For me StockXpert is still somewhere between FT and DT.

And it more BIG 1 + 3 + 1.... the BIG 1 being IS.

Whitechild... you have a lot of patience 

Chi, I'm afraid that the days microstock agencies need to build their database is now gone forever: you should no longer try to answer to the question "why was this image rejected?" after it has been rejected, but you should answer the question "why will this image be accepted?" before the submission.

Could you answer this question concerning your rejected image? Why do you think it should have been accepted?

And "because I would like it to be accepted" is not an acceptable answer 

Quote from: madelaide on June 25, 2009, 23:08
Also having the same image as RM and RF, or RM after it has already sold as RF, doesn't make sense.  I have the same image in different sites as RM and RF, BUT if I sell in one model I remove the image from the sites that have it in the other model.  I only have them in this odd situation when I know I can easily remove them.

AFAIK, selling the same image as RF and RM is not allowed and if you sell an image even only once as RF, you cannot remove it from the site and sell it as RM later.

Even your way of proposing an image as RM and RF is very questionable I would say as you cannot be 100% sure that you won't get into the situation where two buyers do purchase a RM and a RF license almost at the same time.

Cropping a photo at 200mm in order to fit a 400mm framing imply 1/4 the number of pixels which may be enough indeed, but I would say that if you don't have a 400mm but only a 200mm, the best solution would be to make a different composition and keep the full image size.

As Leaf, I've purchased the 1.4x and 2x extenders with my 100-400mm not for stock but for wildlife and birds photography: buying a 600mm or a 800mm was not an option for me .

And contrary to Leaf, I won't sell my TC  

As I was quite surprised by the test result, I've done a similar nonscientific test: rainy weather, not much light, quite noisy, but we can still compare sharpness: the subject is a roof at about 100m, 100% crop (center), taken with a 5DmkII on tripod, manual focus using Live View, mirror lockup, remote shutter, 3 photos each time, the sharpest is kept.

100-400 @ 400mm: the sharpest one obviously


70-200 f/4 IS @ 200 + Canon TC 2x: definitively not as good, but quite good I would say


70-200 @ 200 up sized 2x in PS (bi-cubic): as I was expecting, this is definitively the worst result (less noise because lowest ISO):


My conclusion is thus different: the TC obviously degrade the IQ, but it is still far better than up sizing the picture. This is especially true with the 1.4x TC... the 2x used here is not as good.

As I said before, the 70-200 seems to be known to be quite soft for closeup at MFD which may explain Leaf's result. But I've quite often heard even pro photographer using TC with good result provided that it is used with a high quality lens.

For microstock, as photos are reviewed at 100% and sharpness is a must have it is better to avoid TC, but for "artistic" photos, a TC on an excellent lens gives good results quite often.

Another test?  

Quote from: leaf on June 18, 2009, 17:04
I unfortunately agree.  I just spent the last few hours doing a test and a blog post.  I tested plain lens, 2x extender, 1.4x extender, upszing 2x ... 4 ways to get to 400mm.  The best of course was just a lens, but in second place.... upsizing.  Save your $$

http://simplefoto.com/news-editorial/camera-gear/what-is-the-best-400mm-lens/

Interesting test: thanks for sharing!

I've almost the same gears as you and purchased them for the same purpose 

However, I have the 70-200 f/4 and not the f/2.8 and I've recently seen an interesting post on Fred Miranda forum where somebody made a test to compare the sharpness of the 70-200 (which is supposed to be legendary) with the Sigma 180mm macro and the Sigma was a clear winner, the 70-200 being quite soft.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/780073

The problem is that it was a close-up shot taken at the MFD and it seems that the 70-200 is not that good for close-up but shines at "normal" distance. I don't know if the 70-200 f/2.8 do have the same symptoms, but as your test has been done on a close-up photo, it would be interesting to see the result on a far subject.

Moreover, as a microstock photographer, we also all are "pixel-peepers"... but I would say that for non-stock photo, the sharpness is most often not the most important point and I try to avoid judging whether the sharpness is good or not on a 100% crop

Quote from: Freezingpictures on June 18, 2009, 13:30
135 f/2 with an extender will not be a 190 f/2 it will more likely be an 190/ f 2.8

I've written "two.eight", but the "eight"has been seen as a smiley  

Quote from: gostwyck on June 18, 2009, 14:32
I'd avoid the extenders, they're both rubbish IMO (assuming you want stock quality images). I've bought them both and sent both back.

If you have an outstandingly sharp and fast L lens and then stick an extender on it ... hey presto, you now have a soft slow lens. I'd rather shoot with the original lens and then crop the image down, the results will be far better.

It depends: the 1.4x is quite good and produce very good IQ if your lens has excellent IQ. I get very good result with the 70-200 and I've read that the 135 is the lens which gives the best result with the 1.4x extender.

I'm 100% sure it is perfectly usable for stock as I bet the 135+1.4x is a lot better than a consumer grade lens (e.g. the 18-200mm)... but it is obviously even better to use a native 200mm of course.

And f/2.8 is not a slow 200mm as the only faster 200m lens is the 200 f/2... which is another story.

Many wildlife photographer do use extenders successfully... have a look at http://www.juzaphoto.com/ to see what king of IQ you can achieve with an extender associated with an excellent lens.

I have both and I would say that from an IQ point of view the 70-200 is at least as good as the 85mm.

But I would say they are both useful in different situations: the 70-200 f/4 is perfect for outdoor candid portraits (e.g. events, weddings) while the 85mm is perfect for indoor/low light portraits.

