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Messages - increasingdifficulty
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326
« on: August 28, 2018, 15:10 »
I've done timelapses by speeding up videos, but the results weren't very good
You need to use something like After Effects that can add motion blur by blending frames when you speed up a video. That could make an editorial video pass as commercial. Of course, you need to also blur out any trademarks or signs that don't move. Timewarp is the best effect for this, with complete control over the motion blur. It can look very good, but takes a long time to render. You can also just speed up the video using Time Stretch with Frame Blending enabled. It renders faster, but the motion blur doesn't look as smooth, and you can't choose how much you want. As usual, the answer is After Effects.  Photoshop is extremely limited when it comes to video.
327
« on: August 25, 2018, 01:38 »
Hello! Been a lurker for a long time. I've been working on building up my portfolio and organizing my photo collections. I would really appreciate if anyone would take a look at my Flickr and tell me your honest thoughts. Thank you very much. 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kdgranger/
Hi K.D! Let me give you one tip that will change your heron, egret, ibis (not flamingo  ), turtle and squirrel images from regular snapshots, or "ok, that's a bird" shots, to professional looking photographs - "wow, beautiful bird". The angle.You need to get low, down to eye level of the animal, or even below for a more dramatic effect. This changes everything. It's probably the biggest difference between a snapshot and BBC material. Light and everything else is secondary to the angle (but of course also very important). Yes, this means it's more unfomfortable to take photos, but it changes so, so much. I cannot stress this enough. If you don't have a flipout screen, it means at the very least crouching down, but very often lying down on the ground (flipout screen is great).
328
« on: August 24, 2018, 00:16 »
Pat the owner is one of us a creator.
So is Jon from Shutterstock. So, do they optimize your clips for each search engine? Use titles and descriptions that are best suited for each site? Is it easy to change the title of your clip once it's uploaded? There are so many things wrong with not having full control over your clips. If you're one of the guys who are happy to just throw stuff out there without much thought, and make $500 from 5,000 clips, sure... But if you want to make $5,000 from 500 clips, you need to have all the control.
329
« on: August 22, 2018, 06:21 »
Are you filming at the same time or just recording sound?
I use the RDE Stereo VideoMic X with my camera which is a great mic for environment sound, but it works well for speech too if you're close.
I've used separate audio recorders before, but honestly, it's a pain to have to sync everything afterwards and find which clips match the audio. And you will find yourself not recording audio with every clip, etc. etc. It's not a very convenient workflow if you're also filming.
330
« on: August 21, 2018, 05:02 »
Hi, question for the connoisseurs of this city: I'm going to Tokyo in a month, it's going to be essentially a culture, gastronomy and photography trip. As I'm going to be alone, I'm going to have a lot of time taking pictures. Do you have places to see, to visit and to photograph that are not necessarily in the travel guides? Place not to be missed?
I plan to do :
- night long exposure;
-timelapse with a motorized slider/pan/tilt.
-Videos
-sunset/sunrise pics and timelapse
-a lot of pics of anything nice (editorial and not)
Thank you !
I would say that pretty much the entire city of Tokyo is an absolute goldmine for what you're describing. It is truly incredible, especially at night and blue hour. Just walk around and you will stumble upon location after location. As a very nice bonus, it is also extremely safe which makes walking around alone with camera equipment at night a pleasure instead of something unpleasant. Just use suncalc.net for exact sunset/sunrise times and locations. It's brilliant. It will show the correct times once you're actually in Tokyo, as it displays the time based on your IP address. For an incredible aerial view, you can go up to Roppongi Hills and the Mori Tower. I did not bring a tripod up there, so I don't know their policy, but there is plenty of space so might not be a problem. All in all, this city is a photographer's dream, and I will probably go back soon, now that I have much better equipment and skill.
331
« on: August 19, 2018, 14:49 »
Very interesting.
I have a GH4 (besides the D850) and I found it excellent for video, but quite poor for still images.
