I dream of buying something like the 500mm f/4 some day but it will be a while before I can rationalize that I think

Yes, that is a huge investment, but probably one the best investments that can be made. Compared to camera bodies those types of lenses keep their value extremely well.

In any event, you cannot go wrong with the 100-400. It is one of my most used lenses and a large part of my MS portfolio was shot with that lens. It works equally well on a crop or full frame digital body.

Or perhaps they have seen how another site does it and we will be informed after it happens

You mean after they LOWERED the commission

Name me an area in MicroStock that is not over saturated.  Fact is that if the images are good or better than other images of the same subject they will sell.

There is a common believe that because nature subjects are easily accessible they are easy to photograph. This opinion is probably only held by those who have never tried nature/wildlife photography. Excellent wildlife and nature photography requires good equipment, a lot of patience and an intrinsic knowledge of you subject.  And they sell, especially EL�s because these are the type of image that many customers will put on a product.

If the nature images are really good there are no better place to put them than right here on the big 6 MicroStock sites.

I feel your pain Lizard. I am now waiting two months for my Moneybookers payment and I have also heard the "within a week or two" promise several times.

There is one thing that stock sites should not mess with, and that it is payment of contributors. Surely they must realize that this mess is seriously hurting their already cloudy reputation. Why they don't simply offer cheque payments as an alternative is beyond my understanding.  This Moneybookers payment problems comes a long way and despite regular assurances this problem remains unresolved.

Will Veer Marketplace be truly open to photographers from around the globe, or will they also limit their contributors to those few countries that are supported by PayPal. I joined SV right in the beginning, but had to delete my images when I realized that SV have no intention of paying contributors in countries not supported by PayPal. I still have an account at SV, but no images. I will be interested to contribute to Veer Marketplace, but only if I can get paid.
 

A quote from the Alamy forum:

"I have noticed over the past few months that the average sale at Alamy has, for me, been getting lower. No great concern but never the less a fact. However, yesterday I made two sales for use on a Calendar for sale worldwide. This was an Alamy sale not through a distributor and the "on line" pricing module on Alamy priced each image at �325 or around $433. Each of my images was sold for only $10 each! By my reckoning this works out at around a 97.5% discount."

It turn out that this person was not the only one. There are numerous others with the same experience.

Very interesting post. My personal observation is that while there are still some people opposed to selling the same image at different price points (me included), this practise has become more acceptable in recent times than what it was a year ago. 

I think a lot of this is got to do with the fact that micro is gaining more acceptance among serious buyers and photographers alike, resulting in a narrowing of the gap between micro and macro. Micro prices are rising and macro prices are declining. In recent times the difference in AVERAGE prices of micro and macro images are much smaller than some of the examples quoted in this post. My prediction is that this difference will narrow even more in the near future.

Gone are the days that a buyer will have to use a macro agency if he/she is in need of quality images. RT, you are 100% correct. In the end the difference in price will be reflected in the conditions and restrictions of the usage licence and not so much the image itself. The RF licence of a macro agency is quite different than the RF licence of most microstock agencies. The most important domain of the macro agencies will continue to be RM editorial images.

I agree with you all regarding subs. I hate them, but they are reality. Their very existence all got to do with a simple business principle that determines the price of any commodity in the commercial market: supply and demand. 

I remember way back in 1999 when I bough my Canon 400 /2.8 L lens, every person at my local camera club looked with awe at that lens and the images that I was able to produce with it (specifically wildlife and sport). Today in our club there are so many members with �L� lenses such as big 400/2.8, 500/4 and 600/4 lenses that no one is taking any notice of them any more. Not only do they own these lenses, but with fierce competition and critical reviews their technique has improved to the point that they are able to produce excellent images with their equipment.  No longer am I king of the hill simply because I own equipment that allow me to take pictures that few others were able to produce. This was not all bad because it forced me to become even better. I would still like to believe that today my wildlife images are better than most, but gone are the days when the bulk of my work are one of a kind.

My point is that no matter how good your images are, there will be somebody that can produce similar images, and can produce them in bulk. That �once in a lifetime� image (or so you think) that you are so proud of may not be so unique and valuable after all. A commodity that is common will have a low value, while a scarce commodity will increase in value.  No matter how good you are, your images individually are worth less today than they were a few years ago.

The only thing that will drive the price of Microstock images up again is when the submission of new images started to slow because people feel it is not worth the effort and cost anymore.  Microstock are still in a growth period, but as soon as earnings started to seriously decline more and more of the serious contributors will start to look for alternatives.  This shift in supply will once again drive the prices up. My prediction for the future is that with the exception of a few specialized agencies, Micro and Macro stock will meet in the middle with more realistic price for buyers and more realistic earnings for photographers. The key today is to diversify, because we may predict future trends, but not which agencies or models will make it into the future.

Madelaide got it right. Best match should essentially be employed for the benefit of the BUYER - to get the most relevant picture for the search term(s) used. IS apparently see best match as a tool to benefit CONTRIBUTERS and in its latest incarnation openly and undeniably to benefit their exclusive photographers.

Personally I have no problem with that as I can also become an exclusive IS photographer. I choose not to because I am not willing to sacrifice 80% of my monthly income, which can in no way be compensated for by increased sales at IS as an exclusive photographer.  My question is this: for how long can IS continue to benefit their exclusives at the cost of their BUYERS. When will the buyers get fed up to wade through pages of irrelevant images which are placed before more relevant images just because they are from exclusive photographers. In the end this can only have negative consequences for everybody when buyers start to leave for other agencies. There are indications that this is already happening as indicated by a dramatic drop in IS traffic.

I have done some experiments of my own and I concluded that a buyer at IS I will really be frustrated with the poor results of the current best match results. If I was an exclusive photographer at IS I will be nervous because it is clear that IS is gambling with their current good fortunes.

Let�s argue this objectively. What can a new agency possibly offer a customer that they cannot find at one of the big 6 sites? I often hear the comment that they must spend more money on marketing. �Marketing� - that magic word that can cure everything. What can a new agency advertise in a marketing campaign? �Come to us. We offer you a FRACTION of the images that you can find on all the major sites at the same or higher price point�. 

What an agency needs to succeed are long term, regular, bulk buyers. Unfortunately these buyers are all INFORMED buyers who are not going to fall for these new agencies since they know a new agency can offer them nothing. In this regard the well established agencies are now just too far ahead in terms of contents and reputation and informed buyers will always use one of the more established agencies. At best a new agency may attract an occasional buyer who is not well informed and who may accidentally stumble open the site. These types of buyers are not enough to ensure their long term success.

Unless a new site can come up with something really radically unique FOR THE BUYER, in combination with a fair deal to the photographers, they don�t stand a chance to make it in this industry. Sorry to say but an easy upload system and a good attitude are not enough to ensure success. Of all the new startup sites I would say that Vivozoom appears to be the only new site that maybe onto something new to buyers - warranting that the buyer won't get sued. This is based on a requirement of many potential buyers as established through actual marketing research. Only time will tell if this strategy will be enough to attract bulk buyers.

Requested a payment (Moneybookers) last week (22 Oct). Still waiting 

Those images are fantastic. Crazy rejections. I wonder what's up with Crestock? Irrational rejections, very long review times (some of my images pending review for 2 weeks now), reports of delayed payments, forum still not functional (according to the notice it should have been up by August). All bad signs. 

I received a reply from BigStock today after I queried their understanding of what an editorial image is. They apologized for the mistake and most of the rejections were reversed.