costs – Ming Thein | Photographer

Staying on the bleeding edge: an economic strategy

November 4, 2014 by Ming Thein

All photographers like gear; there’s no question that to some extent we’re all equipment hoarders and collectors. But it gets expensive quickly, even if we are lucky enough to be able to write off purchases as business expenses. This post will explain my strategy to minimize expense but still keep yourself happily distracted.

In reality, I think there are three options that work, but you must stick to them religiously – otherwise the costs start to spiral when you ‘jump grades’. Here’s the rundown; in each case, the aim is to take as little of a depreciation hit as possible, and of course keep yourself entertained…

Film Diaries: Examining the costs of shooting film vs digital

January 24, 2014 by Ming Thein

Looking for an answer? I can’t give you a clear cut one, but this article might certainly help to clarify your thoughts.

There are many reasons to shoot digital. There are many reasons to shoot film, too – beyond the simple ‘I want to’. Though I find that for color work, digital is significantly better than film due to the level of control and accuracy it produces, film remains my medium of choice for monochrome work. The reason has to do with nonlinearity of tonal response, especially in the highlights – film never quite seems to clip under almost all circumstances, and this jives with the way our eyes see the world very nicely indeed. But there are typically two things that stop people from trying film: workflow, and perceived cost.

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PayPal, margin pressure and the small business perspective

August 22, 2013 by Ming Thein

A few days ago, I received an email from PayPal informing me that some of their terms and conditions of service had changed – ostensibly to ‘ensure high standards of service continue to be maintained’. I read that immediately as a greedy grab: turns out I was right. Buried in the fine print of the changes were a bunch of rate amendments, effective 10 Sep 2013, that now make the cost of receiving payments in my part of the world anywhere up to 6% plus a fixed fee (for commercial payments that fall into the “International micro payments for digital goods” category, which includes my videos). On top of this, there’s a ‘micropayment fixed fee’ of MYR2.00 (US$0.65). And then there’s a 4% currency conversion fee to Malaysian Ringgit on conversion. And a further 2.5% added to the exchange rate when you withdraw the funds to your bank account. Very cunningly, they don’t provide a like-for-like fee comparison, either. That’s a grand total of anywhere up to 12.5% PLUS RM2.00. Previously, I calculated the net cost of using PayPal at about 5% inclusive of FX; a merchant credit card terminal would be around 3%. Given the long payment times for credit card providers and relative discomfort of people using cards overseas, I elected to stay with PayPal for the time being – lousy service and lack of regulation notwithstanding. See why this has now become a problem?

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