Quote from: nicku on August 08, 2012, 00:53

Quote from: ShadySue on August 07, 2012, 17:11

I'm getting very nervous now. 0 on Sat; 0 on Sun, 1 yesterday, 0 today.
I'm trying to believe it's the Olympics, but I was out and about today and it seems to be 'business as usual'.
It's much worse than previous Augusts, so I don't think it's just that a lot of countries have their holidays now.
 

Or maybe is just IS.... going down month by month.

Clearly, that's the fear.

Nobody really knows though.
I had a bad July. Last week was pretty bad too, not disastrous, just below average.
This week looks back to slightly better than normal. (Ignoring the couple of ELs I've had which are making it look really good at the moment
The Summer slump looks like it's been more pronounced this year, and I don't like the seeming lack of stability with results going up and down in a seemingly random way day to day.

Quote from: JPSDK on July 26, 2012, 13:14

Thats is right, what click says. The man with the machine has potential. You could do a series on that. Different compositions, different DOF, but remember, keep the main topic of your frame in focus.

True, it would make a good series, but for application you need to show different stuff - different compositions, dof of the same probably won't cut it, (unless they allow that with people shots?).

You're right AFAIK. Three different types of shot of three different subjects are needed. As already said, forget isolations. You're way off the mark anyway. Forget shooting random stuff too. Shoot for stock.

Yes, great images but no one will be able to make any real comment without seeing a couple of them full sized. (watermarked for safety if you do)
There's no exif with them, but if your friend shot them just as jpegs on the 350D using full auto, with the light levels in most of these shots they will be noisy by today's standards.
 

My present Dollar bin files are in the PP, so I'd assume that will carry on. The last time they put files in there it was (IIRC) files that had gone for two years without a sale. This time they have said somewhere on the thread about the changes that it will be a longer time without a sale.

Before the last ingestion (and that was way back) files put in the dollar bin had a month to sell, and were deactivated if they didn't. Again they said they'd be looking at that type of option. 

There's a Greasemonkey script for Firefox here
http://www.bullersofbuchan.me.uk/istockphoto/stuff/is_myuploads_adddata_pp.user.js
Written by Gannet 77
That adds the last three sales in an extra column on the PP page.

I've had the maximum allowable age wise for me in the pp for some time now. Haven't really seen any vast downturn in iStock sales (well up until July so far!) and have had a useful amount of extra money off it. I'm fairly sure it's a different market, from my POV as an exclusive an extra market, although I know everyone doesn't agree.

Im thinking from another angle here. How great is the everlasting demand for these type of glossy model people shots. I know that in the Getty-RM, the demand is OK, but nothing as great as it seems in micro.
I know that back in  the early 90s, I was shooting brokers/dealers, with wide braces, Yuppies, by the thousands and they sold like crazy, especiually during the big-bang!  however as soon as a minor depression and what-nots threatened,  it was a big fat no go and these depressions seem to come more often nowdays.

We'd better start shooting guys with a tin cup and the soles hanging off their boots While we're standing in the soup queue!
"Buddy can you spare a dime"
I'm not really joking though. . .
No doubt that "look" of his, has made a lot of money. Whether that's forever or not is, as you say a different matter. And big ships take a long time to answer the helm. . .

Quote from: anc on July 16, 2012, 11:29

...I also can't help thinking to myself if he had not kept investing back into his photography, hiring staff, etc. then maybe he wouldnt be the microstock giant he is today.

PeopleImages might not have come around etc...

Depends on how you define "microstock giant." Yuri says in that interview that he "was earning the income of a plastic surgeon within the first year." That's a giant of the business by pretty much any standard, I think. And that was back when he didn't have the big staff, the huge overhead, etc.

At some point I think Yuri could have just shifted into a casual shooting mode and maintained a pretty easy million dollar annual income without all of the overhead. Or he could do exactly that now. Close the business, and just enjoy the royalties for many years to come. Why doesn't he?

I hate to say it, but I think that at least part of his motivation has to do with fame. He would do better financially on his own, without the big business overhead and 100 staff to pay. So the only reason I can think of as to why he'd do all of this is more about building his name, becoming even more well-known, and maybe creating some sort of lasting legacy as the guy who went from nothing to the biggest name in the business, and then possibly changed the very business itself.

Fame with who though? Microstock people? That's hardly going to make him a household name.
If it was me, I'd be worried about the overheads. He obviously has plenty of turnover, but he also seems to have plenty of costs.
Turnover is nothing really. The only figure that matters is the bottom line after all the expenses have been taken out.

