Quote from: Xalanx on August 22, 2010, 14:38

Baldrick (or Trousers), those dials could only mean you are much longer in the game than a lot others, nothing more. As you may already know, those who started earlier in this game have a HUGE advantage.
Nevertheless, I am not questioning your skills, at least not without seeing your port. Your setup is rather similar to mine, except the 24-70mm which I regard as being the crappiest of all L lenses. Yes, I have only primes, just one zoom. And yes, the 17-40 has CAs at the edge of the frame in some extreme situations, to the wider end of the focal length, this is also common to the 16-35mm. I just don't upload shots with CA, that's all.
...
If I were you I'd probably get the 24-105 instead...

LE: oh and the one that blows studio shots because of wrong arranging the lights has still a lot to learn. Why for the life of me would anyone underexpose a studio shot?!

Peace.

Yes, I've been in this for a long time, which is an advantage. No argument there.

You are absolutely way off if you think the 24-70 f2.8L is the worst lens in the line-up. The 24-70 is well regarded by almost everyone. The worst lens by a country mile is the 17-40 f4L and if you only see some aberration at the edges in extreme situations then you are missing what is there. It is probably the worst L lens Canon ever made, the distortion in the corners at the wide end is revolting and the CA in mildly demanding conditions beggars belief. On a crop sensor body it is probably better than the original 18-55 kit lens, but I'm not sure. To be honest, I think it was worse. But maybe my copy of it is bad.

There is no benefit in having the 24-105 over the 24-70 according to this: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/28-105.shtml
and you lose a stop of speed, which is significant for focusing in lower light. You may notice that contrary to your observation, the 24-70 is described by Michael Reichman as being as fine a lens as was ever made for that focal range. My attempts to interpret MTF charts are amateurish, to say the least, but I think the chart is saying that the 24-70 is the better lens.

Well then maybe I had a bad copy of 24-70, back then before moving to primes. I mean extreme distortion to the wide end and the worse CA I've seen on an L lens. On the other hand, the 17-40 is very good if you keep it above 20-24mm and f/8 - f/11. Which is exactly how I use it, only for landscapes. For everything else I have primes. But I think this subject is highly offtopic and there are proper boards for this.

Anyway, for further reference here are some sites worth reading:

TDP lens comparison
POTN lens sample photo archive
Photozone, obviously...

Quote from: lagereek on August 22, 2010, 15:39

anyhow its good with a rant sometimes, isnt it.
'

Absolutely! I enjoy a good rant myself.

I did notice a slight problem with the riff-raff arguement though: if we cut out today's cheap crop-frame hoipolloi cameras then we need to dump all files of less than 15MP which, unfortunately, seems likely to extinguish those blue flames you have at iStock.

Hmmmm....

Hi!

No, 15 MPs is too steep, most dslrs are around 12, arent they? so you got to go with that. I mean Im not some kind of monster wanting to prevent people from executing their hobbie or whatever but somewhere you got to draw the line. At the moment the leading agencies have got between 5-10 million shots in their files and I bet you anything if Professional-editors went through these files we wouldnt be left with more then say 30%  rest would be classified as irrelevant material. From a buyers point, wading through these files is a NIGHTMARE.
This is the result when setting commercial and artistic values aside and just concentrating on the technical merits, letting any old shot into files as long as its technically correct, not very clever is it?

Result is: in say 2 years time, you and I, Diamonds or not or whatever will hardly see any revenues at all from our works. Add to this that our new files and uploads gets thrown in among bazillions of stuff, never to be seen.

Im not telling you anything new here!  this is what happend to the old Image-Bank, run by the late Stan Kanney,  brillant business concept BUT in the end he took on too much ( 4 million 35-mil trannies in files)  top-photographers, etc, and he was one of the first to use computer-files. He lost control it all becamr� too big and he sold out to Getty.

Like everybody else here Im just trying to protect my own niche and position within the Micro because at this moment the entire Micro world seems a little bit wobbly. Wouldnt you say?

best. Christian

Back to topic

I decide to pair rejection with sales. If agency give me more sales , I accept rejection with good intention to improve. Proof is pudding because site that give me regular downloads and many times instant downloads with approval, then I respect reviewers know what they select.
Other hand, if I keep getting rejection and the approved stuff do not give me downloads, not instant downloads, not long time downloads, then I think reviewer
is talking through his other end.

Perspective work for me since my consistent uploads go to site with best pairing
of instant download with quick approval. You all know which site I talk about.

Comment on riff raff not very friendly.
Maybe the increased of loss of sale here this forum is due to riff raff.
If size of XL make you non- riff raff, then I confess I fall in sub category of riff raff.
No, I don't have top of line Canon, but if my picture is taking sales away from professional camera top of line non riff raff, then maybe riff raff not so riff raff.

Oh dear, not so personal, its just a figure of speech you know.

6MP is full page. + web users do not need anything even that big not even for the equivalent of HD. + if you discourage your riff-raff you will create riff-raff sized business opportunity for someone else to revolutionise stock again. If you try to shut people out of a business they will build their own. Microstock taught that.

With riff-raff  I mean "getting-rich-over-night" merchants who just dump their ports with all kinds of spamming, etc, never to be heard of again but their stuff still remains in our files. There are thousands of these.

made myself clear now or does anyone still wants these guys to screw it up for us?

Quote from: lagereek on August 23, 2010, 11:31

Quote from: alias on August 23, 2010, 10:19

6MP is full page. + web users do not need anything even that big not even for the equivalent of HD. + if you discourage your riff-raff you will create riff-raff sized business opportunity for someone else to revolutionise stock again. If you try to shut people out of a business they will build their own. Microstock taught that.

With riff-raff  I mean "getting-rich-over-night" merchants who just dump their ports with all kinds of spamming, etc, never to be heard of again but their stuff still remains in our files. There are thousands of these.

made myself clear now or does anyone still wants these guys to screw it up for us?

Thank for the clarification.
I agree too that spamming mercs are the problem and not the undersized 6MP contributors.
Our equipment put us on a disadvantage we know because higher resolution pay more commission. Don't think we ignore that fact. But already so many of your professionals and old timers are complain that equipment outlay
shortfall with microstock earning does not make investment of expenisve top of line intelligent spending.
We do not have the larger size picture to compete with you but we do produce equal quality work
or maybe better. If this result in loss for old timers than it is time for old timers to get smarter
and make better work instead of sitting on large behind with excuse that reviewers are not fair.
We get rejections too.

Sorry lefty!  but Ive yet to see this fantastic work youre talking about. From what Ive seen its mostly cats, dogs, flowers and what they call young business people.