Quote from: derek on January 28, 2017, 09:57

For somebody to actually experience this sudden drop they obviously have to be one of the people affected! every "old" member coming on here is agreeing on this. For somebody thats been with SS for like 5 years they wont experience anything of this just keep uploading and uploading happy go lucky and it just seems like any old search change. Win some lose some.
Very different for an old member watching the sky fall just over night not all but many. Not an imagination.

Not sure if it's the search or just reaching overload. Many said they saw this drop in 2012. I can upload 1000 new a year and sales don't go up. That's the same as a drop.

1000 are nothing in this context...i don't understand why people don't accept this...
in 2010 there were 5 million file...very few stock house...nowadays there is invasion of stock production company...they come from serbia ukraine russia  mostly, cheap cost of production help them, they have 100000 minimum files...adding 100 k every year, especially in people category....how can you be competitive?
1000 files are good if you have a unique style and a niche...but how many can have this? how many niche you can find ion a pool of 55 million file...1 million added every week....shutterstock growth has been very small compared to the growth of files size.
micro stock right now is sustainable in a country where cost of living and production cost are very low....tha's why yuri archers went to south africa years ago for example.

70 downloads in one week, from bad to worse , i am afraid the end for me is near, the decline is really rapid now.

u keep uploading new stuff or rely on old photos?

Hi, recently a friend of mine told me about microstock so I decided to give it a shot and registered on Shutterstock. My question is, is it better to upload a lot of photos (by a lot I mean tens) or rather slowly build my portfolio? It might be better to demonstrate on an example:
you have 100 photos (for the sake of argument, let's say all of them would be approved), is it better to upload all of them within a week or over months?

you should ask why upload? 100 photos nowadays means what...10 dollar probably in some months...if you have something incredible not found in ss, a niche market, maybe you can make some good money, if you have 100 normal photos how much you will earn? is it worth time uploading keyboarding etc? personally if i were ss i will stop any new user cause is totally waste time for everybody at this moment.

12 download from friday...unbelievable....day before friday 46....i am afraid another change from ss.

1 images sold only in friday...probably neve happened...images not appear in portfolio...yes there is something going on...or maybe is trump effect:)...anywya two rm sales in alamy save th day.....luckily every day in january there is a site saving the day....is good to have more possibilities.

the contrary of ss...only new sell old not.

Quote from: nadalbg on January 19, 2017, 10:20

Quote from: jonbull on January 19, 2017, 10:01

the tendency has changed...in the beginning a blow sky was a no no in micro stock....today with more natural look needed, and the request for strong backlighting , both artificial or natural, the blown sky is not a problem especially if there are nothing to retain detail of, but the good exposure of subject is a norm...so in the photo u posted u can easily overexpose the sky one stop more and brighten the subject.
some years ago probably a bit more flash light on the subject and you would have been accepted image, today trend is overexpose the background. Another consideration is an overexposed sky, near white, can be used as space to add text while a well exposed background can be not used if there are clouds or other item.

sorry u need to measure the background and add one stop and third.

Thanks,

so I need to overepose only the background, without the subject ?

well if you use natural light yes overexposing back u push the exposure on the subject too...it would be correct to measure light on subject with a light meter, subject is underexposed cause is backlighted, add one stop or one and a third stop to measurement and u are correct. if you don't have light meter use meter of camera, it's less spot on but still near.

different if u use flash. flad. it depend on the moods of photos...if you want to overpower daylight u need powerful flash,

I have a Pentax K5 with some nice lenses that I happily use for still images.

I tried to take some clips with it but I'm very disappointed with the muddy looking (excessive compression) and the rolling shutter jelly effect when panning, but looking for an upgrade in the Pentax family doesn't look so promising. Even the K3 and new K70 seem to be affected by the same problems.

I was thinking of taking another camery body with better video performance and use the lenses I own with an adapter.

What could be a good budget/Video quality compromise for a 1080/60p camera?
Micro 4/3 or something else?

I wouldn't want to spend much ( i.e. Panasonic GH5/GH4) and I feel the need for slow motion more than UHD.


