Quote from: sharply_done on November 17, 2008, 17:08
I use a monopod for most shots, too. I'm surprised that Yuri prefers using (and wearing out/breaking) many cheap ones instead of getting a more durable model that can stand up to (pun intended) regular use with heavy equipment.

Good Q. The problem is speed. No other monopod out there goes up and down so fast. The Gitzo ones, which I have a couple of for, takes way too long time to adjust.
Monopod: Adjustment in height: 1 sec.
Gitzo monopod: Adjustments in heights: 4-8 sec. (for a stable shooting position).

Sync with a flash (any flash or triggering system) starts giving you that vertical black line at about 1/160 to 1/200 in shutterspeed in canons and nikons. This is because of the shutter mechanism they use. The Hassy shutter is a sideway shutter and lets you sync at up to 1/800 at which point you do not need a monopod. However, for people without a Hassy, and operating with speeds around 1/160 or in some cases 1/200 (the new canons) in the studio, you will for sure need a mono or tripod.

4 Mil pictures and you find one that is crappy. You are giving them a little bit of a hard time here.
Find examples of a generalized tendency and then you would have a point. Not one shoot.

Best Yuri

Hi. Please read the response I have on Microstockdiaries about this.

"One of my third party distributors has put all my images in Alamy under RM. We are currently investigating this and I will require the images removed immediately. We are in the black as to why this agency has done so, especially when considering that just one single search on my name on Alamy would reveal that all the images are already online. I will be contacting Alamy about this also"

Thanks. Yuri

I shoot Hasselbald for the kind of subject matter that Hasselblad does good and Canon for what Canon is good at. The right gear for the right job.
Canon: Motion and travel
Hasselblad: Everything else. 

Quote from: b79 on September 18, 2008, 02:51

Quote from: litifeta on September 18, 2008, 00:06
how can a sensor that big be useful to their current lens range?

http://nikonrumors.com/2008/09/15/mx-lenses.aspx

Ironically, the bigger then sensor, the less demand on lens quality. So by getting a bigger sensor, you get less fringing and lens problems in general. Hassy lenses seem so much better, but if you know the physics, it is very mush easier to make good lenses for big sensors, then making good lenses for small sensors (full-frame for example).

Canon promised me the first two that hits Denmark. We might even get a few sponsored before November (due date for delivery). I am planning on buying/getting at least two. I will probably end up buying three.

I have just become Rubis member and will "up-price" all my images to a starting point of 4 USD. Last time I did so, going from 2-3, I got a huge income boost. This month, IS and FT, are equal in earnings for me.

One of my fellow photographers just go another 15 rejected based on missing model release. 5 min ago.

It is true that sometimes the model release just are not attached even dough this has been done in the upload procedure or finishing the file online. The issue I am addressing is if there is an over-representation of model releases being rejected/not attached at this moment. When IS rejects a file based on model releases it does not specify why, only "Needs Model Release"
I use a Generic model release, but it has all the same fields as the IS release, so I could not imagine they would reject it based on missing information. Perhaps IS only accepts their own releases from now on?

My assistants are completely sure they attached the model release when uploading. They upload/finish them online. We are facing a "loss" of releases of almost 50%. Are other people experincing this right now?

I am getting so many files rejected for missing model releases. The rejections suddenly started about a week ago and since then I have had over 15 rejections based on that alone. There seems to be no system in the rejections, some images with the same model are accepted and others are rejected based on missing model releases.
Istock has accepted these model releases with no problem before, so I am a little confused as of why they are getting rejected. I have not been able to find any official notice or reason on the forums or any other place. Does anyone know anything about what is going on and are people experiencing the same?

Join my network. and your problems are gone.
http://www.arcurs.com/tools

Quote from: michealo on July 23, 2008, 12:27

Quote from: sjlocke on July 23, 2008, 12:13
iStock takes me about two seconds, because I use deepMeta.

Again, with people's workflow, I don't see what you're shooting for here.

