In a professional situation, 50 mbps is on the low side. I know lots of cameras encode harder than that, and it looks fine, but just use ProRes or encode a new 50+ file and the problem is solved.

The thing with a 28 mbit file is that, while it may look perfectly fine, it leaves little room for grading since the invisible information has been thrown away.

Absolutely, never, ever, add black to your clips. A buyer doesn't want a 1 pixel black row.

Furthermore, you can't have part of pixels. There is no such thing as 1079.8. You can't divide a pixel. A pixel is the smallest step.

I would use a real video program like After Effects to make the final files if this bug keeps happening. If you are already using that, don't do your cropping in Lightroom. Save cropping for later.

If you, for some strange reason, happen to get a non 16:9 aspect ratio, the best thing is to simply stretch it out by scaling just the x or the y axis, or scale the whole thing.

well, our yearly income in 2017 was identical to 2016. Are we worried? Sure we are. We can assume that they are capping our sales or SS overall sales are going down.

...or you can assume that you worked just hard enough to keep your sales despite an exponential increase in competition. The expected result in such a scenario would be decreased sales unless you worked hard to add to your portfolio.

And we have already established that Shutterstock overall sales are going up. That is public information.

increasingdifficulty,
I'm begining with timelapses and still choosing the tools for the trade.
Do you use after effects exclusively ours do you use LRtimslapse?
Do you use premiere at all?
is the warp stabilizer enough for timelapses or do you normally go into tracking?
I'd greatly appreciate your feedback.
BR
jpbarcelos

Hi, I use 99% After Effects, no LRTimelapse. I do use Lightroom quickly to set a good starting point for grading, and apply the standard chromatic aberration removal, the right color profile and minor tweaking. I then just save the sidecar files. The Camera Raw module can be used within After Effects too, so it's not a necessary step at all, it just looks a bit nicer. The controls are the same. Lightroom is nothing more than a "skin", or fancy interface for Adobe Camera Raw, which can also be found in Photoshop and After Effects.

No Premiere for single clips, only if I'm making a film, but I usually prefer Final Cut Pro X for that. So much faster on Mac.

You can do everything from a simple grade to advanced compositing in After Effects from the RAW files to finished product, without using any other application.

The warp stabilizer works really well for some clips, not so well on others. It sometimes makes things worse. You will have to try it on a clip-by-clip basis. I do quite a bit of manual tracking when necessary.

For some really challenging situations (hyperlapses with a 16 mm lens for example), the Align Layer function in Photoshop can be the best stabilizer out there. But it's a pain to work with hundreds of RAW files in Photoshop unfortunately...

Quote from: veerizon on May 07, 2018, 02:39

After 2 years(?) the platform has still no stats, seriously? 

Yup keep having to dive back in to Fotolia to see any stats.

Its sad but one day they'll probably scrap Fotolia then we'll have no stats at all

Yeah, but I find the Fotolia stats to be somewhat worthless. I have clips with multiple sales and 0 views, so not much information I can use there.

And therefore that is not a good candidate for time-lapse.  Do you really think that EVERY time you are able to click a shutter, you should get a good time-lapse??

The scene decides whether it's a good candidate for time lapse or not. Not the ground. You will learn this.

Yes, just as with photography in general, part of getting a good result is knowing your equipment and what can be accomplished.  If you need to stand in 20 feet of water to get the angle you want, it is best to move on to the next idea...

Wrong. If standing in water means you will get an amazing shot, you stand in water.

You clearly don't have any idea what you're talking about. In a while, when you've gained more time lapse experience, you will understand. I'm not trolling, I'm telling you the truth.

Like I said, I have time lapse sales in the thousands (as in number of sales), some bestsellers for very common keywords. I have traveled around the world the last couple of years and been in many challenging situations. Not everything can be controlled.

Some of my all-time bestselling clips had some shake in them, but of course I fixed it in After Effects so they come out perfect. I hate camera shake as much as anyone, but it's inevitable in many situations if you want to get the shot.

