Quote from: grp_photo on September 16, 2010, 15:28

Quote from: dgilder on September 16, 2010, 15:21

Quote from: grp_photo on September 16, 2010, 15:04

It's easy to pick bad examples but even than it is still a matter of taste.

Taste.  Yep.

It is actually very "stockish" but certainly only usable for the German-speaking market. The Germans, Swiss and Austrians are rich - let them pay big bucks ;-).

It's not about taste or whether it is stockish. the fact is that the picture would never be normally accepted into the collection. If any of us uploaded it. it would be rejected.

It wouldn't be accepted into a "microstock" collection which clearly the Agency Collection isn't and just as clearly it has been accepted into the collection and with great astonishment, they didn't ask microstock photographers about it.

Based on your own personal experience? This is what drives me nuts. Why wouldn't you try and pull micro prices up rather than complain macro is overpriced?

Personally, I am all for higher prices, as long as photographers get their fair share. 
But I do think Istock risks chasing buyers away if the quality of the content doesn't measure up to the price being asked. 

Quote from: melastmohican on September 16, 2010, 15:41

So maybe that's why macro agencies are falling. They have lots of old and overpriced stuff and they think they are superior to micros :-)

Based on your own personal experience? This is what drives me nuts. Why wouldn't you try and pull micro prices up rather than complain macro is overpriced?

Based on what I saw in this thread :-) The micro seems to have higher quality.

On the other subject, micro prices would not go up significantly until all micro agencies stop competing on price which may happen when there is fewer of them and no other type of competition (like macro, midstock) exists.  It may never happen and something else will be invented.

Zeus, I totally get what you are saying about different types of pictures, quality in the eyes of the beholder etc and so on. The microstock pics are too uniform, and the variety of macro is still needed. But honestly, that toilet sign and some of those christmas photos; those are not good. I don't understand how anybody can disagree on that.

Quote from: Zeus on September 16, 2010, 16:27

Based on your own personal experience? This is what drives me nuts. Why wouldn't you try and pull micro prices up rather than complain macro is overpriced?

Personally, I am all for higher prices, as long as photographers get their fair share. 
But I do think Istock risks chasing buyers away if the quality of the content doesn't measure up to the price being asked. 

Hey, hold on, Lisa.
I'm banking on my rejects getting put into the Agency collection.

Quote from: Zeus on September 16, 2010, 17:22

So belittle  all you want to but at your peril or maybe at least loss of opportunity.

This is ironically enough the exact advice that macros needed to heed before micros started destroying them.

Touche, What goes around, comes around.

Hi All,

I'd like to make a few quick comments, and clear up a few misconceptions:

1. I think the quality of microstock has vastly improved over the last few years (since I made the comments I made in the "About the Image" article).  Please don't assume that I would make the same argument today (ah, the Internet!).

2. fStop currently represents 70+ photographers from around the world, and the images aren't mine, nor do I own the company.

and,

3. Somebody wrote, "fStop's site has a pile of really run of the mill, unexciting, easy to produce images for $49 to $435. Old, tired-looking, over priced - and those are the good ones (i.e. not the toilet door)."

Which, if you actually take a good, hard look at our collection, I don't think you'll agreed is accurate.

Here are links to a few recent fStop favorites.  I think they are anything but "run of the mill," "unexciting," or "easy to produce," from my perspective. Of course you are welcome to disagree:

newbielink:http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/000114002.htm [nonactive]
newbielink:http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/000001.htm [nonactive]
newbielink:http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/7319002.htm [nonactive]

I can't think of a single RF collection that is flawless, and it's important to keep in mind that sometimes people need very different kinds of images for very different projects.  Some styles work really well in some cases, but not at all in others.

Hi All,

I'd like to make a few quick comments, and clear up a few misconceptions:

1. I think the quality of microstock has vastly improved over the last few years (since I made the comments I made in the "About the Image" article).  Please don't assume that I would make the same argument today (ah, the Internet!).

2. fStop currently represents 70+ photographers from around the world, and the images aren't mine, nor do I own the company.

and,

3. Somebody wrote, "fStop's site has a pile of really run of the mill, unexciting, easy to produce images for $49 to $435. Old, tired-looking, over priced - and those are the good ones (i.e. not the toilet door)."

Which, if you actually take a good, hard look at our collection, I don't think you'll agreed is accurate.

Here are links to a few recent fStop favorites.  I think they are anything but "run of the mill," "unexciting," or "easy to produce," from my perspective. Of course you are welcome to disagree:

http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/000114002.htm
http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/000001.htm
http://www.fstopimages.com/highlights/pages/7319002.htm

I can't think of a single RF collection that is flawless, and it's important to keep in mind that sometimes people need very different kinds of images for very different projects.  Some styles work really well in some cases, but not at all in others.

good to know that the Agency Collection will not consist of factory produced images....

dgilder wrote: "By the way, the aerial airplane image is my favorite of the three.  Excellent."

Yeah, Stephan Zirwes is one of my favorite fStop photographers - he shoots almost exclusively from helicopters, and it's always exciting when he submits new images:

newbielink:http://www.fstopimages.com/collections/showcoll.php?id=617 [nonactive]

BTW: I know our site sucks for casual viewing - we'd always been more of a production/curation company than a direct-sales company.

Those are good images (much better than the toilet door) but compared to stuff we have in our vetta collection they won't make the cut... take a look for example at some dogs -

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9967483-cocker-spaniel.php
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6695621-dog.php
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1654313-close-up-of-boston-terrier-dog-lying-on-couch.php

Can you justify why the agency dog costs 5x more than the vetta dogs?

Those are good images (much better than the toilet door) but compared to stuff we have in our vetta collection they won't make the cut... take a look for example at some dogs -

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9967483-cocker-spaniel.php
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6695621-dog.php
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1654313-close-up-of-boston-terrier-dog-lying-on-couch.php

Can you justify why the agency dog costs 5x more than the vetta dogs?

If you look at IStock in isolation the justification is obvious, there is a pretty consistent samey Vetta look, if you want something different you have to pay more for it. The dog image from fstop is just as good, it just doesn't conform to IStocks particular "look". It looks more natural.
If you look at the market as a whole, there isn't a justification. Buyers who want something different should just go elsewhere and pay less.
So I guess maybe buyers not knowing any better? inertia?

Sorry but i can�t find any agency image on istock, and the ones linked here are no longer there.

EDITED TO ADD THIS:
searching on the istock foru,m i saw this posted by an admin.

1. Apologies for this maelstrom.

2. At this very moment & due to a technical glitch, both accepted and rejected files are showing up as active files in Agency.

3. Until this glitch is addressed and fixed, all ingestion into Agency has been paused.

Thank you so very much for your understanding.

Guess that images shown here as crapy actually were rejected files??