I just got back from a 14 day cruise around the cape horn and thought i would pass a bit of information i found interesting along to everyone.

The curise company took photos of everyone, and everything known to "man":rolleyes:

Of course everything was for sale.

One afternoon i was strolling by the photo gallery and stopped to look at some stock photos they had taken of some off ship excursion and smelled "fixer". A very nice young man was standing next to a table putting out some images for folks to buy, and he was the printer on board.

We started talking and i asked him how many images he printed on a trip of 14 days and he indicated it was about 20,000 images.

They shoot with digital camers, (i only saw nikon in use) but print out the traditional color prints. Inkjet printers are impossible to use as the motion of the ship creates issues.

This company has more than 30 ships sailing around the world, and i would expect they are all in the same situation with regard to shooting and printing.

That is a lot of color prints in a 14 day time span; altho, of course not every cruise is 14 days, and this was only one company.

A lot of color printing going on all over the world.

I'm really surprised to hear that a large cruise ship has enough motion to affect an inkjet printer's function.

Are they making digital "negatives" then optically printing them, or what?

Interesting. I wonder how many prints they sell, and how much revenue that brings....

I don't know how much money they make, but i would image it is quite a bit as they have a large staff of photographers and lots people lining up to buy photos.

They take photos of everyone, getting on, getting off, dinner etc. including portrait session on formal nights.

I must have had at least 9 photos of myself taken at various times.
So multiply that by 2000 people and you have lots of printing to do.

They told me that ( i believe it was HP) came on board and ran a lot of test with printers and discovered it wasn't going to work. I am assuming they do a lot of printing at night as the day's work was shown the next morning. The ship speeds up at night as there is more power available then and that creates more motion. For example, one night, there were gale forces that created quite a bit of motion and slowed down the time schedule,as they were head winds.

I was surprised that they were using chemistry , altho, the prints at first view didn't look like inkjet prints.

I didn't ask about making a negative, i believe they are just running a line similar to what the one hour photo people do, but it is a konica system.

Also, the black and white conversion that are printed out are very neutual. So someone is paying close attention to the fine details. In fact the prints themselves are very nice; better than anything i have seen from the local places in Atlanta.

The photos for the most part are pretty much the run of the mill. Travel stuff, tables at dinner, photos with ice glacers in the background, etc.

They also had a group of guys video taping special events and one on each excursion that went ashore. Producing a 2 cd video of the cruise .
I was told they do this each time even for a ship that is making the same stop on another trip. This way, individuals on a specific trip will be seen in the video along with the scene they specifically viewed.

They must be making a profit, as that is no small expense.

They must be making a profit, as that is no small expense.

Most likely they are using a Noritsu printer and processor since it can print directly from digital files. 20K prints in that period of time can be easily produced with one of those machines. Automated color printers have had the capacity to print in excess of 10K prints an hour for decades, even when printing film.

Costco and Ritz are two good finishers here in Atlanta. Give them a try.

Don

Even in this day and age nothing is as inexpensive or as quick as an RA4 print. When I had my own maching and bought chems by the cube and paper by the 275" roll I figured my cost and it was really really low -- can't remember the exact amount, but it was dirt cheap, great quality and a 24" swath took 4min dry to dry.

thanks for the tip don, i wil recommend these to my students, as i don't use outside sources for my own printing.