A7iii’s.

Her Sony a7ii was actually a kit bought from B&H and as of this blog, Feb 2021, you can get one for $1,598.

The Sony a7iii systems that she has had also been purchased at B&H for right at $2,198 for a total of $4,396, not including any lenses.

Just in those systems along we’re at $5,994.

But we also have lenses and she loves using Sigma glass as do I.

In fact, she has a nice Sigma 24-70mm f-2.8 and a nice Sigma 35mm f-1.4 that she primarily uses too. Both of those lenses together cost $1,998 which brings the total up to $7,992.

She has about 8 batteries which help cover the day, each of those runs about $78 each ($624), Several 128GB Sandisk memory cards, 8 actually at $191.25 each ($1,530), and a holster which cost $300.

Toss in a Pelican 1510 hard case with dividers for another $250 and you’re looking at a $10,396.

That doesn’t include the Godex light kit with remote ($200), the spare batteries with those as well as a cheaper flash as a backup for $50. Then, we use Litra torch lights and she has a couple of those for about $85 each.

The total cost so far is $10,846.

Wedding Videography Gear

On the video side of the house, I’m Panasonic, been using them and JVC for the last 20 some odd years.

Today, I have two Panasonic S1 bodies, one was a kit with the 24-105mm lens at $3,397 and the other was just the body at $2,497.

I also have a couple of lenses with those, the Sigma 35mm 1.4 purchased for $899, a Panasonic 20-60mm purchased for $597, and a Sigma 45mm 2.8 also purchased for $549.

Then my backup cameras, a Panasonic G85 with Kit lens that I bought for $700 and a Panasonic FZ-1000 which is a bridge camera for $500.

Also, I have a live stream camera, Mevo which runs about $399. Toss in a Tascam DR-10L mics and an audio recorder for another $600.

So, just in that, I have $10,138.

Then I have batteries, 8 at $89.99 each ($719.92), 6 64GB Sandisk cards ($198), 2 -128GB ($382) and a few FCexpress/QXD cards too, that’s about $500.

Then I also have a couple of Litra Torch lights ($170), light stands ($65), a Manfrotto Monopod with a fluid head at $299, then a couple of Manfrotto BeFree Tripods at $294 ($588), a Manfrotto MVH500A for $389 and a 12-foot sports tripod for $399.

I also have a Pelican case, 1610 that was $399 plus I have a case for my drone in addition to my DJI Mavic Air 2 which is $988.

Okay, so I have $15,234 in gear and Carole has another $10,846 for a total of $26,080, but we’re not done.

Business Operations

For the business, we have a bunch of things that we need to operate, but let’s just cover the immediate basics, computers.

Carole uses a 2020 Mac Mini M1 with 16GB of ram, 8GPU, and 1TB hard drive. That costs I believe $1,300. We also bought a magic mouse and keyboard for about $250 along with 2-27” 4K LED monitors for $600.

Her backup system is a 2018 MacBook Pro 16” which at the time cost us $2,400.

She has $4,574 in computers.

I am a Windows guy and have an HP tower for my main system. It’s a 12-core, 3TB SSD, 32Gb RAM, 8GB GPU with a 32” 4k display I use. It cost me $3,100. Then I also have a 40” display I can use to use my final product, but it’s cheap at $250.

Then I have a cheaper 6-core Ryzen based laptop with 256Gb HD and 8GB of Ram. I can use it to edit, but mostly to blog and just run payroll, invoicing, etc. Let’s say $450 for that.

So I bring to the table another $3,550 in computers for a total of $8,124.

So far, in just basic equipment alone we have spent $34,204.

Remember that is no income, just what we’ve spent to be able to do weddings and events.

Oh, those Misc Line Items Few People Think About

Then we have other business line items that people don’t tend to think about like software from Adobe, which is about $600 a year for a couple of licenses, cell phones at about $100 a month each, a laser printer with toner, our business licenses, taxes, and a bunch of other things too.

Running a business is not cheap, in fact, I recently asked a group of video/photo professionals how much in gear they think they had.

Nearly 70 of the professionals have roughly $10-$25k worth of gear, wow that’s a LOT! Let’s look at the numbers in a chart to better see it.

With most professionals having $10k or more in gear, it’s important to remember that the cost of that gear needs to be absorbed by their cost.

That cost is usually in part eaten by the couple in the package pricing, fairly typical.

How long does it take to recoup that money?

While it does depend on the business, typically gear is replaced every 3-4 years if being used on a regular basis. Sometimes gear will last longer if you take care of it.

I’ve had cameras over the years that lasted less than a year from the use and I’ve had ones that have lasted longer than 5 years. My trusty FZ-1000 is a testament to that.

Although 5 years old, it still operates and does a good job at vlogging and sometimes is used as a “D” cam if I ever need one.

When it was new, it was about $1,000, today you can get one for about $500.

Take a look at this online wedding vendor calculator I made, it works for just about any vendor, not just photos/video.

It will give you an idea of how long it will take a business to recoup the money spent to operate.

The idea is that every so often, things need to be replaced, so depending on how long you keep the gear and how many weddings you can do for it will show you the worth of the items.