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Messages - travelstock
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126
« on: January 27, 2012, 06:35 »
am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?
You are wrong in thinking that, yes.
Did they send you an email detailing the adjustments?
127
« on: January 27, 2012, 05:18 »
Well the thread has been locked on IS - am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?
129
« on: January 24, 2012, 22:38 »
Thanks Leaf! Im not sure I like the placement of the on-off switchand a feature I would have liked to have seen is a dial lock on the mode knob that allows you to lock into M, TV, or AP modeI already bump it enough.
Interesting placement for the rate button as well.
Yeah, I bump that knob quite a bit as well. All of a sudden I find myself shooting in C3 with some crazy settings. :S
Glad I'm not the only one. It does look like the mode dial has some sort of button in the centre on that earlier shot - maybe I'm imagining things... I really hope they change the way you switch between manual video and still images too - drives me nuts having to dig into the menu to change over the live view mode between "exposure simulation" and movie mode.
130
« on: January 22, 2012, 20:50 »
I think the question is are you going to make more money with an 18MP camera on stock than a 10MP camera?
The answer is pretty simple, all else being equal, yes you are.
The larger file sizes are priced higher on enough agencies - DT, FT and IS amongst others - that it does make a difference. I doubt that there is currently any best match bonus given to large files on IS, but there are definitely some buyers who are looking for the largest file sizes and buying them.
The biggest jump in prices is to 12MP - because that's where a number of agencies stop, and because the volume of sales of XL images is higher than XXXL.
If you're exclusive on iStock and reasonably serious about it, then its really worth shooting at 21MP+ - really I wouldn't consider going below 18MP for my main camera. If you're non-exclusive then 12MP is pretty much the bottom resolution to consider.
131
« on: January 18, 2012, 02:27 »
What exactly do you want the site to be able to do? Handle image sales or just to work as a portfolio?
132
« on: January 18, 2012, 02:17 »
Can't really see why you'd get this instead of something like the Panasonic GX-1, or a G3 if money is tight.
133
« on: January 15, 2012, 18:18 »
Is anyone else experiencing this problem?
When I upload footage on SS, the thumbnails don't generate until after the images are accepted - if I'm entering image details it never gets beyond a broken image icon, and when they're rejected (which is 2 files so far for "poor editing") I don't actually get anything other than their filename, which makes it really hard to work out which files they're talking about.
Any suggestions?
135
« on: January 12, 2012, 22:46 »
136
« on: January 11, 2012, 18:00 »
The 5d Mark II is the best camera out there right now unless you need more FPS, super fast autofocus, or weather sealing.
Or a smaller body... The 24MP Sony NEX-7 also looks like a pretty good option at the moment, except that the range of dedicated lenses is a bit limited, and availability isn't great. There is a reason though why the majority of serious stock shooters are using the 5D 2 - there hasn't been anything that can match it on the price for resolution equation.
137
« on: January 06, 2012, 19:31 »
I've done a fair bit of travel myself in the past 15 years, over 50 countries. Everything from backpacking to commissioned photography. Commissions pay WAY better. Pure travel stock is a bit hit & miss and you'd better be doing it budget-level in order to make it worthwhile your time & effort:
Let's say 1 month of travel in Europe is around 1200 Dollars (Italy / France): Busses, trains, hostels, food, maybe a beer now & then, entrance fees,... Also: Do you give up everything back home (longterm travel), or do you keep your flat (if you only go for 1-2 months).
On top of this: What hourly rate do you charge yourself? As with every business plan, start from the back: How much money do you need a month? (pension scheme, insurances, tax,...) Then divide it by the amount of time you're willing to put in.
Of course, whilst traveling you might only need those $1000 a month. But in the meantime, your friends back home are actually saving money & paying into their pension scheme. And they're sleeping in their own bed, have their own kitchen & don't have to put up with snoring room-mates and dirty dishes.
Just out of curiosity, I did a quick search for "travel Laos" on iStock. Bestselling image sold >100 times in 5 years. Not really that much, considering the low licensing fees in Microstock.
Personally I think Alamy is the better place for travel. But maybe that's just me.
All good points, except the part about $1200 for Europe - I travel fairly cheaply at times, but that sort of budget is borderline for travel in SE Asia, but I'd hate to think of the lengths you'd have to go to to survive on this traveling in France or Italy!
138
« on: January 06, 2012, 19:18 »
Holgs is on the boards here pretty often. I've let him know about this thread. He can probably give you some good answers.
