Some of the users might hate me for this...but...could we add a professional photographer/studio level of pricing that has some extra personalization options and eliminates Zenfolio links, AND on the MORE IMPORTANT note gives some more revenue to Zenfolio to help accelerate new feature implementation. I want to be a client of the best site and not feel that we are waiting to add features that other proofing sites already offer. I also want ONE proofing site, I want Zenfolio to have all the key features so I don't desire another for part of my events/clients. Will more more help new feature roll outs? Enough said. 

I have wanted to post something in this forum about a similar topic but wasn't sure how to approach without sounding negative or out of line.  aesthetica has captioned it so well that I thought I would tag along.

First some history: Event photograph is a prominent part of my business for the past 8 years and the internet has always been an integral part, at least from a marketing standpoint. In the beginning I hand-created my galleries in photoshop and uploaded to my personal website. No fulfillment options, unless someone called me on the phone or sent me an email and then I would print out the pictures on my printer and ship them.

I still use my website as the launch pad for my galleries but I have been using fulfillment companies like shu**erfly-pro, pr*ntroom and phot*stockpl*s as the backbone for my galleries and fulfillment for the past several years. I also know there are others out there. The problem is none of these give me the flexibility, simple transparent front-end, smooth eloquent gallery structure, handshakes with facebook/twitter that are important in this day and age, etc. I am looking for one solution.

When I found Zenfolio I immediately recognized that a lot of the front end work that I am currently doing could be eliminated either now or with some of the enhancements they are promising. I am really excited about what I see with Zenfolio. The galleries are really smooth with a lot of options. The fulfillment option looks promising.

But here's the catch - These sites I have been using charge hundred and hundreds of dollars and  have premiums on server space. $100 a year by Zenfolio seems almost too good to be true. I have also identified (see other posts) functionality which is missing or could be improved in the Zenfolio back-end and user-interface that is important for me as I support my business and I am concerned about Zenfolio's ability or interest in supporting my type of business on the site, not at $100 a year. And finally, the enhancement list seems really aggressive and almost too grass-roots-driven - sometimes things look like they might be implemented without fully analyzing the impact on the professional photographer (i.e. sharing galleries, copying to facebook) and other things on the list look like they are extreme changes to the system (i.e. hosting custom web pages, video, etc.) that are going to have to come at a price, not free. Zenfolio needs to look at its customer base and start to consider the major types of customers it has.

I wouldn't mind paying extra for the piece of mind that when I move from my other fulfillment options to Zenfolio that I made the absolute certain correct choice! I think the studio/professional level membership idea is a great option and ultimately the best way for Zenfolio to move forward, be a sustainable business, and be cutting edge where it needs to be while also protecting the fundamentals.

I hope Zenfolio is listening...I agree with both of you that the addition of a professional photographer level would effectively solve many of the issues that are recurring on the forum.

This needs to happen SOON before the "professionals" become disgruntled and go looking elsewhere.  I believe creating a pro-level Zen would definitely have the potential to put Zenfolio at the top of the game, and most pros wouldn't mind paying more for the additional services we need.

First off, I believe Zenfolio is a good option for pro photographers.  I consider myself a pro photographer, and assume my paying customers also feel that way.  Now there are definitely more features we would all like to see, and I believe Zenfolio is doing all they can to get those 'needed' and 'desired' features as quickly as possible.  I know they have added more staff and have ramped up the delivery of features to every 4 - 6 weeks.

Now the idea of adding a new level of service for more money sounds like maybe a fix, but as I analyze it, my thoughts are that we are thinking we can now pay $150/year (arbitrary number) and have all those services. 

But those services are not there and still have to be developed. 

No one is going to pay the extra for those services when they know they can't have them (they aren't there yet) so the extra money we are talking about isn't going to be there to purchase more development people to develop those features faster.

Now I am not a Zen employee, did not know a thing about Zen before finding a recommendation in another forum and signing up, but by virtue of the amount of effort I have put into these forums, I have gotten the chance to talk to some of the heads at Zenfolio directly.  I'm not sitting on the board mind you... but I think I can say with all conviction that they are doing everything they feel they possibly can do at this point to deliver the best product they can, adding additional features as quickly as they can.

Now other internet companies like facebook are making changes faster, but my God I can't get anything on facebook to work.  Zen works.

Just my thoughts... wife is yelling... I gotta run!  :)

.

I'm also using another site of my own design for my front end - it's a full website on it's own and a more professional place to showcase my work.  I gave up waiting on ZF and my needs grew too fast.  Plus I realized that ZF will do whatever upgrades in their own time, but there will still always be something more somebody wants no matter how many features they add.

I've accepted that this is a very nicely implemented gallery building site, and nothing more.  At some point in the future I hope customization becomes possible so it can integrate it better with my real site - but for now, it still works well.  It's super fast and fantastic for client proofing!  

I don't want to pay more and am not asking for much more than what's already here unless they are going to get into full on web hosting and I can move my other site in and tightly integrate it - BUT - this is something I think they have said is not going to happen.

Karen, I think that the idea was that whoever wanted the extra features could pay more and those who didn't could keep their service the way it is.

At first glance your site looks like one of the bigfolios.com sites, but it crashed my browser twice and when it finally loaded the galleries didn't so I don't know how the zenfolio galleries are integrated with your site. The flash was pretty fast, but maybe your customers like it.

Pam

Thanks Pam - I was just being the voice of one (probably among many) who does not want to pay more for imposed upgrades to premium accounts without moving into a full hosting model, (which I'm paying for additionally elsewhere and could gladly eliminate if this ever happened).

Thanks for the heads up on my site.  Yours is the first report I have ever had saying it wasn't working well.

It's been tested and works fine on Safari, Firefox, Opera, Camino, Wyzo (on Macs) and for PC - Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.  The only thing I can think of that might cause issues are either an old browser - or an out of date FlashPlayer.  I suppose I could have a splash page warning about the Flash needing to be current (and optional non-Flash links) - but I hate those things...it kind of spoils the effect of arriving on a site.

As far as the Flash being "pretty fast" - that's usually a good thing?  But if it was problematic for you, this might mean something entirely different than referring to the fluidity.  Interval between the slideshow images are currently set to 3 seconds each - if they are whizzing by at 4 per second, then that's just disturbing to hear!    LOL

http://www.karenengelphotography.com/connections/

To see the integration I've done so far, the link above takes you to the non-flash section of my site - from there, the only sections that return to the main Flash pages, are Home and Galleries.   More kicks you out into a pop up of my ZF site on a different domain.  The About and Contact pages here are simple HTML mimics of the real ones which are also done in Flash and accessed through the main site landing/Home.

Apologies for going all O/T on this.  ha ha

Hi Karen,  I use Firefox for most stuff and my flashplayer might be out of date.

As for the time of images - it depends on your personal taste and who you are marketing images to.

The seventies are gone and I'm glad that they are, you might be too young to know what a strobe light is but, very fast images have the same effect.

I have my flash set to 5 seconds.  I figure that in nature photography I want them to have a few seconds to really look at the image that I want them to spend big bucks on.  That is just my style and for the type of work that I sell.

Pam