The choice has to be made on your main usage IMHO, not on IQ because they are both excellent.

The 135mm f/2 with an optional 1.4x extender (-> 190mm f/2. is also a wise choice

I have myself decided to have all of them... thanks to my micro earnings  But still waiting for the 135 which is on backorder.

Quote from: Whitechild on May 19, 2009, 12:30
I am a vet, and I play with microstock. Yuri is microstock photographer and he can just play with animals. What I said is people often enjoy more doing things just for playing than doing them professionally. He HAS to do it all the time, and I don't. He can enjoy it, but I can enjoy more when I take few shots outside and then I sit on my balcony to drink some coffee or juice without pressure to do certain number of images and pay all those people etc etc. And vice versa, I am sure Yuri will enjoy much more in just playing with some cute dog, cat or what ever,  than treating their diseases and performing rectal examination.

I also enjoy more shooting macro, sitting for hours in a meadow outside. And I also wouldn't enjoy working as Yuri does.

But I wouldn't assume either that Yuri enjoy less his way of doing things. People are different.

Quote from: Whitechild on May 18, 2009, 23:51
Interesting video tho... Makes me happy because it's telling me I am just playing and I enjoy it a lot actually.
@FlemishDreams: Good point about what kind of shots not to make.

Yuri seems to enjoy it too: you can do it (very) seriously and still be happy with that.

We are talking about microstock here, right? You can argue again and again and explain why you don't like IKEA furnitures or blonde models, but the facts are that Yuri is #1 in this business.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on May 18, 2009, 16:54
The message still is, be different, at  1/10th of the cost.

And 1/100 of the earnings?

I often feel some jealousy as soon as we are talking about Yuri here

Quote from: arquiplay77 on May 14, 2009, 20:07
araminta and Whitechild.
Are you sure of this?

No, I'm not sure 

Quote from: goldenangel on May 14, 2009, 20:13
Not all banks support accounts in US dollars. In Canada I know they do, but not sure about European countries?

In Switzerland, they do too... but I indeed don't know for other countries.

You may open a bank account in USD currency at your bank, transfer your earnings from PayPal to this account and then wait until the exchange rate is interesting to transfer the money to your regular account.

My tip: generate yourself the first view (you just have to log out and then display each 0 view image). I do it for a few months now and it seems to work quite well : my images get views quickly as soon as the first view has been triggered.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on May 08, 2009, 03:37
One thing that's already got me scratching my head is Auto ISO. It's easy to turn on but it automatically sets the shutter speed at 40 for a 50mm lens (?!!) and there's no fine tuning.

Agree: the chosen shutter speed is somewhat low quite often. As the 5DmkII does handle very well high ISO, it would indeed be interesting to be able to fine tune Auto ISO.

Another "scratching my head" point is that Auto ISO does not work in manual mode. This is quite logical most of the time, but in some situations (macro), it is interesting to be able to set both the aperture (to control the depth of field) and the shutter speed (to ensure that moving bugs are frozen) and let the ISO goes up (to a certain extent).

Otherwise, the 5DmkII is an amazing beast 

The very best upsizer is now the 5DmkII: no need to upsize 

Love it.

Quote from: leaf on May 05, 2009, 08:30
There you have the 28mm which would be a nice wide angle for nature photography and a 200mm if you wanted to zoom in on something.

28mm on a Rebel is not that wide for landscape I would say. A Canon or Sigma 18-200 or the Tamron 18-270 are probably better suited, at least from a focale range point of view: there is a huge difference between 18 and 28mm.

The version of Camera RAW which comes with CS3 does not support Canon 5DmkII RAW files: you need a version which is only compatible with CS4. I don't know however what version Lightroom does support.

Quote from: sc on May 04, 2009, 00:08

Quote from: Whitechild on May 03, 2009, 22:45
mithan, you have to isolate in program like photoshop to get ideally white background.

Sorry but I totally disagree - it can be done with lighting alone and once you know how it's not difficult to do.
There are plenty of tutorials and diagrams out there. here's a few.

http://www.zarias.com/?p=71

http://realdealphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/7580095_vtmwU#504967343_9mQFS  -for some diagrams

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=96872&page=1

It depends whether you are talking about isolated people or isolated objects: these techniques work only when the subject and the background are far enough to be able to light both of them separately.

For objects which are lying directly on the background, this is something completely different.

I had the problem with CS3 not opening Canon 5DmkII RAW: I now convert the RAW to Adobe DNG using DNG Converter first. DNG open then fine in CS3.

As far as I know, the only advantage of using a subdomain is that you can make different subdomains point to different servers which is useful for sites with high traffic.

But I guess that having multiple servers are not an option for standard web hosting plans, so sub-domain or sub-folder are basically the same.

I would say however that it is not that common to have an URL which does not start with "www" and it may be confusing for some to have to remember a subdomain address.

My site is hosted at www.ixwebhosting.com and I'm quite happy with them. Basic plan is $3.95/month with PHP/MySQL and one domain name. I guess you man find many other hosting service however.

Quote from: lisafx on April 24, 2009, 01:03
FWIW, in my experience if it is anything over bright white background they seem to treat it as isolated.   IMO isolated can still include items that have some shadow.  I like to leave a bit of shadow on full body isolated people shots so they don't appear to be floating in space. 

Agree: I do many isolations and I almost always keep the shadow. I never had a rejections for that reason.

You know that, but most don't (myself and the reviewer included)... and it looks like CA 

Well... aren't the cables supposed to be white? Unless they are actually purple (and the reviewer cannot know that), there is a lot of CA along the two main cables I would say.