It's a useful exercise to quantify what time it takes to upload to a site and factor it into a decision as to whether it makes sense to upload to a particular site.

Well said!

Thank you to the people that did understand my post and has sent me some time quotes for how long they spend managing their files after upload. There seems to be a big difference in how people approach IS upload in general. Some spend heaps of time there and some do it as quick as they can basically.

I am looking for time quotes from people that do their online managing with some degree of effort and not just as fast as can be done. Time quotes on "if you where to do it the way the agency wanted you to do it" applying three categories where possible and not just one and so forth.

I might have to revise the quotes I put up on Istock. I seems my testers where spending un-proportionally long time there for some reason. But if one was really to do the IS uploading "correctly" in the meaning of "well disambiguated" it does seem to take some time.

I don't have any info on Zymmetrical, Mostphotos and Scanstockphoto. Does anyone submit to these agencies on a regular basis?

We are mesuring the time it takes to attach model release, categories and so forth. Not the time it takes to upload, because that would be almost completely depending on your internet connection.

I am sorry for not being so active on this forum. I have a few places where I go to chat about stock, where people less personal. I can't really recall a post where I "wanted" something... I may be wrong.

Anyway. Thank you to the people that have already sent me their results. I should be ready to populate the list with the rest of the agencies pretty fast.

I am getting in these numbers for featurepics: 45 secs per file with model release and I also have a guy that says he can do uploads to Istock in one minute per file. Is this your experience as well

Great tool for IS. My keywording tool only works for non-IS keywords.
http://arcurs.com/keywording/

As you can see from this survey (http://www.arcurs.com/uploading-time-average) there are quit a few agencies I don't have any data on, so please help me out.

Next time you upload to one of these agencies, time it, and post your result here or as a comment on the post. Once we have 3-5 independent results there should be enough for a good average calculation for that agency. I am looking for time in seconds/file for both with and with-out model releases.

Swing me some numbers! Yuri

Quote from: andresr on April 26, 2008, 18:49
I quite like the Infinite collection at Fotolia, it is a brilliant idea. However this is not an aim for exclusive material as infinite collection images are not exclusive. You can submit them to other mid/macro agencies as long as they are not sold for a lower price.

Fotolia as usual is simply cleverer than the rest and is offering an opportunity for us to sell our best work for more money as simple as that. 123rf is also coming up with their EVO collection which is basically the same thing.

I see many microstock agencies doing this, it makes sense to sell the best photos at good prices while keeping the "normal" average photos at microstock prices. I am going to shoot for mid/macro stock exclusively and I will be submitting the not so good photos to micro from now on.

I have 270 files in the inf collection and they sell quit well. It is very easy for agencies like fotolia with a high commission and higher prices to compete surprisingly efficiently against agencies like IS. I am still testing the Inf collection, but so far it is able to produce 80% of the RPI I have in my microstock non-exclusive channel. 80% is pretty good considering that you only have to upload to one place!

I got to just laugh when I read this. There are many people here (and very successful ones) that have thousand of files much worse then this in their portfolio. This thing has been pushed so much out of proportion because of two files that have a reflection below them that to some people here think look fake, but nevertheless sell like crazy.

Please forgive my poor assistant that feels so bad about this whole thing and please do her the favor off actually downloading the file and see how precise and detailed she has done the isolation as well as putting the files on top of each other. I can understand why the file got accepted, because technically (besides the reflection) the file is excellent and it is not everybody that know what a "correct" reflection looks like. My assistant actually thought it was done the right way.

I unfortunately don't have time to micromanage all aspects of my business so things will go online that I have not always checked myself.

Anyway. We will remove the files and replace them with versions that have the reflection fixed. The reflection part is actually very easy to do compared to the time it takes to perfect the other aspect.

To the people posting this thread and the people supporting it. I am not angry at all, but I think there is room for a little more gentlemanship. Microstock is my workplace, and I would hate to see it be a place where we photographers point fingers at each other and try to find mistakes in each others work so we can publicly post this on forums. Constructive criticism is great, but that does not seam to be the motive of this post.

