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Messages - cardmaverick
Pages: 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11 [12] 13 14 15 16 17 18
276
« on: July 18, 2010, 20:09 »
You can make Flickr turn into $$$. Some will hate it, just like many hated micro.
277
« on: July 17, 2010, 22:11 »
278
« on: July 15, 2010, 23:22 »
I would say, as a general rule of thumb, "people pictures" sell the best, but there are always exceptions.
279
« on: July 13, 2010, 17:58 »
Having worked as a DP, I can think of many online and non-online uses for stock video. It's an interesting market, there are places like istock where you get canned ham footage in a compressed format thats already locked of as far as colors and contrast are concerned... Then there are the boutiques that are selling .r3d files from Red Ones, and soon Red Epics which can be used for virtually anything from internet use to major motion pictures.
I'm certainly not saying there isn't a market for video. I'm just saying I think people overestimated the interest of the public a year ago when everyone started spouting "shoot video, shoot video or die!".
I understand what you mean. I think the big issue for submitters is that they have no real clue about what the market actually demands. Many of these photographers who suddenly try to become video pro's have no real background in the business, so they just flounder.
280
« on: July 13, 2010, 17:38 »
Having worked as a DP, I can think of many online and non-online uses for stock video. It's an interesting market, there are places like istock where you get canned ham footage in a compressed format thats already locked of as far as colors and contrast are concerned... Then there are the boutiques that are selling .r3d files from Red Ones, and soon Red Epics which can be used for virtually anything from internet use to major motion pictures.
281
« on: July 04, 2010, 02:12 »
You know, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is often times referred to as the Bureau of Lies and Shenanigans for a reason... After learning more about how the CPI, unemployment stats, and other economic measures have been purposefully fudged with over the years, I have say, don't blindly believe every government report you see, especially if it has anything to do with the economy! If your're feeling geeky, here's a great white paper on CPI tinkering and "creative accounting" strategies at the BLS: http://www.europac.net/whitepapers/The%20Truth%20About%20CPI.pdf
282
« on: July 02, 2010, 13:03 »
I just cashed out at Bigstock and due to the new tax info page I got a report that out of a $50 payment only $1.50 was from US sources. I was surprised and would have guessed 90% of sales were US Based.
This is exactly what I would expect actually... the vast majority of all my sales thru their owner Shutter Stock have all been European sales.
283
« on: July 02, 2010, 12:30 »
I think some of the most important keywords you can use on IS are the technical keywords. Its one of the things that really distinguishes Istocks database from all the others...
284
« on: July 01, 2010, 22:32 »
If you invest $800K, then gross $1 million, you have not lost money. You have made back your original investment, and then an extra $200K on top.
Something worth pointing out is that, assuming this all took place in the course of one fiscal year, if your business is stock photography for example (royalties based), you still have an additional 3-4 years of pure profit sales to look forward too. If you can maintain roughly 1 million gross each year after the startup year, I'd say you've done a GREAT job investing.
285
« on: July 01, 2010, 18:24 »
Hmmm. 20% of one million sounds an awful lot like a profit of $200,000.
Which can be looked at two ways ... I made $200,000 over the course of an entire year .. or .. Hmmm I just lost $800,000 
$1,000,000 gross - $800,000 costs = $200,000 profit ........ where exactly have you lost any money?
You haven't, its just a difference in opinion about what constitutes a good profit. He does make a valid point though, some shooters yield higher profit margins than others because they simply know how to control their costs better, or perhaps simply increase their gross sales without adding costs.
286
« on: July 01, 2010, 16:20 »
Aside from calculating your NET income, you should seriously start figuring out how long it takes your average shoot to reach a return on investment (ROI)... something many part time stock shooters don't pay any attention too. Given the way the economy is currently going, I'd aim for the fastest ROI possible. 10-12 months is not an unusual timeline for many shooters to hit their ROI. How long it takes you depends on how much content you can pump out in one shoot, type of content, the total cost of production, how strong an agencies sales are, etc...
287
« on: May 14, 2010, 22:36 »
There actually are a few, the biggest one however just sources images from all the big western companies... but they do seem to have an "in house" collection of their own.
288
« on: May 14, 2010, 22:34 »
How are you finding the transition between still and video? Are you able to fit both in the same shoot, or finding it better to do one media at a time?
Big tip. Master setting up a film set, *thats bright enough for stills*, and then you'll be better off trying to do both video and stills. I think a lot of photographers are saying it can't be done because they simply have never lit a real film set before. Its new territory, thats all. Another tip, film lighting can require more time due to heavier gear, etc...
289
« on: May 14, 2010, 22:31 »
Been out and busy for a while, but yes, HMI's are wonderful given their lower heat and higher lumens per watt. Keep in mind that any tungsten lights (BTW quartz halogen's are actually tungsten lights, the glass is quartz to withstand the heat, and they are pressurized with halogen gas, and the filament is tungsten) are the WORST performing lights lumens per watt wise, in fact, about 80% of the energy they require is converted into HEAT. HMI's are roughly the direct opposite! Tungsten is dirt cheap however...and trust me, not going to disappear anytime soon.
HMI's do, like all things, have their drawbacks. You'd wanna do some home work on flicker before shooting stills or video with these suckers. Another caveat is that their color temperature actually shift over time, so they will not always be "XXXX" Kelvin forever. There are noisy ballasts, and quite ballasts (electronic and magnetic are the two options, electronic being the more expensive, smaller, more desired option for most people). You have more cables to deal with (feeder cables going from ballast to light fixture, and then regular power cables from power source to ballast). If you go cheap and get magnetic ballasts, get ready for heavy lifting!
