Though I love new things, I am always conflicted when it comes to trying new software for sports or event photography. Being an ExpressDigital owner and a Labtricity lab I have no need for another solution. I am very aware however that a number of my lab customers either don't need, or don't want to buy Darkroom. It always takes me a few tries with a new application to stop doing direct comparisons to Darkroom. I have managed to do that and here is a no fluff review of 5 Minute Photo.
5 Minute Photo bills itself as a low cost, dead simple solution to presenting images for sale on site at events of all sort. The program is written for Microsoft .Net and is a Windows only application. At $149 for the Loader and unlimited Viewer instances connected to that Loader it is certainly a bargain in a very narrow field.
Server side Loader
The server side software is simply called the Loader software and here is what it looks like:
(Sorry for the screen grab quality. I'll create my own and change them out.)
It is a very simple application that asks you for an event name, asks to you to name the card that you are about to load and then loads the images. The Loader software is a simple no frills way to create your catalogs, set some import options and then add them to the event so that the client Viewer stations can access them.
There are some downsides to the simplicity of the Loader. Aside from the software auto detecting the rotate flag in your images you have no means to review images in the software for proper rotation. Not all of my cameras set the auto rotate flag, so in my tests I ended up with vertical images being displayed as horizontal. Also, you can't use the software to edit out things you would rather not have your customers see. I intended to try editing with a browser (like XnView) but simply ran out of time. I would be very willing to bet that this method of editing outside of the program would work just fine.
Networking from within the software proved to be a challenge. Every other application that I have set up provided for very simple auto detect of the server from client stations. ExpressDigital, LabPrints and DP2 all make networking very straight forward. 5 Minute Photo does not. It is easy enough once you read the manual, but could prove challenging for those that are not networking literate. Where ED software creates the shared X drive from the server automatically, 5MP requires that you manually map the shared Z drive on each Viewer station. Further, this drive would have to be manually remapped for each event. Not the most elegant or simple solution, but it does work once you put the pieces together.
Client side Viewer
It is exactly what it is claimed to be. A very simple, very effective means to display images to your customers on multiple sales stations. It provides no shopping cart, no print option lists or anything else other than your images. Orders are placed with a pen and paper.
The software claims to provide security on your Viewer stations that would require the user to enter a password to exit the program or to access Windows. It may well, but in the demo version it did not. I checked in the options for the loader and didn't see it.
The Viewer is as simple as the Loader to use. Your customers click the catalog that they want to see, view thumbs and can click to see any image that they like. At the top of the screen are previous and next buttons that make navigation simple. Your customer can use any type of order sheet that you provide to order the images that they want. That's it. No more, no less.
There has been some discussion about using the Viewer application on a BeTwin system. I really have my doubts about this working given how this software is setup and run, but I have heard no confirmation one way or the other.
Summary
I would like to say more about the software, but this pretty much sums everything up. The application is very short on features but is also very solid in the areas that it claims. I think that at $149 that this software is way under valued. That old saying in life that your work is only as valuable as the value that you yourself place on it holds true here. I think that the author could go to $399 or $499 and still provide excellent value for the money.
The limited or missing features are more than offset by the cost of entry to the system and the simplicity of operation once you have it installed and configured. If you are in the market for an event software system for the least amount of money this is certainly it. The developer claims that a number of his customers use 5MP on site and then return home and use ExpressDigital software to fulfill their orders or to upload to a lab using the free Web Edition of Darkroom. I could see this being a very effective method for doing small to medium sized events.
Pros
1. $149. I have no idea why, but this is a huge benefit.
2. Very simple setup overall.
3. Dead simple operation.
4. Light on system resources.
5. Appears to be very well supported.
6. Developer listens to customer feedback.
Cons
1. Very limited options for import.
2. No manual rotation of images.
3. No editing of imported images.
4. Manual setup of network shares and folders.
Killer features to add
1. Shopping cart.
2. Image editing after import.
3. Auto archive.
4. Import options (like preview and edit).
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