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Messages - OM
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426
« on: September 07, 2013, 18:20 »
OT but remember when the Olympic games were only for amateurs! Athletes receiving payment or endorsements for their sport were regarded with disdain and prohibited from competing. How things have changed!
427
« on: September 01, 2013, 05:48 »
Shutterstock goes from strength to strength and even Fotolia has been good this last month.
However, I doubt that it has anything to do with 'whatshisname' or any of his actions.
428
« on: August 31, 2013, 07:42 »
What applies to Instagram applies to FB with their new 'contract'. All your digits is belong to us...........(and NSA, GCHQ etc, etc). 
429
« on: August 24, 2013, 18:54 »
FT is just funny (peculiar!). Not a place to build a business as it's just too 'undependable'.. goes up and down too much. This month is OK so far but OK is very relative. Won't reach payout this month (normally takes 2 months anyway) but should be at 80% by the end of next week instead of 40-50%. Almost doubled my footprint there in the past 18 months with 400 images now.
The ratio of subs to dl's is getting ever closer to 50% but I'd rather have a 29cent sub than a 25 cent XS dl. Never have EL's at FT despite pricing at 50-70 credits (not doin' 'em cheaper than that!).
Compared with SS where I started 15 months ago and have half the number of images of FT, since October I haven't missed a payout. At SS I do get the occasional EL and got one on the first day of August, so I'll be way above payout this month too at SS.
Really for me, what it comes down to is consistency/reliability of income from increasing effort. SS delivers and FT used to (2-3 years ago) but no longer does. Mind you they seem to accept just about everything I throw at them in contrast to SS where some rejections for bum white balance (in daylight) and trademark violations (on antiques) just seem a bit out of whack. Not a big deal and I've learned to move on very quickly.
430
« on: August 10, 2013, 19:46 »
painter, photographer, potter or whatever. The goal is to get someone to look at your stuff and mutter, geez this dude is a real artist!
My goal is to get someone to look at my stuff and say "Here's some cash". 
Yup! The 'I'm not a photographer guy' is only writing what he writes to get 'photographers' attention so that he can sell you a training video.....he's a marketing guy! Wanna learn about light and zones and that sort of stuff, get Ansel Adams book, "The Negative" and read it. Super cheap, used, cos no-one reads books these days.
431
« on: August 09, 2013, 19:36 »
I uploaded batch of photos to Fotolia and submitted couple of images from that batch for review. All of those images got rejected saying they have something similar in their site. Again I submitted another couple of images from the same batch and same thing happened. Then I wanted to delete the rest of the batch without submitting as I felt that they are going to reject them for sure. However I couldn't find how to delete a batch of images in one go. So, what I did was I submitted all of those images with some garbage keywords and same title, for review, assuming they will reject them all. But strangely they accepted them all 
Now that is really funny. ROFLMAO. (Although really it's rather sad.)
432
« on: August 09, 2013, 19:30 »
The whole place is a mess anyway.  I used to be exclusive but dropped it to join SS last year and informed FT of my total non-exclusive status. Nevertheless, I still sold the occasional file that was priced at double credit value ( exclusive privilege) long after my exclusive status was terminated. They're confused, contributors are confused and no doubt the buyers are also confused. Little point in trying to figure it out........when I reach payout, I cash out.....wash, rinse, repeat.
433
« on: August 09, 2013, 18:47 »
Well, Good Luck Yuri!
As you all can see the right side here under 'microstock poll results' it is more than clear that being iStock exclusive gives you more earnings than compared to all other places combined together. It clearly states 335.3 if you are exclusive. So, Yuri knows his math. It is obviously more easier to go with one agency than spreading your portfolio through all of them.
Nevertheless, mobile phone photo selling platforms are risk. Who dares wins - so Yuri I wish you luck in your business venture.
I, amongst the rest will stay with lower earning majority of this industry and avoid to become part of Getty/iStock machinery. At least we need to have some opposition to them - So I am there!
I don't think its clear at all that istock exclusives make more than non-exclusives. Yuri obviously thought being non-exclusive was more lucrative up until his meeting with Getty. None of us know how much they offered him to go exclusive. I don't think he did it just on the maths and he has obviously done a deal, as he is the only exclusive to still have tens of thousands of images on several istock rival sites.
