But what really discourages me is that I was making more money on SS in March - with 20 images - than I am now, with 100.

Well maybe your first 20 images were the most saleable? Your portfolio is still tiny and therefore sales are bound to be less stable than with a portfolio of a few thousand. I'm on target to sell a few more this month than I did in March but during which time my portfolio has grown from about 3100 - 3500.

I wouldn't disagree that it is getting tougher though __ much tougher. When you have 90K new images coming on-line every week then there's going to be a lot of competition for sales and only the very best images will get noticed. Quality is becoming everything, volume is pointless unless the quality is there.

Interesting. Thanks for that. Leicaman is correct to some extent in that the obscure stuff hardly exists on microstock but that because it is less easy to get accepted (as in 'Not stock oriented') and if it is then it won't sell in the volumes necessary to make it worthwhile.

If you want to buy a popular new book/CD for example then you'll probably find it cheapest at your local supermarket but if you want something older or more obscure then you'll need to find a specialist shop with more stock but much higher prices to reflect the slower turnover.

I'd imagine the microstock libraries cater extremely well and cost-effectively for 90%+ of all stock image needs.

you'll need to read his earlier posts.

Thanks __ my tongue was firmly in my cheek. I was pointing out that he's overstated his case about 45x both here and on the DT forums over the last couple of weeks and yet is still going.

I see what you mean about Antoniomp. I'd seen him before and wondered how he was getting away with such an absurd amount of 'similars'. Now we know.

There's absolutely no way that I could get 18 images of the same plate of pasta accepted or 21 images of tomatoes stuffed with tuna, etc, etc (not that I'd want to as it is a pointless waste of time). I struggle sometimes just to get a horizontal and vertical version of the same shoot accepted and yet my 'Downloads per image figure' is nearly 20x that of Antoniomp. Hmm.

Interesting. Moneybookers appear to have a significantly better exchange rate than Paypal (and it's much easier to find it out too).

gostwyck, B&H has a 5D for $1249.00, used. The description says   Item Condition : 9   Shows signs of use, but very clean
 Additional Comments:  IN BOX

Does that sound like a good thing? Also, all my lenses are EF not EF-S, so a change to 5D would work.

Ah, no __ EF-S lenses won't work with the 5D unless they are 'modified'. There's a very good explanation of the issue and how to overcome it here;

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/efs-10d.html

I'd say $1249 is on the high side for a secondhand 5D but that's because it is from a shop. I'd expect to get a significantly better deal on eBay. There are always lots of hobbyists that must have the latest model so keep selling off their barely-used gear.

Maybe one day you could stretch to the 24-70mmL? In my view that lens is made for what I do (very similar to yourself) and probably accounts for 99.5% of all the shots I take. I couldn't be without it. I consider camera bodies to be almost disposable whereas good glass is forever.

I haven't tried the 50D Cathy but I think you should seriously consider a second-hand 5D instead which would probably be cheaper.

The 5D is virtually noise-free (much better than my 1Ds MkIII) has a full-frame sensor, only marginally fewer pixels than the 50D and feels lovely in the hand. I really wish I hadn't sold mine when I upgraded.

It would be a massive step-up in quality and crop-ability from your Rebel-XT too.

I'd agree with the Big 4+2 although the way things are going at DT I really wonder how long they'll be classified within the Big 4.

Static sales, ridiculous default sort-order, plummetting RPD (this month lowest since Jul 08) and silly 'too many' rejections do not give me much confidence for the future.

Agreed, you can emit smoke signals and bonk your head with a stick, as long as it makes general sense, grammar school be damned.

Grammar is not the issue __ it's punctuation. Basic punctuation exists to make the text understandable to the reader. Most six-year olds know how to denote the beginning and the end of a sentence in their native language.

Sorry but I'm with Suljo. Writing stuff like that is just plain lazy and inconsiderate to the reader (as well as being one of my pet hates). If you're asking for help then at least try to make it easy for people to understand you.

Well, if there is any merging I just hope that DT swallows FT and not the other way around.

No chance of that happening I think. FT are possibly nearly twice the turnover of DT already and the gap is widening on a monthly basis. Also didn't FT recently get a $100M 'investment' too? That's acquisition-sized funding.

Thinking about it, if you happened to own an established agency and you wanted to get the best price when selling it, then it would help if you could do something to rapidly boost profits.  Of course reducing the commissions paid to contributors would do very nicely if you could get away with it. Hmm.

The news is indeed big but I simply can't understand why SS has done that.

With both sites being non-exclusive I don't expect BigStock to add big (if any) value to SS collection.

Speaking about credit-based sales I can't believe that buying an existing established business and integrating it with the SS is any cheaper than to design a piece of interface at SS.

Customer base? But it must be several times smaller in BSB than what SS has...

So what's the catch?

I was going to point out that BigStock already has a decent customer base __ but then, after a quick check of the numbers, I've realised that I actually make 2-3x more per month from OD sales at SS than I do from BigStock. If the OD sales at SS were a seperate agency then they'd already be more than twice the size of BigStock.

What is not good, and I base this in what has happened in the macro market, is too much amalgamation of the big players. It does not serve the photographer well at all.

Good point but I don't think we're at danger levels yet. There are still 4 distinct major players in IS, SS, DT and FT and we also have Veer (Corbis) trying to muscle in on micro too. It's probably only a matter of time before Alamy comes to the party too __ either by choice or the lack of.