Crestock is doing great and the management really knows what they are doing. All of us have seen so many versions of microstock agencies trying to be successful, but very few have as sleek and well featured interface as Crestock. If they continue like they are doing now, they are bound to be successful.

I'm investing all my pictures in them, mostly because of future prospects of income, but I actually made over 700 USD from them in the month of January 2008.

Quote from: sjlocke on February 12, 2008, 09:55

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 12, 2008, 09:33
Take a deep breath my friend before jumping on the bandwagon. ! Do you really think considering search queue placement and the rankings involved make me look unprofessional? This is part of my business to consider things like that.
Here is the result I was referring to, and the search looked different when I did it some days ago. But still...
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&oldtext=seninar&majorterms=%7B%22csv%22%3A%22%22%2C%22conjunction%22%3A%22AND%22%7D&copySpace=%7B%22Tolerance%22%3A1%2C%22Matrix%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&abstractType=15&fileTypeSizePrice=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22Image%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Illustration+%5BVector%5D%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Vector+Image%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Flash%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Flash+Document%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Video%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%5D&orientation=7&illustrationLimit=Exactly&flashLimit=Exactly&order=7&perPage=100&page=1&showTitle=true&showContributor=true&showDownload=true&enableLoupe=true&text=seminar
Lise: 30
Yuri: 8

That is a sort by downloads.

It is. And i just turned on "best match" and it favored by portfolio a lot! I humbly apologize for this misunderstanding!

On another note. The best match search display was actually pretty impressive!

Quote from: andresr on February 12, 2008, 09:29

Quote from: thesentinel on February 11, 2008, 22:24
Just did that Business Seminar search, Yuri 8 Lise 4.

That's what I get too.
I buy photos at istock and I normally see more of Yuri's pics better placed in searches compared to lise's. If you think about it, exclusives are good for the agency in general but if istock were to promote one non exclusive member it would be Yuri, as they get 20% more money from his sales and he sells a few thousand more photos than Lise every month.

I can assure you that I do NOT get any special treatment or any of the sort from the IS management. Absolutely none. I am bound by the same principles that favour exclusives and not non-exclusives.
I have two freelancers working part-time who's only job is to optimise keywording for IS, this helps a bit but cost's a bit too.

Showing off cases where I have better search placement then Lise only makes me happy, and de-confirms my concerns about bad placement.

Quote from: sharply_done on February 11, 2008, 23:25
Sorry, Yuri, but your complaint about poor exposure is completely unwarranted. As the 'top gun' in this industry you come off looking quite unprofessional by making such statements.

Take a deep breath my friend before jumping on the bandwagon. ! Do you really think considering search queue placement and the rankings involved make me look unprofessional? This is part of my business to consider things like that.
Here is the result I was referring to, and the search looked different when I did it some days ago. But still...
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&oldtext=seninar&majorterms=%7B%22csv%22%3A%22%22%2C%22conjunction%22%3A%22AND%22%7D&copySpace=%7B%22Tolerance%22%3A1%2C%22Matrix%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&abstractType=15&fileTypeSizePrice=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22Image%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Illustration+%5BVector%5D%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Vector+Image%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Flash%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Flash+Document%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Video%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%5D&orientation=7&illustrationLimit=Exactly&flashLimit=Exactly&order=7&perPage=100&page=1&showTitle=true&showContributor=true&showDownload=true&enableLoupe=true&text=seminar
Lise: 30
Yuri: 8

Thank you for sharing this Ron! The download ration month to month match mine almost exactly.
I am very surprised by the division of income that you are experiencing. Mine are like this:

Istock: 40%
Fotolia: 20%
Shutterstock:14%
StockXpert: 7%
Dreamstime: 6%
123RF: 2%
Crestock: 1%
Bigstock: 1%

Other mid/micro: 9%

Thank you again for your comprehensive report! Very interesting reading!