I'm sure exclusivity will suit some people but I think the best time to do it was a few years ago and now is probably the worst time.
I also think that the majority of Istock exclusives at MSG are high enders and (here by in large to speak on behalf of IS) skew the results. I would venture to guess that most GAP's (generally accepted photographers) exclusives just upload and don't actively participate in forum discussions. I see by in large that MSG in general has a wide breadth of contributors, from beginners to experienced, most of whom are not exclusive to IS. This is to say that I personally believe that the numbers in the polls are more accurate for non-exclusives than for exclusives simply because of the breadth of responders and number of data points. Just my opinion, of course.
Yup. I reckon that the IS exclusive figure could be quite skewed too by small numbers of large volume accounts.
434
« on: August 06, 2013, 19:11 »
Recently Fotolia has accepted everything I've uploaded to them. It's mostly studio work without people but also some outdoors stuff that SS rejected. One thing that seems to apply to my rejects at SS is that when they're rejected for whatever reason, there's no point in fixing those rejects with a note to the reviewer because then they get re-rejected for another reason!
435
« on: August 02, 2013, 18:46 »
Makes one realise that 30 million photo's in a collection is all a little relative (regarding CV).
436
« on: July 31, 2013, 18:00 »
Those photos are wildly overpriced. Strewth....that's what I thought too!
437
« on: July 25, 2013, 09:54 »
^ Yes, this is surely better, I have found that it costs around $ 125 - 150 if I have understood well.
And the adaptor rings around $ 25 - 30 each one
So about $ 250 - 300 to use it with 3 lenses
Sorry, I hadn't looked for the Sunpak on eBay. I bought mine locally from a Craig's List type site and it came complete in box with all the adapter rings 77mm, 67mm, 62mm and 58mm. I think I paid about $150 for it. Of course, if you buy just one 77mm Sunpak ring you can get the much cheaper stepdown adapters to fit any other lenses...as I have for 52mm lenses (50mm and 105mm micro-Nikkor).
438
« on: July 25, 2013, 04:58 »
The more I think of it the less I understand the reductions of prices. I don't know what research made "agencies" to come to this decision. They lose money as well.
Maybe I'm surrounded by weirdos but no client (and I don't work for rich corporations) has ever wanted to know price of image in advance. Sure, we have initial discussion: "I have to buy this image - this is only comp preview" "But I cannot afford to spend hundreds for image". "Don't be afraid, it's only few dollars." Period. Nobody wants to know how many dollars - one, three, seven - no one cares.
Those who need lot of images are subscribers, those who need few images a month really don't care if it's one or five dollars and the rest just steal images. At least in my personal experience.
As an occasional buyer for small businesses, I agree that the client doesn't care much what the image costs with the proviso that once the price rises above the high teens and when they need a few images, they would prefer a cheaper alternative. If I had to acquire, say, 20 images and the majority were priced at emerald contributor rate of 3X credits for an XL (18+ credits), then I would give serious consideration to a subscription package. Now, with this new policy, I might delve into the portfolios of selected contributors to see whether that contributor hadn't uploaded many near duplicates of the desired file. ( Everyone experiences this......if you upload say 10 similar from a series, one may become a good seller but the other 9 vanish into the pit, never to be seen again). If you can find an acceptable alternative the chances are that it will be priced at 3 for an XL instead of 18+. Maybe that's the thought behind the change but I'm probably over-thinking this as I'm 98% contributor and 2% buyer. I doubt that major buyers have the time for this sort of time-wasting! However, as a contributor to FT, these changes are simply further justification for a radical scorched port policy in my already limited portfolio. Remove everything that sells elsewhere but not at FT and remove any non-selling near duplicates of any good sellers. Performed sans mercy I could decimate my portfolio there by 90-95%.
439
« on: July 25, 2013, 04:08 »
Try searching for Sunpak DX-12R. It is a real ring flash with modelling lights that you turn on and stay on until the flash exposure is made. It is only for macro purposes with a GN of 12 (for people photography there are bigger, better and more expensive ones).
I have no idea if they are still made and if not, how desirable (and pricey) they are on eBay but it is an excellent macro ringflash.
440
« on: June 29, 2013, 09:31 »
It's only for people without such vices.