Probably in here too often... ! In answer to what I think was the main question - yes there's other traveling microstockers - quite a few pop up from time to time here, and some of them far more successful in terms of revenue than I am. For the most part though I think most of those who shoot a lot of travel would agree that its in the bottom half of the microstock categories for return from images, and that over time that's getting worse not better. Its the sort of thing you do because you love it, not because it pays well. There's lots more microstockers who travel frequently, but don't shoot travel imagery. If you're looking at it from a business perspective, its a far more sensible way of doing things. The difference between what I'm doing and what most people think of with travel is that I normally don't go home. My lifestyle is more nomadic than most people would be comfortable with. I'm back in Australia at the moment, but in the last 5 years I've spent a total of about 3 months in the country. I still call Australia "home", but the reality is I don't actually have a place here - when I go back its really to see family. The main reason I'm traveling isn't that travel photography is particularly lucrative, its that I still like traveling, and I still enjoy photography. Doing it this way means that my travel expenses are much lower than those who go back and forth. I don't have a car, mortgage, phone internet etc. to pay for back at home, so there's no reason why I can't travel slower, spend extra time in places and actually make sure I get shots that will sell. Airfares are expensive, but then I've also had long periods where I didn't fly at all. When I started doing microstock, it was more of a way of keeping occupied with something that could generate income than with the thought of it becoming a full-time activity. At that time, I'd quit my job, so spent more time doing microstock and photography than almost anything else, but I didn't really need the income to get by from day to day - I had funds for at least 2 years of travel and didn't have any expenses back at home that I had to cover. It was also a time when downloads seemed easier to come by, and when you were adding photos it was to a much smaller database of images with less competition. A different approach to travel photography. Your expenses become tax deductions; camper/RV is business equipment. Maybe not make a lot of money but lose less money. 
Funnily enough when I first started microstock the reason I was looking for a way of earning income was to find a way of writing off having spent way too much on camera gear from my tax bill - the tax deduction didn't work out, but the result was a complete change in what I was doing with my life! I've done something like Holger and met him a couple times. My trip was much shorter though, just 26 months. If you are good, work hard, and travel very cheaply you might break even. Like Sean said a short trip to England will probably not net you very much since there are a million people covering those areas already.
Especially true if there's dozens of other microstockers taking the same trip to England at the same time! I think the big unknown that a lot of people want an answer for is whether its possible to start now and travel from microstock. Of course its still possible, but its also now much harder than it was. The increase in competition and reduced royalties in many places make it harder to build up a portfolio in the critical time when your savings are disappearing. I think Graham's advice is pretty spot on: If you are good, work hard, and travel very cheaply you might break even.
139
« on: January 05, 2012, 20:40 »
As an exclusive the sales from XXXL files are pretty nice, it's like an EL at SS (although probably just as rare). As a nonexclusive I would imagine the benefits are a little less since DT upsize all their images don't they and SS sells any size the same price.
But there are still more then enough agencies that sell large sized photos. But it's true, like you said, those happen rarely at IS, besides I've never seen so many XS and S sales anywhere else. Although they're still far too frequent for my taste 
Yep other sites do sell large sized photos. Problem is they are all subscription sales for 25-35 cents. It takes 90 of those sales to equal one on IS. And XS sales get over 2 dollars so I could sell 6 XXXL's on SS or one XS on IS to be even.
Oh you exclusives and the subs  . I just got this at DT for instance and it's only a medium sized DL 12 credits (2010) $4.07 medium . It would have to be a P+ XL for me to get as much at IS. Well If you can get over 2$ for S sized DLs, then you, as an exclusive, could match that. And since you like to talk so much about SS, many contributors earn more with ODs over there than with subs (I'm not amongst them unfortunately, but the ratio is moving in that direction), then there are SODs and EL of course. Of course I'm not saying the grass is greener at our side, it's user dependant and yes, there are still to many sub sales on every site. But at least no site pays me as low for subs as IS. Or credit sales for that matter (got a 7c/credit sale and dozens of 10c/credit sales, they're usually XS subs)
I think the point that was being made was whether its worth spending the extra, or prioritising a camera that shoots 21MP (ie. XXXL) over one that only does 16MP. If you're exclusive on IS the difference is significant. On SS there is no difference - a buyer won't know if an image was natively shot at a higher resolution or upsized until they download it. FWIW a $4 download on Dreamstime is a medium level 2 image - as an exclusive, most of my images that have been downloaded more than a handful of times are in the E+ collection, which ends up being more like an $8-12 commission for the photographer. An XXXL E+ image will be about $20-25 in commission, which on DT will get you a maximum of $11.88 at level 5 - there the difference to a medium size ($10) isn't so significant.
140
« on: January 03, 2012, 16:14 »
I got one of these for the same date today as well - 16/09/11 over 3 months ago....
141
« on: January 02, 2012, 05:45 »
Well 2012 got off to a slow start, first day was the first one in a long time with no sales. Today is looking much better... this is my first for 2012 an XL E+ sale for $17.85. 
