How to Shoot Virtual Tours and Make Money With 360° Panorama Photography, Part 2

In the previous part I covered some myths on panoramic photography I’m trying to prove wrong. 

In this second part, let me continue with some other myths:

Myth number 4 – It costs a lot of money to hire a photographer to create a virtual tour for you

Not true. You can get it really cheap or you can do it yourself. I’m standing here on a very thin ice of course and I believe that a lot of professional panorama photographers reading this are fidgeting nervously now and are gritting their teeth. The truth is that if you want a really good quality, you have to pay for it. It is not possible to naively think that as soon as you can take your first 360° photo, you already know all the tricks and all the necessary magic which differentiates good 360° photos from the bad. The summary is: You get what you pay for. If you are not concerned about quality so much, you can essentially get your panoramas done for free.

Myth number 5 – Anybody can take good-quality 360° photos

Not true. A professional panorama photographer needs to know lots of tricks which are only possible to learn after taking many photos on their own. The most difficult types of panoramas are those of interiors or environments that are not static, where lighting conditions change often or in confined spaces. If somebody demands a lot of money for their services, most likely they are worth the money. The cost of creating one fully spherical 360° photo are today anywhere around $50 to $200 for one photo but can climb up to hundreds or thousands of dollars for special projects and even more for gigapixel photos or extreme conditions with lots of perparations needed. On the other hand the price can be much cheaper if you get a volume discount and if you don’t care about quality that much. You can even hire a student to create your photos. Every approach has its pros and cons. The articles on this server will try to help you decide what’s best for you.

Myth number 6 – As soon as you can take panoramas, you will become rich doing so

Not true. I’ve met hundreds of photographers in my life and I know of quite a few really great ones that publish to +360Cities and I can see every day that selling and marketing of your services is as important as the work itself, in many cases it’s actually far more important. Many photographers are broke and many of them have given up creating panoramas at all because of this. I also know some photographers that seem to be natural at selling their services. They constantly shoot panoramas, some of them just for fun, and use these leisure shots to market their services. It should be noted that there’s far more photographers that are broke and can’t get the traction for their services than there are successful ones. If you are planning to learn 360° photography just for fun and leisure, you don’t have to worry about much. If, however, you are planning to make a living with 360° panoramas, you will need to work on your selling skills. Selling panoramas is very similar to selling normal photography with some good and bad twists: The good twist is that you can generally get more money for 360° photography than for the traditional photography and it can be really exciting for your clients if this is the first time they see interactive panroamas. The bad twist is that 360° photography is definitely more difficult to sell and more work to create. You will find tons of great advices on this server about how to create your panoramas and I wish you good luck with selling. To inspire you I’m attaching a funny video about selling with Alec Baldwin – Always Be Closing – Always ask your client if they want to buy – and finish the sale and get the money! Good luck!!!

This has been a part of the Introduction to Effective 360° Panoramic Photography.