Standing on top of a skyscraper photographing a cityscape. Should you just give up and photograph pigeons on the street because people keep walking near your tripod so the camera shakes? No, you make your time lapse, and fix the shake in post, perfect it to the best of your ability, and sell it for years. There is only one place that allows you to get this amazing view.

Doing a motion time lapse in the forest and the weight shifts as the camera moves? There is only one perfect spot as the sun moves between the trees. Should you give up and photograph pigeons? No, you do the time lapse and stabilize in post.

And again, I assume you've never used a big telephoto lens? Film using 800 mm and then tell me what you think about shake in a windy situation.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on May 27, 2018, 04:52

Try photographing on a sandy beach and/or use a 400 mm lens and you might change your opinion on this.  Not to mention anything made of wood. You can bolt your camera down and still have movement.

Part of any professional photography -- long exposure, time-lapse, or pretty much any other, is to understand how to stabilize the camera.  And part of that is to choose where you plant your tripod...

Thanks, great tip. I'll remember that next time I'm filming on a beach. I'll just stand on the paved road 200 yards away.

And the next time I'm on a pier photographing I'll remember your tip and actually stand on the paved road 200 yards in.

I'm sure they will provide exactly the same angles. 

When you're out in the world trying to find the best scenes, you can't always stand on perfectly solid ground. It does not work like that.

And I assume you've never filmed at 800 mm? Like I said, you can be bolted down and still get shake. Ever notice how the most expensive and professional nature documentaries still have camera shake at times?

What an inflation calculator gives you is a different thing  then a real life experience.

No, it gives you exactly the real life experience. 2008-2018 the US inflation was 16.4%, which means the average was just above 1.32% per year.

Even ten years ago low risk funds were returning 2,5% per year, the ones for low risk investor with sole aim to fight inflation. So, investing in these funds 10 years ago would give you 28% return.
But, thanks for providing the exact numbers

What do low risk funds have to do with anything? They could just as easily have gone down 10% while the inflation was still 16.4%, unless those funds included a small piece of exactly everything in the US economy.

If your low risk fund went up 2.5% per year 2008-2018, great! You beat inflation. But inflation was still 1.32% per year on average.

That's right and worrying.
If we assume that yearly inflation is 2.5%, it is around 28% after 10 years. That means 2.85 should be 3.65 now.

But it wasn't. The last 10 years US inflation was 16.4%. So $3.32 is the magical number. 

In addition to everything everyone has already said, try to put money in a IRA, which also off-sets taxes...

You assume he/she is American...

Yes, of course, it's my full-time job.

It's quite hard to live in a society with an official income of $0, and no filed taxes.

Buying houses, apartments, being able to trade high-risk assets etc., becomes quite difficult. 

...oh, and I almost forgot, you go to jail if you don't.

Sure, if you make $100 per year no one's going to care, but might as well get used to the thought.

Quote

May I ask what your incentives are for writing such an article?

Do you make money from ads?

Do you just think it's fun to write?

Do you think that footage buyers read those articles and will rush to buy your clips?

Do you think you earn too much and want to invite thousands of competitors to copy your clips by showing that you can make thousands of dollars?

I think you scared him away! These are valid questions and my guess is that it's a nice outlet to share knowledge with others. After all, this can be a lonely business, spending hours and hours post-processing, keywording, etc.

There's money to be made with YT ads but really 1,000 views for $1 isn't worth it.

Sure, some people can easily copy his best-sellers. Sometimes it's best to keep cards close to the chest.

Nice videos, well-presented. Hope he puts together more of them.

Yes, I know it can come off as harsh, but I'm just writing what I honestly think.

10,000 views on a "How To Make $$$ Selling Stock" or "I Made $1,000 With This Clip" will get you $10, but 1,000 new competitors with 100,000-1 million new files to compete with! You will lose out... a lot.

Now those numbers should scare anyone away! 

Uploaded an After Effects template this month. They're $19.

Gotcha!