441
« on: June 29, 2013, 07:47 »
That's a big chunk to lose to make considering that FT sales are also a fraction of those on SS (for me anyway). You could always set up a second eu account and only feed new work into that. You're pretty active at adding new content so It wouldn't take long to get a few hundred there at eu. Don't know if I would run the risk of deleting from the USD account to place in the Euro account though. Ya never know what can happen there!!
I set one up some time ago and had a few sales but they quickly died off. Never reached payout and I've occasionally used accrued income to buy images for clients. Just didn't bother to add more images at a certain point as it went dead. I dunno but I had the distinct idea that the eu site wasn't really to be encouraged..........had one image that sold well in the first weeks but then seemed to get killed by some unknown mechanism and never sold again. Put it at SS and it's one of my best sellers........probably more to do with luck rather than anything else.
442
« on: June 29, 2013, 06:55 »
If you get paid out in US$ then for 50 credits, you get US$50. If you get paid out in GBP, then 50 credits means a payout of 0.75 X 50 = 37.50 = US$ 57.00. If you get paid in Euro, 50 credits = 50 is US$65.
So was right afterall
You are at double disadvantage being registered in the US and payout in USD when your spending currency is Euro. Is your $50 payout via Paypal around 36? If registered in the UK then it would be around 43 (post-Paypal) or the full whack of 50 if registered on eu.FT.
443
« on: June 29, 2013, 06:26 »
Click the link I posted
I assume your Fotolia account is bookmarked on your computer. If your url starts with en. fotolia.com, that's the UK site and payout is in 0.75GBP. If it starts with eu.fotolia.com, that's the English language Euro site and get paid in 'whole' Euro's. If it's fotolia.com payout is in 'whole' USD. (I'm only sure about the first two options and assume that the US site is fotolia.com).
444
« on: June 29, 2013, 06:08 »
If you get paid out in US$ then for 50 credits, you get US$50. If you get paid out in GBP, then 50 credits means a payout of 0.75 X 50 = 37.50 = US$ 57.00. If you get paid in Euro, 50 credits = 50 is US$65.
Any currency exchange through Paypal will incur around a 4-5% poorer exchange than given above. Therefore the 'best' payment to receive is that in an FT Euro account which you convert to US$ but the actual advantage after a balance transfer with Paypal will only be 25 -26%. (Exchange rate =$1.30 ie 30% more but Paypal takes 4-5%).
Of course, you're sort of on a double loser when you get paid out in US$ and have to convert to Euro; losing 30% on the dollar/Euro value and another 4-5% in the conversion.
When I joined FT, there was no English language Euro site option. I could have joined FT.de or FT.fr to get paid in Euro but then I would have had to understand the language in order to join. So I registered with FT.uk although I live in the Eurozone. My payout for 50 credits (37.50) from FT.uk usually works out at 42-43 after Paypal conversion and commission.
445
« on: June 28, 2013, 17:11 »
Actually, the best deal is a Euro account not GBP especially if you're in a Euro currency country.
The payout in GBP is NOT 50 but 50 credits and a credit in GBP is 0.75. So, if you get paid out 50 credits from FT UK you actually get 0.75 X50 = around 43 when the currency conversion is done through Paypal.
I don't know for certain but I thought that if you get paid out in Euro that you get 50 credits = 50.
446
« on: June 27, 2013, 04:59 »
If I were a buyer (which I am occasionally), I would first find the images I needed at a particular agency, calculate how many images I needed for a certain project and at what size I would need them. If I needed,say, 20 images at max size for print and the majority of images selected were priced at 3x basic credit (as at FT), then I would probably buy a month's subscription because it would be much cheaper than the 'on demand' option.
Whilst SS has a standard price for all its jpegs, that too can get expensive if you need 20+ images for print and a $200 sub for one month would be cheaper.
So simple economics and not the 'value' of an image will determine whether the sale goes down as a sub-sale or 'on demand'.
448
« on: June 22, 2013, 17:58 »
Another ancient thread 
Yep. Bin @ FT since 2008 and never a wait longer than 2 weeks (usually within one week).
449
« on: June 22, 2013, 11:50 »
OT and I didn't see the item on BBC World late last night/early this am but there was an item about Stocksy and their paying out 50% to contributors. No more info sorry.
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