The pills are coming close, at least the white background is clean now, but there's still too much shadow IMO and dirt/dust in the shadow and on the bottle. It's overexposed due to the way you're doing isolation as well. It's not as simple to get right as you may think.

While that one is an overdone stock subject, the others aren't really stock at all as they are. Food need to look appetising, brown cup's at a strange angle, white balance is off, brown unappealing background, objects on white need to show a white reflection, don't cut bits off, the lighting needs to be "right" The list is endless really.

You need to actually look at the subject. First with your eyes, and then through the viewfinder. Does this look good? Is it clean? Is the food fresh? Does this object go with that object?

You need to get the lighting right. You can do that with daylight or table lamps and reflectors. No hard edged shadows or (at least minimal) blown areas.

Finally when you have some good photographs, you need a variety of subjects for your application. The usual advice is a portrait  of a person (preferably doing something), a still life and a landscape.

IMO at your stage doing isolations is just adding another layer of difficulty.

There really is nothing "easy" about any of this stock photography business. Especially when trying to learn.

With these images though I'm afraid you are still a way off. You need to learn some more about photography both technically and artistically. Really look at what is used in magazines and on the web.

Quote from: Difydave on July 09, 2012, 10:05

I'd agree with heywoody. Far as I can see "Client saw that concept" is commercial use.
The "client" as far as we're concerned is the person who bought a license, not their own prospective clients. What they choose to do with it is up to them.

iStock apparently accepts 'client went with different image' as a refund excuse. What other reasons could there be other than 'accidentally downloaded two copies of the file' (it has happened to me, in the days they gave you reasons for refunds) or that they 'want to buy a bigger one', which has also happened to me, and as Sean and others have mentioned, should be made easy to do on the site.
I'm sure 'they' allow a much bigger range of refund reasons than 'we' would, to keep the customers happy. Otherwise, why would people get refunds after months, which usually isn't even allowed with a perfectly sealed up (i.e. demonstrably unused) product from a physical shop?

Yeah, I've seen the "client went with different image" thing I've just never seen it was fair to the contributors.
As has been said many times in the iStock forum, I really don't mind people having a refund if there is a genuine reason (and I can see that their ideas on "genuine" might differ from ours but all else aside the length of time these are allowed is not on IMO.
(I think it was you who asked for this ages ago) It would be good if all the licenses and T&C were given in plain English, and updated to cover new eventualities as they came up. Sometimes seems like it gets made up as things go along. 

You can set a custom white balance in camera, using either a sheet of white paper, or (preferably) a grey card. Saves the processing. Or shoot a sheet of white paper/grey card on auto WB and use that to process the WB of all your images in PS.

The isolation won't pass inspection. You have blobs of stuff all over the place, and dirt in the shadow. Some drop shadow is acceptable, this is too much IMO.

Again listen to what's being said here, why would anyone buy an image of this boat? Think about what you're shooting and don't get bogged down with your favourite subjects.

Personally, unless you really know what you're doing, I'd steer away from isolations for application shots. A non-isolated shot will do for a still life. Showing some sort of "story" would help, for (not a very good) instance a seaman's cap on a table with (a different little model boat.

You're already showing improvement though. Keep trying!

I'm assuming you haven't been accepted as a contributor yet. Sorry to say it, but looking at what you've posted here. I wouldn't spend money on equipment at this stage if I were you just in the hope of future earnings.

As already said nothing wrong with the 550d, or the kit lens, at least to start with. Learn to use it properly before spending any more money. Forget "full auto" use ISO 100 wherever possible, either manual exposure, or aperture priority for non, or slow moving objects, spot metering on the subject,  Single point focus so you know where the focus on the image is. Learn about aperture and DOF, learn what shutter speed will "stop" movement. If you're using the tripod, use either the cameras timer, or get a cheap wired remote off ebay.

Use ambient light from a North facing window (if possible) for still life shots you can also use reflected light from table lamps or similar. Don't mix lighting of different colour spectrums (ie incandescent and fluorescent). Use reflectors made from foam core to get the light where you want it.

Learn first.

When you've been accepted, got some images in your PF and actually made some money, then is the time to spend money if you actually need to.

As lagereek has already said, being a good photographer isn't about having the most gear.
 
 

There's loads on the net about this. Most cheap inverters produce a square wave, instead of a proper sine wave. I wouldn't want to plug any electronic gear into that. It could cause damage.
A so called "leisure  battery" is better than a car battery as it's designed to be "deep cycled" that is more or less fully discharged before being recharged.