Lately I have been doing mostly time lapses and drone footage, but if I were to go back doing plenty of footage, I would certainly get the GH5
Yes, the GH5 won't compete with your D850 of course when it comes to stills, but I find it to be a lot better than the GH4. The extra resolution helps too, not to mention the incredible image stabilization, especially with the Leica lenses. That means you can use low ISO much more often and keep the image quality in handheld situations. With the GH4 I found that I always needed really short shutter speeds, which means high ISO unless it's a slow landscape image. Now I can get away with ISO 100 on the GH5 when I needed ISO 1600 or ISO 3200 on the GH4, because I can lower the shutter speed and still get tack sharp images! Big difference. And there is no anti-aliasing filter which further improves the details compared to the GH4. Of course slower shutter speeds don't always work with wildlife and doesn't matter on a tripod with lots of time, but on many subjects you can raise the image quality thanks to the stabilization. But I am absolutely blown away by the image quality when filming with the GH5. Exposed right with the right settings and I could send it straight to BBC.
332
« on: August 19, 2018, 00:26 »
Agree. I'm still shooting with a GH4, but among my highest selling clips are from a Go-Pro Black 3 and my iPhone. It's about knowing how to get the best from each of these (lighting, stability, composition, subject). While I have shot video with my D850, the GH4 is far superior in quality. I haven't looked at the GH5 yet but the sharpness alone with the GH4 is amazing. Anywho, for the OP, don't let anyone tell you that you need a RED to shoot stock in microstock. You don't.
I have both the GH5 and the GH4 (now as B-cam), and they are a joy to use (in good light). While the GH4 is quite incredible, the GH5 is life changing! I can now film at an 800 mm FOV HANDHELD thanks to amazing image stabilization and 4k 60p. This is almost unthinkable. The types of shots you are able to get when you are not forced to adjust a tripod blows my mind. I film lots of wildlife so being able to be ready for action within a second, and to get it in 4k slow motion is incredible. The 180 fps slow motion is also useful, and although the quality is a lot lower than 4k 60p, it is quite a bit better than the 96 fps in the GH4, so now I find myself actually using it more and more. Again, in good light only of course, as noise is greatly amplified when using this setting. While I still use my full-frame camera for stills, I find that the GH5 RAW files are actually quite good, to the point where I leave the 5D mk III at home more and more. Another step up from the GH4.
333
« on: August 18, 2018, 14:50 »
I've seen people using pro gear like the RED series for stock. So a gopro might not cut it
I would think twice about buying a Red just to start in stock footage...
I would dare any professional to correctly tell apart 20 GH5 (good light) clips from RED footage.
334
« on: August 18, 2018, 11:00 »
I've seen people using pro gear like the RED series for stock. So a gopro might not cut it
Try strapping a RED to your head when you go mountain biking.
335
« on: August 18, 2018, 10:20 »
So they are banking that the price drop till oct will get them more sales. Amazing that they are not putting their 50% of the marketing share to drive traffic and just doing a price war
Yes, a full-on price war, total mayhem, for two months with a price they've had for three years... 
336
« on: August 18, 2018, 04:36 »
Yes, I think they lied...
Or, like so many others in 90% of any other "lie, cheat, or manipulation" situation, you just didn't read beyond the first sentence.
337
« on: August 17, 2018, 11:48 »
In my opinion, BB is a house of cards. I'd stay away. Fully agree. And their marketing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All of a sudden, every YouTuber with anything related to film, even if they don't even sell stock, seem to just LOVE BlackBox. Out of the blue. Oh, I know the smell of affiliate links.
And as of this post, of their 153,000 clips on P5, only 0.006% have sold (using the P5 search query "artist:blackboxguild salegt:0"). So I'm not sure about their higher search rankings.
Thanks for that query, simply brilliant! Now I know what I'll be doing tonight!  That's an absolutely terrible sales average. This query shows you someone who actually DOES sell: artist:hotelfoxtrot salegt:9 This clip has sold 331 times, which is quite a lot for Pond5 (among the top): artist:hotelfoxtrot salegt:330
338
« on: August 10, 2018, 05:18 »
Matching all the other $79 HD companies sure sounds like price fixing to me.
"Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors that raises, lowers, or stabilizes prices or competitive terms. Generally, the antitrust laws require that each company establish prices and other terms on its own, without agreeing with a competitor."
Price matching and price fixing are two very, very different things. You should look it up.
339
« on: August 03, 2018, 10:32 »
Youre not BIG enough to have experienced it! havent been doing it long enough to experience it. I cant remember but I think that somewhere along 2.5K a month was the barrier after that you were included in the capping brigade.
I can guarantee that 90-100% of the capping theorists here are nowhere near $2,500 per month from Shutterstock.
340
« on: August 02, 2018, 16:21 »
341
« on: August 02, 2018, 07:29 »
Which is in turn completely negated by increases in food, accomodation, taxes, insurance, fuel, healthcare, service fees, and so on.
Well, I think what camera equipment you can get for the money is quite a lot. For example, instead of $10,000 per day renting a helicopter for aerials, it's now $2,000 for aerial quality that is definitely good enough. And just $10,000 for a very professional aerial setup that is yours to keep.
342
« on: August 02, 2018, 07:24 »
I mean, the best of my first images (I'm not selling photos) was imitated when it had only 9 downloads on Shutterstock.
Well, it's a lot easier to copy an illustration than to have access to sets and models in order to take pictures of hospital situations, dentists, corporate offices etc. etc.
343
« on: July 31, 2018, 03:47 »
could they be curating only best sellers? (and by that promoting them even more...)
Could they be favoring some contributors over others?
Well, obviously any site would favor best sellers because that means buyers need those clips. By the very nature of a curated collection, of course some contributors are favored over others. But it's pretty great when YOU are among the favored. You can also see that they have almost only membership clips in there, but maybe this will change as the new split comes in effect. But all in all, I would have to agree with you that the selection wasn't the best, but the staff can't possibly have a good grasp of what's in the entire, at this point quite large, collection of clips.
344
« on: July 29, 2018, 02:46 »
How come all the top stock footage creators I know of, don't seem to be blogging or vlogging, or on Instagram or anything else I know of.
Actually I think I know the answer...
Indeed - the vloggers are the ones barely earning $100 a month yet offering to teach newcomers their secrets. Great insights to be had there.
Don't forget that they also want to tell you how awesome BlackBox is...
345
« on: July 27, 2018, 04:16 »
If some people put half as much effort into creating new content as creating fake forum profiles and spamming companies, they might actually see a difference in sales. And all of a sudden $49 is a terrible price that will steal business from every other agency, when it's been at that level for years. It seems like everyone agrees that VB sales have tanked this year (I do, too), so I very much welcome a big marketing effort toward marketplace clips.
346
« on: July 27, 2018, 01:19 »
Hahaha good! Anyone who wants to see mine, here's one:
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/farbled
That's a lot of cooking! Those quesadillas look tasty. Now the real question: Did you eat it all?
347
« on: July 25, 2018, 17:02 »
But you did get that massage!
348
« on: July 24, 2018, 02:26 »
Shutterstock is 30% of my total income... remove 60% of it... that's a 20% budget cut.
If the other 70% are, as you said, "crushing well", is it not logical to believe that customers might be shopping there instead? And again, how can it be a 20% budget cut if the other 70% are crushing it? And lastly, a 20% drop in July is normal, and every store, marketplace and company in the world wants, and usually rewards, a steady inflow of new products.
349
« on: July 23, 2018, 17:42 »
Shutterstock has been quite slow in July, but across all sites, 10 footage sales today. The weekend was a bit slower than usual, but some people should be getting back to work around this time. As for the whole month, not a dramatic decrease, but around 70% of the good months, which is to be expected during the summer.
350
« on: July 20, 2018, 10:15 »
They always charged 38% from non-member marketplace sales (they sold for $79, we still got $49, which they called "100%"), and now I'm curious if they will charge 50% of $79, or $54.50 from the $79 (which is almost 69%).
They never made it clear that they charged the 38% before, so I assume they haven't clarified what will happen with non-member marketplace sales after August 1st. Anyone know?
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