Ring flashes are often used in macro, so you can raise your aperture from 5,6 to 16 and such get a better dof.
BUT with the better dof of the ring flash also comes a flat and too even light. And with macro, shadows are important, to enhance details like scales or hairs, so the ring flash is both a curse and a deliberance.

There are people who have blinded parts of the flash to control the shadows.
They are � succesfull, but still the light comes from the camera and not from above or from the side, and that is impossible to do anything about.

I would say a ring flash is only meaningfull as a fill light as long as the main lights are quite a bit stronger.

It is not you, Jens.

It is the place.
By applying you are going to be abused.

(yes, we share names)

Save yourself from sufferings and anger and leave istock alone.
Also their sales are going down the drain.

Focus on shutter instead, and produce more of what you have.

Good story from life. Make things meaningfull.
Also a nice photo she took.

And you know, those planks, can be very usefull with blurred backgrounds.

I dont like it.
The agencies are commercial enterprises that hold our leash.
We are the peasants
Should we now vote for which duke has the nicest leash?

Also its a strange way to mix emotions with business.

Or even better. I had good sales on the deleted photos today.. at other places.

Looks like we can easily get up to 10.000 images deleted on 2. feb.
That is a message!
For the first time the agency cannot claim that they add pictures to the collection every day, they are loosing images. Thats a first!

Now we should send a message to them also, a post on their forum (not me, because I am banned), a post with some DEMANDS:

1. Removal of pictures from the socalled promotion deal with microstock and google, or a very good compensation for the involved artists.
2. Negotiation of better royalty rates for the artists when works are sold through Istock.

We should agree to place the same message on the deactivation note, maybe something like: We will not sell this picture through Istock for the time being, since Istock violates the artists rights to distribute his work by giving the works away for free without appropriate compensation for the artist.

-or something else, its just a suggestion, but it would be nice to focus things and send the message, since we are already taking action.
Conclusion is... If we are stepped enough upon, we can gather up and take action. Im happy about that.
"El pueblo unido jamais sera vencido"

Ja, its easy enough to delete from stockexpert. I did it yesterday.

Shutterstock should act correctly in this case, and not put greed in front of decency.

We need one agency we can trust.

Really cool.

I have begun to deactivate my files on istockphoto. Reason: Boycot
Starting with the good ones, and after next payout Im out of there.

I hope someone takes them to court.

Good you are back. We cant have good people digging themselves into holes, when evil has to be contradicted to not prevail.