Thank you for any advice

i use pentax , together with fuji x100 and ricoh gr. i still use the k5 , with the 645d and k1 right now.
pentax is not for video , but the k5 on tripod and with a good lens produce good video quality. the is is also very effective
the gh4 sound veery good especially i have an adapter from novoflex i can use the pentax lenses...i have read another solution is the samsung nx500 or nx1....both are tremendous value and have adapter.
other solution for pure video are sony a7 with adapter, even the old a72 can be a great tool for video only and still u can use adapter.
pentax k1 is the best camera out there for travel and landscape , it has also good video image but it has minor video feature

Quite slow here too in general - good thing a 4k sale made up for 236 image sales... 

i agree is time to hope for those big sales...in december had 4 sales for 84 dollar each...in 21..332 dollar made like 1000 sales for 0,38 cent and it was vey good to see big sales in micro back after while...but since then really so slow everywhere not only ss...last two days seems starting again to sale let's see. clearly is a war between poor micro stock with some big production earning good money the rest pennies

Hi, I'm think this permanent growing of new contributor has gonna have a limit. It can�t
be eternal. That's can be a new era of stability, maybe with less earnings for all of us.

Sorry for my basic english

i completely agree....microstock agency must understand that-

- there is already everything available in micro...contriboutior to produce zillion photos...
- the best content in micro are produced by full time...if full time will stop produce cause they need to find another job micro will be only amateurish. personally i see this reflect on quality of photo. i sometimes search in various website like alamy and shutter stock to have inspiration for keyword or title, or look places i wanna visit in my travel, the difference is ee between the two agency is so big. the micro look so newbie amateur...most of travel are cliche', postcard, while in alamy you can find for any country so many themes. that's what photographer do when travel compared to amateur who go to travel with family and snap some postcard.

in my opinion the only benefit they have is they pay much less 0,25 to new contributors compared to 0,38...but is this worth?

Quote from: jonbull on January 16, 2017, 10:52

in micro i upload just the junk by the way...the quality is never in micro.
by the way the portfolio of the thread starter is good compared to newbies i saw recently but still too much sales for the size and time.
its clear he was in good position from beginning in search engine.
considering that the only happy camper in ss right now are 0,25 cent user i suspect the truth is ss need to sell more newbies images to cut the royalty...if you think twice you are happier paying 0,25 or 03,8? multiply for 10 million sales....

it's 1,5 million dollar saving...understand fox?

Obviously micro has not the best content although all this is relative....agencies are not interested in quality they are interesting in selling and making money. If we talk about subjective quality then I agree with you. Very few agencies in the world have true quality: Magnum Photos VII Vu Contact Gettyimages and very few others. Photographers that work for these produce truly high caliber work.

Micro ?�?.....well it can be a money machine if you do it well, not so now anymore....in any case 3k a month is good if you are an amateur ...if you do stock full time I will tell you this is a very poor figure. And 700 files sold every month is Shutter is even a poorer figure. When I tried being independent I uploaded a few thousand files to test the waters in Shutter and was extremely disappointed and the first month I got a few thousand sales. That was at a time when Istock still was making me a ton of money but already declining....

You might impress a newbie with your numbers , for me this is a very low monthly revenue. Again my monthly revenue might sound pocket money for the top micro contributors (be them Getty/Istock exclusive or independents)....all very relative....capito fox.... ;-)

i don't want impress nobody and i not believe a dim of hat you write. 3700 k month from stock , from photos i have in my hard disk mostly from travel and assign,eat, can sound nothing but who u consider i not spend nothing to do them....there are top micro stock who make 50 k month and spend 55. by the way i stopped my day job 10 years ago to make what i loved so i m not interested in spending hour photographing apple against wall paper or idiot people smiling.

btw u found your portfolio pretty good, so keep on but my comment was related to the fact that in january i see low sales compared to december for example when i sold 4 images for 84 dollar for example...and my subs have completely stopped, i 'm selling mostly credit.
you have sold cause u have good images and i think shutter stock cooked the engine to sal more newbies' images.
you like me have more general travel photos, i do mostly this editorial, i began recently only doing people food lifestyle more micro stock photos, so you must create good content to sell constantly, and u must uploaded often. i have a backlog of a lot of images already prepared keyword, i upload 100 file every two days, yesterday i upload last batch with 84 approval, because uploading more u end in new in engine and clearly if you have good photos customer each your folio and made bookmark.
what is difficult is built a solid group off image who sell often. i had a lot of this , but recently they stopped selling.

Quote from: jonbull on January 16, 2017, 09:38

i have 4000 quality travel photography and made less in the last 5 days

No you have not if you are not able to sell at least 100+ files in 5 days at Shutter with 4k "quality files". Instead of complaining learn how to shoot and sales will come.....

Congratulations sinnlos for your early success !

sure u are right...that'0s why i sell more than 3000 euro at macro agency even month luckily.
but u know all. clearly i was talking generally actually i sold something near 120 in the last 5 days but compared to 23 in 100 is nothing.
i sold much more in the last year, in december i sold 700 files for more than 700 dollar only in shutter stock. in january nothing. ss has changed again algorithm.