Film production, good film production, has *never* been very lightweight in the lighting and grip departments. If you light the set with the right tools, you can certainly shoot both stills and video at the same time. Professional films have done this for years. All of the still frame grabs you see from movies over the years (think advertising, DVD box cover shots, etc...) were shot with blimped still cameras on set, from the same vantage point as the film camera.
290
« on: May 12, 2010, 13:13 »
When I started shooting stills, I used hot-lights and still have some of them around. I've been playing with video and those old CFL's are working out just fine.
I started with hot lights too, and still have them around. For static objects they were just fine if you have a steady hand or are willing to use a tripod, but for people they were pretty cumbersome.
First off, people get hot under "hot" lights - particularly here in Florida. Secondly, and more important, you just can't get the shutter speeds to stop action and camera shake as well as with strobes. You either have to shoot at higher ISO and deal with noise, or you have to be tethered to a tripod and pray your models don't move a muscle.
I used to have to take dozens more shots of each pose when I was using hot lights, just to make sure I had enough usable sharp ones. This equaled hundreds more images to sort through from each day of shooting. Time wasted on both ends - shooting and processing.
I can't see ever going back to shooting model stills with hot lights. Shudder...
Same experience. And I would never use hot lights to shot people. It's a waste of time, money, and energy.
So, since I use strobes for my photo shots, shooting some video as part of the session would require a lot of changes in lighting equipment and lighting setup.
Depends on what kind of film lights your using. I would say most photographers go for the cheaper solutions which tend to be the lower output options.
291
« on: May 10, 2010, 02:47 »
Why does everyone assume you have to shoot still photos with strobes? I've worked for years as both a DP and photographer, and I specifically invested in hot lights because I knew I could shoot both stills and video with them. If your lights are bright enough for a film shoot, odds are pretty good they are just fine for still photos.
292
« on: April 14, 2010, 23:11 »
Deduct what exactly?
Anything appearing in a stock photo 
293
« on: April 14, 2010, 19:08 »
Dang... I didn't realize how hard it is to find stuff on most microstock sites...
I need an image of an old world map, something that looks like it's from the 1800's or very early 1900's. I've been wading through all kinds of (in my opinion) unrelated items to try and find what I need for a couple hours now with no luck so far on DT, IS, FT or SS.
I've actually had better luck using Google images, but I can't find the author of the image so that I can get a legal license.
I gotta wonder about the frustrations of people who buy on a regular basis...
This is why I argue that agencies are really selling search engines and databases for images, and its why IS is on top and the rest are not.
294
« on: April 12, 2010, 21:04 »
Took me a minute to figure out what you were doing here. You're (by the way, you may want to correct all those 'you're's to 'your'), displacing the image with the paper texture and then you are laying the displaced image back over the paper texture with a blending mode to give "dimension" to the displacement of the pixels in the original image. ie., without the lights and shadows of the paper texture, the original image displaced looks awfully funny  .
You may want to describe what the displace filter actually does so a reader understands what is happening:
"The Displace filter shifts a selection using a color value from the displacement map0 is the maximum negative shift, 255 the maximum positive shift, and a gray value of 128 produces no displacement. If a map has one channel, the image shifts along a diagonal defined by the horizontal and vertical scale ratios. If the map has more than one channel, the first channel controls the horizontal displacement, and the second channel controls the vertical displacement."
Also, I think you repeatedly used "pdf" instead of "psd", as the displacement filter requires a photoshop file.
Interested in seeing where this is going...
Thanks for the critique, I don't know why on earth I typed PDF, lol. And yes, you were right, I wrote it assuming people already knew what displacement maps were, so I threw in a note at the beginning that I'm trying to digitally wrap the image onto a textured object. The final image will be pretty cool looking, I'm stepping outside my usual boundaries with this one.
296
« on: April 09, 2010, 23:43 »
Even if the agency isn't "abusing you" - being exclusive on the photographer level is too restrictive. I hate the thought of not being able to sell at other agencies penetrating new markets because I was chained by a contract. There are also the questions about the long term viability of the agency your exclusive with as a photographer. Yes, if your holding tight at 4 agencies and one sinks, you could be in trouble, but at least you are free to find another opportunity, thats not so easy if you signed the Istock exclusive contract.
297
« on: April 09, 2010, 11:33 »
You can only reliable sell what you can reliably control, so I'd be ok with all agencies having exclusive content, but thats where the exclusivity needs to end - at the content level. Photographer exclusivity isn't a very good idea from the producer perspective, that opens you up to abuse, keeping exclusivity at the content level mitigates the abuse risk.
298
« on: April 02, 2010, 17:40 »
At least I'm not going crazy!
PLEASE fix this, I have a ton of images I wanted to submit this week.
299
« on: April 02, 2010, 10:11 »
If anyone over there is reading, PLEASE address this issue! The FTP upload no long shows any images, its been like this for days, something has obviously gone wrong.
*** I'm actually hoping this is a sign that you are switching over to the new upload system.... ***
300
« on: April 01, 2010, 21:21 »
Not sure where else to post this request...
Is there anyway you can record INTERNAL site search requests used to find my images? I see that my integrated search box on my website has brought traffic into my pro store, but I can't really see what it is they are actually searching for, seeing the images being viewed is helpful however and gives me a rough idea.
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