thanks, isolating natural objects is really a good idea. in the meantime, yesterday I got accepted to shutterstock with 9/10 which is really nice and unexpected. Refused from istock third time , this time subjects too similar. I have hard time complying with technical regulations, not any photo of mine rejected because reasons different than technical problems. I have an 6 mp Nikon d50 and kit lens. I was fine with that, but that's the first time I am feeling I'm limited by my hardware, I have no extra megapixels to crop, my kit lens miserably fail when used on anything different than the sweet spot, and long exposure induced noise and the general background noise at iso200(minimum iso of d50) is rather frustrating. I also learned how annoying chromatic aberration is. loupe uncovers unexpected annoyances.But I'm learning... Interestingly my lowest acceptance rate is %25 at bigstockphoto, they only accepted 6-7 photos of my 25 photo batch I created since my start, on the contrary I have 15 photos on fotolia. That's very different from what I heard about bigstockphoto. It may be that agencies have different "personalities." I have yet to make a sale. thanks again for all the guidance.

note: I also changed my name to my shutterstock and fotolia name.

thanks, isolating natural objects is really a good idea. in the meantime, yesterday I got accepted to shutterstock with 9/10 which is really nice and unexpected. Refused from istock third time , this time subjects too similar. I have hard time complying with technical regulations, not any photo of mine rejected because reasons different than technical problems. I have an 6 mp Nikon d50 and kit lens. I was fine with that, but that's the first time I am feeling I'm limited by my hardware, I have no extra megapixels to crop, my kit lens miserably fail when used on anything different than the sweet spot, and long exposure induced noise and the general background noise at iso200(minimum iso of d50) is rather frustrating.

Your assumption regarding rejects is not necessarily correct. An image will sometimes be rejected for a 'technical' reason when actually the reviewer considers that it has little or no commercial value. You can usually find some technical reason to reject virtually any image. It also works the other way too __ if it's an outstanding image with great commercial potential, especially in a niche subject, then minor technical flaws may well be overlooked.

As a general rule most good commercial stock consists of brightly-lit, colourful, simple images that either tell a story or illustrate a subject well. For an image to sell it has to grab the buyer's eye out of several pages of other thumbnail-sized images. Pick up any magazine, look at any billboards or websites to see plenty of examples of good stock imagery. Those of us that do this for a living are forever scanning the world around us as ongoing research and learning.

Once you understand 'stock', i.e. the market you are selling into, then the photography itself is actually relatively easy. Quite frankly if I haven't got virtually perfect conditions for the subject I wish to shoot then I probably won't even bother to get the camera out of the bag. Although I might expect to get the shot accepted (even if I have to shrink it down to avoid technical issues) if conditions aren't perfect then the image is unlikely to sell well against all the competition. Microstock is incredibly competitive and getting more so every week.

To be successful you will most likely need to specialise to gain genuine expertise in a limited range of subjects (as well as having the necessary equipment and props to tackle those subjects). It's exactly the same in the commercial world too __ you won't see a photographer getting commissions to shoot mountaineering images one week, food the next, followed by architecture, African wildlife, fashion and lifestyle/business shoots. IMHO that's where microstock is heading too.

As a general rule most good commercial stock consists of brightly-lit, colourful, simple images that either tell a story or illustrate a subject well. For an image to sell it has to grab the buyer's eye out of several pages of other thumbnail-sized images. Pick up any magazine, look at any billboards or websites to see plenty of examples of good stock imagery. Those of us that do this for a living are forever scanning the world around us as ongoing research and learning.

Once you understand 'stock', i.e. the market you are selling into, then the photography itself is actually relatively easy. Quite frankly if I haven't got virtually perfect conditions for the subject I wish to shoot then I probably won't even bother to get the camera out of the bag. Although I might expect to get the shot accepted (even if I have to shrink it down to avoid technical issues) if conditions aren't perfect then the image is unlikely to sell well against all the competition. Microstock is incredibly competitive and getting more so every week.

To be successful you will most likely need to specialise to gain genuine expertise in a limited range of subjects (as well as having the necessary equipment and props to tackle those subjects). It's exactly the same in the commercial world too __ you won't see a photographer getting commissions to shoot mountaineering images one week, food the next, followed by architecture, African wildlife, fashion and lifestyle/business shoots. IMHO that's where microstock is heading too.

^^ All extremely good advice.  Basically sums it up. 

I can't imagine anyone being very successful at micro without doing most of the above.