I would say it's much better to buy a used 2013 MacBook Pro or something instead of updating the one you have.

Why in the world would you open tickets for things like this?

I am amazed how people speak of H264 being a bad codec without doing a reading of its specs or at least the Wikipedia description. H264 has lots of levels and profiles of compression: some loose data others do not.

"If you are re-encoding using the same codec/bitrate you are definitely LOSING quality." - are you serious? It depends on the codec - some of them are lossless! At least google prior to posting such things.

No one said h264 was a bad codec. It's probably the best delivery codec.

If you re-encode a lossy file with lossless compression you will increase the file size. So the bitrate is not the same.

Well, at first look all (good) codecs should ideally look the same. That's the whole point of a good codec.

If you make changes to 8-bit footage (colors/exposure etc.) it is easier to go back through those changes if it's exported in 10-bit. If there are absolutely no changes, it doesn't matter.

Most stock clips will go by in a second or so within a film/project, but most professionals prefer to work with ProRes HQ or higher.

Exposure, lighting, subject, camera movement and focus are 100 times more important than the codec though. 

Ask yourself this:

Do I need money NOW?

What is this clip likely to earn over the next 5 years?

Can I redo something similar without too much effort?

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on May 04, 2017, 15:07

Well, none of my hyperlapses are from where I live either. I had to travel to the places people want to buy clips from. But I see it as a free trip with a bit of work involved. Can't complain.

And you're profitable?

Dunno, to get somewhere "interesting", I'd need to spend at least 500 USD on tickets, then likely the same amount for 5 days of staying in a hotel. That's already a 1000 USD.

If you get an average of 30$ per hyperlapse (20$ on FT/SS and around 40$ on P5 for 1080p), you'd need to sell 35 clips just to cover the expenses. And to pay for your own time (5 days of shooting, at least 10 more days of editing and stabilizing) if your daily fee is 100 USD, you'd need an extra 1500 USD, making the total expenses 2500 USD. So you actually need to sell 2500/30 = 83.33 clips, just to cover the expenses.

And from my experience, there's no way one will sell so many of them. So I do them for fun and as a side project when I find something interesting, but can't fathom how traveling to create them could be profitable.

Not profitable right away of course, but about 8-10 months after a trip or so. After that it's all profit. It's very much a long-term thing naturally, but I love to travel and once you've done it for 2 years the old stuff pays for the new travel.

Single hyperlapses have made me around $5-600 per year, and I can film/make 5-15 of those in a day on location. Then, as you say, lots of time in post production married to the almighty Warp Stabilizer. But with each hyperlapse, I spend less time in After Effects because I learn from my mistakes (don't use 16 mm unless you have a track or you're in love with wobble ).

Of course, hyperlapses aren't the ONLY thing I do when I'm on location, so there will be lots of regular timelapses and footage that's much faster to process and get online along with that.

I didn't know it before, but now, a couple of years into it, I can say the trips do pay off (the earlier trips not as much as the recent ones because I know more now). There will always be 1-2 years when $$$ has to come from somewhere else though.

It'll just be one person, I'm here in the role of an "investor".

I see.

Well, this portfolio I know made around $30,000 per month a while back at P5 only (with fewer clips than now):

https://www.pond5.com/stock-video-footage/1/artist%3Ahotelfoxtrot.html#1/2063/resolutions:8K:4K:HD1080,artist:hotelfoxtrot

That's probably as good as it gets.

I currently get around $2 per clip per month or a bit more (total across all sites), and I'm certainly no genius videographer, but I learn new things all the time. My oldest stuff doesn't sell because I was thinking like a photographer and it's quite uninteresting stuff. Now I plan and think ahead much more and the results are 100 times better. Camera movement etc.

Regarding hyperlapses, I do lots of those, and they sell well for me. Collectively, they have the best average for me. They are mostly of famous landmarks that really symbolize the city, and they have paid for the trips (hotels/flights etc.) and more.

I do agree they are a pain to make, but I think it's worth it.

So it will be you + 1 person doing the filming? Aren't you the person filming?

I would advise to learn color correction and grading yourself to have ultimate control and keep costs down. Of course it's completely impossible to say whether it will pay off for YOU without knowing your skills, creativity etc. but of course it CAN pay off within 6-12 months if you do it right.

The GH5 will certainly provide incredible image quality in good light. I will probably upgrade from the GH4 soon myself. 10-bit footage, IBIS and 4k 60p are three amazing features. There's always the dilemma of full-frame/m43 but there simply is no convenient camera that can do it all (under $10,000, but not even then).

I'm going crazy comparing all the cameras looking at Sony (lovely image quality WHEN/IF it works), but the GH4/GH5 always end up being the best all-round alternatives for filming.

I buy gear for the love of filming/taking pictures, and don't stress too much about the income at first.

Hover over the filename and it will show up.

thank you for your reply.

I am always putting nice content, so I am aware that quality is much better than quantity, but I wanted to know roughly if one day is it possibile to kinda make a living out of this or is it always going to be an extra ?

Your average sounds quite low. Hard to say anything else without seeing your portfolio. As LDV81 said, "Nice" doesn't really mean anything...

It's absolutely possible to make a living with stock footage, a good living. A year of uploading very consistently is probably required though. A good business sense (where to upload, when, what, SEO, pricing, formats, etc.) is extremely important however.

I see many people just throwing stuff at the sites without much thought about keywording, descriptions, color correction, stabilizing etc. and they can have 10,000 clips with low sales...

A portfolio of 1000+ clips that are all beautifully filmed with high commercial value can earn a living with a bit of luck.

I have gotten requests for custom work but I turned them all down (unless it's a minor customization of a finished product) because the reason I like stock is to NOT have to work directly with clients and only do exactly what I want.

On the other hand, I have gotten lucrative deals selling already finished work directly to clients with usage/license that was not covered on the stock site. That is always nice because the only extra work is sending out an invoice.

Not sure what you are getting at but I think to anyone $1m for a very good picture is expensive but yes a lot of consumer spending is a way of signalling to the world you are rich.Money itself is really only an abstract concept.....try eating $1m if you are starving in the desert!

Yes, to most people in the world, $1,000,000 is a lot of money but not extreme for art.

The buyer didn't need a picture of a potato. Just like a buyer of a Da Vinci painting doesn't need a certain portrait. There are probably thousands of people in the world who can paint better portraits than Da Vinci (subjectively of course) but you buy the name, the feeling, the brand.