Just wondering how many of you are members of NPS. I am interested in your experience or whether you have consideredit, how long it took, how you found another NPS member.

Thanks,

Billy,
I've been a member for 12 years or so. Originally, I joined for the loaner perks. It's helped me equipment-wise on a few assignments, as well as expedited repairs on several occasions. I've also gotten loaners to field test gear that I was interested in buying. It was easy to qualify and as I recall, didn't take long to join. I already had the tear-sheets and a member-friend was my sponsor. It doesn't cost anything. Last I knew, membership qualifies you to get loaners 3 times a year. You have 2 weeks to get the loaned equipment returned, and you need to take care of the shipping and insurance costs. Membership is renewed periodically, every couple of years. It's definitely worthwhile.

Mike,
Question for you. I shoot very little that is published each year. I do have tear sheets, but most of my stuff is personal use and web publication. So my question is what else do they accept as tear sheets?

They want material that has been published to see if you are earning a living at it. I suppose there could be a gray area where some aren't actually doing it professionally. Your best bet may be to look at the web site, call on the phone or email them to see if you qualify.

http://www.nikonpro.com
nps@nikon.net
(631)547-4397

When I say personal use, I mean my clients personal use. The web stuff is for business' web sites. I have been a full time photographer since 1966. I have portraits hanging in several state capitols, but not much published as such. It's just that most of my clients buy portraits for personal use. It made me think about the wedding photographers I know. They aren't publish and I wondered how NPS handled that.

Billy--I suspect you'd do fine on qualifying. It's not like they are machine graded or anything. I'd fill out the application, include a letter explaining what you do and who your clients are, tack on what tear sheets you do have and go for it.--David

When Moose talked about NPS during base camp, he mentioned that you need three tear sheets. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, but then, I have exactly zero at the moment

I wonder if photos of your photos hanging in public would qualify?

My experiance was that if you contact your local rep and talk to them you will get the real story.
Remember NPS is basicly for those who use a camera for a living. For years I didn't worry about joining, but I will admitt now that I have been a member for 5 years it has been a great relationship.
I now have a box of shutters put aside for me in Vancouver, and I get a 3 to 5 day turn around on shutter replacements ( I go through about 12 shutters per ski season). I now have a personal contact at Nikon service in Van, and often it is Carol that rings me ahead of time with sugestions on maintanance or equipment. Also this has led to the national sales manager talking to me about future camera / lense needs and I now am at the head of the list for things we need. For example I got 2 D3's before they where even at the retailers here in Canada.
The next step is for them give me 'test bed' equipment to destroy, which has been already talked about.
So if you need NPS it has for me been a great relationship, but as they tell me, we have the most useage in north America, so if anyone can detroy a D2 or D3 it's my guys (infact I killed a D3 in 4 weeks!)
Gav

Billy,,I was a member since the mid 70's and it was geared toward helping press and sports photographers get the pictures they needed while their equipment was being serviced etc. It cost more to use the system when you needed a quick fix and my equipment went to the head of the list and I used some of the lenses when I didn't have the right one etc.,but mostly I used their 300mm ED f2.8 for major sports events ( if they ever had one ) and I havn't used NPS for a long time. It was a great help to most of us then and Nikon wanted to have most of the news and sports pictures that were published shot with Nikon equipment. The other guys did the same thing but on a smaller scale but I never was given a camera to try and destroy ??? I wouldn't do that even if I was paid to !,,,,,,,,,,Roy

I never have used the equipment lending aspect of NPS (a combination of having more stuff than we need and the one time I did need a lense it was not availible) but this is another good reason to join. It is however harder to join and stay a member now days.
You must prove you are working every few years.
My main reason to stay with them, apart from the quick repair service, is that I am a relationship guy in the sence I stay with the one retailer/supplier one web host ect and don't chop and change. The same thing has happened with Nikon Canada, I now can ring them directly and am given preference with service and equipment.
All in all, as with life, make and keep friends.
Gav