Am I oversimplifying this is I say that it looks like iStock is just shifting the dollars-to-credits conversion rate, raising the value of a credit while reducing the credit cost of an image?

I know there are other factors, but in basic terms, from what my attempts to catch up on in this topic, essentially their system remains the same, just with a change in the balance between what credits cost and what they can be used for has changed.

And most of us will earn less because of this. But basically it's still just a shift in credit/currency conversion..?

They are scrapping Vetta and I think Signature+, too, as well as scrapping pricing according to the size of the download, and changing the price for files, too, so it's a bit more complicated than you describe.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 03, 2014, 12:49

Wow, so at the small pack end, 5 current credits ( one new credit ) costs $10, but if you buy it in two weeks, that credit will cost $15.  Wow.  Hard to compare that way, tho.

Or you could look at it like a nonexclusive image costs $31 for a cash sale now but will be $15 in two weeks.  That moves the price down to surprise, surprise almost exactly what SS is selling them for.  It's not really hard to see what pricing pressure from that other agency is doing.

You can rake up a theoretical maximum sale price but I can't recall when I last saw that sort of sale come through. My average commission last month was 80c (on a statistically meaningful sample size)  giving an average sale price of $4.70.  From next month that will rise to $8-$15.

Wow, so at the small pack end, 5 current credits ( one new credit ) costs $10, but if you buy it in two weeks, that credit will cost $15.  Wow.  Hard to compare that way, tho.

Also, with five current credits you could buy 2.5 small inde pictures, with 1 new credit you can buy one inde picture.  It's a hell of an increase for the small buyer.

Quote from: cobalt on September 03, 2014, 03:48

fotolia and deposit also have the option of being fully artist exclusive, I think dreamstime too. But they also offer a middle path of exclusive images.

For me personally full artist exclusivity is something I won't do again, but exclusive images is a very good idea.

Having good quality exclusive content was always important for istock, it really made it stand out.

The content will now of course still be there, unless people hand in their crown, but it has become dramatically cheaper.

So the high end exclusive contributors will lose twice this autumn: loss of income because more and more buyers switch to subs plans and now the loss of income from drastically lower credit sales. 

And the customers who like to buy small sizes with credits get punished too, instead of 5 small web sizes, they can just get one file in XXXXL...

I suppose this is intended to make them switch to a subscription plan.

istock is not offering the customer a reliable buying experience. I think this more than anything else, is the advantage of many other agencies.

In the end it is the bad experience we have had with all the previous exciting announcements that makes me sceptical that this time will be different.

Will the current subscription plan still exist?   I read their statement that all sales will be with credits to mean that the current subscription plans are dead, or at least being absorbed into this new scheme.

That's what I thought, then I found in the FAQ on their forum that the credit subscription programme would not be affected.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 02, 2014, 15:19

So all those 28c credit subs for indes will go up to 75c- $1 sales?

where did you read it?

There's a questionmark after it.   They talk about what a success the credit subs have been and then launch into a spiel about how there will only be credit prices from now on and only two tiers of photos. It's not clear but it suggests to me they might be increasing (or scrapping? but they say it's doing brilliantly) the credit subs prices.

Seems we won't be getting any more for credit subs

From iStock's forum FAQs:  "Will the price of image subscriptions change with this initiative?
No, while pricing is always subject to change, there are currently no plans to change subscription prices. Our Essentials and Signature subscription offerings are performing very well and well-positioned to competitive offers."

I believe that the problem is that credit card companies "reverse" the payment on stolen cards, leaving the agencies out of pocket, so they then "reverse" the commission.
Presumably, these images end up being pirated  on rip-off sites based in countries with little or no IP protection (heroturk, for example).  They are not being stolen for fun.

It's disastrous for me this month, earnings about a sixth of my BME, half of last month and back to 2005 levels. The usual spate of decent credit sales that generally appeared once or twice a month have been pretty much absent and sales volume is one third of what it was last August.  I haven't uploaded for a couple of months as I've had other stuff to do, but even so.....

It's been done before, without even rearranging lighting and objects or camera position, but you really need to contact istock to see if they will allow you to be one of those doing this, or not.

By the way, I wonder if restrictions for editorial use are compatible with the freedom of the press

I don't think there are any press freedom laws requiring people to allow news photos to be taken on their land.
Obviously, the NT will apply these by-laws arbitrarily: if a plane crashes into the South Coast cliffs they won't do anything about news coverage, but if you or I take a landscape photo of the same scene (minus crash) they MIGHT get nasty.

And England doesn't suck, it's a lovely place. It's the mandarins and jobsworths in England who suck.

This is a lot worse than I thought, it's not just about Trust-owned houses it's about great swathes of the UK landscape, according to a post on Luminous Landscape:

The wording in the policy has been carefully updated to restrict publishing of images shot on NT land by both amateurs and professionals alike. This includes images shot on wide open spaces on public access land such as The Giant's Causeway, The White Cliffs of Dover, The Farne Islands, Borrowdale and The Lizard for example. The policy attempts to assert that any such publishing constitutes a criminal act as set out in their own bylaws. The validity of the bylaws for this purpose are currently being contested by legal experts. - Luminous Landscale

As a branch of my family owns property in Borrowdale, I suppose that it is now illegal to take family photos that include part of the landscape they live in. Here is what the Trust says about its role in Borrowdale :
 "around Derwentwater ... the Trust cares for much of the valley, including Derwentwater � its island and Georgian Manor, Watendlath hamlet, Bowder Stone, Friar�s Crag, Ashness Bridge and Castlerigg Stone Circle". 

Ashness Bridge, for example, is a classic landscape/postcard photo (there are still a dozen or so photos of it up on SS if you search, as well as quite a lot of the cliffs at Dover and some of the Giant's Causeway).  The thing is, of course, that when you are out taking a picture of the South Coast cliffs of the UK it will be entirely impossible to know if part of the scene includes something ownde by the NT.

It is not even clear from their website whether they own some or all of the "Jurassic Coast" or are just writing blurbs about stuff that they think might interest visitors without it being under their control http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/local-to-you/south-west/things-to-see-and-do/jurassic-coast/

Scanning properly is an art and I suck at it.  I have thousands of images that could do very well if I scanned them professionally.

I had a roll of 35mm Velvia scanned by Peak Imaging in Sheffield at the time that they processed it and I was very disappointed, I rescanned it on my Epson V500 and got much better results, so I wouldn't trust "professional scanning services" unless they were doing proper drum scans which are very, very expensive. Standard scanning services just run the film through on automatic, as far as I can make out, and that certainly doesn't give the best results.  I've seen a 24x19 inch print from a scan I made and you couldn't tell it wasn't a darkroom print (that was 5x4 B&W).

Fortunately, I haven't forgotten. I ran a roll of Fomapan 100 through the old Mamiya yesterday, unmetered with guessed exposure times, and the whole lot came out brilliantly (gave em eight minutes in Fomadon P at 20C).

I just saw that someone underexposed Foma 100 by three stops and gave 1 hour stand development in Rodinal 1+50 and got some brilliant low-contrast retro-style results, very like the work of Frederick Evans back around 1900 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_H._Evans.  I must try this out.

Ooops! Sorry! Talking photography on MSG! Mea culpa! I'd better go and have (yet) another nice ouzo rather than boring you all with this......

I shipped a print to my daughter in the UK and when it arrived we got stung with hefty UK customs duties. This will make it much more attractive for people in the UK (and EU) to buy prints.
Good move by FAA