Hi Folks,

Just wanted to share some observations as a buyer: Every year our studio does some contracted freelance work for about three fix clients. These are mostly packages of print and web products bundled. We are doing this (or me alone before growing) since about 12 years (before stock already) - because of that I guess I can give some subjective comments on the stock market as a buyer.

In the first years there was nothing on the Micros. Many times I had to switch back to the Macros. The Situation good gradually better every year until about 2 years ago. This year we had to select a key visual photo for print as we do every year and I was quite baffled that we had so much trouble to find something suitable for the client.

In recent years as buyers we felt in heaven. Now it feels rather dry. Best chances still on istock and shutterstock but SO many subjects are not covered or have just trash. In many cases, on sites like Dreamstime, Depositphotos,.... there are just two or three good Microstock contributors left who are able to supply quality products which are good enough for a key element.

I was totally surprised. I expected in that subject to have plenty to chose from.

It looks like the Agencies convert more and more to trash bins of amateur photographers. Or photogs are just supplying the well known seller categories and stopped bothering uploading niche or quality material.

Most subjects I do not want to disclose but just as an example: look for a winter landscape in Sweden. Condition: High resolution and vertical orientation since it is for a high gloss mag print ad: You just get low quality compositions. Trees and uninspired landscapes. Now imagine you have to reduce the search filter to a specific region in Sweden: then you are f+*-e* .

From this Point of view it does not at all look like "oversupply". More like "flooded with trash and cannot find good specific material" lol.

Guess with their low pricing and zero-editing strategy the micros bury their own grave. It is just a matter of time until a reasonable company steps into competition since the USP can consist of something such simple as "Quality".

Quote from: Brightontl on August 05, 2016, 05:53

Quote from: Tror on August 05, 2016, 05:36

Quote from: Brightontl on August 05, 2016, 05:15

Welcome to the dollar store man.
Sorry, but we cannot sell you the gold rolex watch you are looking for a dollar, our apologies.
:-)

You haven`t actually read the thread and/or post, did you?

I was just jocking, hence the smiley at the end.
It is not your case, but in general customers could not expect to find niche quality photos in microstock.
For 30-40 cents per download I really cannot see anybody traveling to a specific location for a shooting.
I only do video, but I suppose in stills at these prices you can only shoot what you have avaible around you with zero costs involved

Except where people live near the "niche" the only way to make things work these days is to be ruthless in minimising costs I think.

I am sorry but for me this OP message can never be a base to decide if there is "trash" in micro or not. There are millions of opinions. If one "hater" decides to write a message it can not be that it is valid in general.

For now it doesnt look like micro or shutterstock is going down soon..... fact is that several macros lost it. If i put Sweden landscape on shutterstock i dont really see trash, neither less quality then macros. It is all about the search engine.

Not everyone needs mega beatiful images. A documentairy book about Sweden would rather need a photo that shows the "REAL" view of a landscape then a fancy colorwonder.

many well known agencies have lowered the bar even further on who gets accepted. In addition, certain agencies are likely using bots or software to do a large portion of the image inspecting. What happens is, Crappy, flat, boring shots get accepted because they are "sharp" while images that have real dynamics to them, like motion, shadows, depth of field, get thrown out by the algorithm.