142
« on: January 01, 2012, 02:43 »
2011 was good for me: http://www.veoelmundo.com/reflections-2011-numbersDecember ended up being a BME - almost 10% better than the previous bests on both download numbers and $$$ Hope everyone has a great start to 2012!
143
« on: December 26, 2011, 22:30 »
@Juan I'm not a diamond, but on my numbers the Christmas period and December as a whole are up strongly from last year. At the moment the difference is greater than my portfolio growth for the period.
The way I'm seeing the search is that its favouring new images, and particularly new exclusive images. Looking at my downloads, the consistent theme is that they're 2011 files - the older ones tend to be specific subjects that are low volume but don't have much competition in the search. My portfolio is much smaller, and a bit unique in that it doubled in 2011 (+1500 images with 1000 of those in the last 6 months) but its not so small as to be completely irrelevant.
Those who have large portfolios where the average age of images is 3-4 years, this current best match is going to hurt.
For me its a nice change from the time when new files disappeared into oblivion which was the case for most of the year. That said, I don't expect the current algorithm to stay as it is. What I'm noticing is that the search order is actually changing quite quickly in a way that really boosts new-ish files with downloads. Longer term is what really matters & none of us really know how any of this is going to play out. Its probably wise not to bank on maintaining or growing earnings ant more than you would bank on a high-risk tech-stock on the sharemarket.
144
« on: December 24, 2011, 18:32 »
Pretty simple plan for me this year: travel the world, upload photos, do some more timelapse, and hope for the best! Hope everyone has a great Christmas and lots of sales in the new year
145
« on: December 13, 2011, 14:02 »
If you're doing TFCD work, what did you think the models were going to do with the images other than use them to try to promote themselves on facebook, Model Mayhem and basically anywhere else that they need images? Isn't that the whole point of the arrangement?
146
« on: December 04, 2011, 01:52 »
BTW, I'm an exclusive Istockphoto contributor and I'm considering going independent again.
However, I need an answer from all of you here who are independent.
How much do you get per picture per month on average across all your websites?
On Istockphoto, I had around 470 images in October and November that made:
$3.24 an image in October
$2.66 an image in November
If going independent for me will drastically lower this figure, it would make stock photography unsustainable for me.
Nobody can answer that question for you, especially without seeing the images. RPI is very portfolio dependant and the range is anywhere from nothing to tens of dollars per month, in some cases maybe more. Some portfolios will work better at higher price-points than others, some won't sell as much when you bump up prices, but sell in massive volumes if offered as subscriptions. Its not a case of one size fits all.
147
« on: December 02, 2011, 07:19 »
Istock Exclusive for photos, non-exclusive footage.
Photo: With one day of stats still to be added for November, & without seeing PP or GI sales, it looks like the month is a BME in terms of total $$ and very close if not a BME for DLS.
EDIT: $$ up 9% on October, DLS down 3% - seeing as I moved from 30 to 35% part way through Oct, the numbers are mainly reflecting that change.
Video: First sale on Pond 5, nothing on SS and still waiting for inspections on IS... still early days on this front!
148
« on: November 20, 2011, 23:56 »
Maybe this is a chance to see it the RC level has any influence on the best match? In theory if it does, some contributors would see a big change in download levels if this were all equalised?
149
« on: November 17, 2011, 23:49 »
Really nice work there - I can see the addiction of timelapse - its been taking up a lot of my time recently too! What sort of dolly are you using for some of these shots? Is it working well? Any tips on eliminating flicker during sunset.
You can also give this a whirl: http://lrtimelapse.com/ Its great for editing sequences with large transitions in light - best if you're shooting in manual and adjust in a few stages through the shoot. Its also very handy for doing panning or zoom-in effects.
150
« on: November 13, 2011, 22:13 »
Does anyone have any experience with a Tamron 70-200 f2.8 on a Canon 5DII? The thing I'm attracted to is the closer minimum focus distance compared to the Canon f4 or 2.8 (not to mention its half the price of the Canon 2. . I'm looking to put together a kit that's as versatile as possible while keeping the total weight reasonable.
I'm looking more to be able to do closeup shots than macro really, so don't think I really need a macro lens, but getting closer than 1.2m might be handy.
I used to have that Tamron lens back when I was first starting out and shooting with 20D's. It was a good lens for the money but my advice is to save the extra dough and get the Canon IS version. It's much better in my opinion and well worth the money. In theory if you are shooting with a 5D Mark II the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS should pay for itself in short time.
Mat
Good advice, but unfortunately a little late! I've had the Tamron for a while now - its really sharp and a great lens for the money, but the focus is just too slow, so its now on the upgrade list. The close focus distance is far less useful than I thought, because the whole lens is unwieldy at that range, and the slow focus makes it really difficult to get usable results. Now I'm still weighing up the Canon 70-200 f4 IS vs the 2.8 IS...
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