In studio, 99.999% manual focus.  In the field it's situational and could go either way, depending on the subject and what I'm trying to achieve.  Either way, just be sure to check your diopter before beginning.  If you're like me, where your eyes change from day-to-day, that can make the difference between a nice clean image and garbage.

Quote from: Phillip Minnis on March 21, 2012, 18:49

Unfortunately, you can't request a payout from 123RF. 

If your sales total is $50.00 or more at the end of the month, they automatically pay the amount on the 15th of the following month.  Consequently, cashing out the funds is not an option. 

That didn't happen for me this month unfortunately.  The money was there but the payout didn't happen.  Anyone else experiencing delays?

Same for me.  I had well over $100 at the end of last month but no sign of any payout.

Currently eight including Alamy.  Three in the top tier, two in the middle tier and two in the low earners, plus Alamy.  Considering adding Deposit Photos.  Is DP worthwhile?

Quote from: cclapper on February 04, 2012, 17:15

Shady Sue (and others) bring up an excellent point. Keywording for IS is WAY different than keywording for SS. You will definitely need to go through and edit those.

The way he's keyworded these two particular files definitely wouldn't work at iStock. Both 'Herring Gull' and 'Marsh Marigold' are in the CV. What I don't know is whether SS has keyword phrases like that, or not, like Alamy (  )

Since SS doesn't have a CV, you can enter most anything that's relevant.  It's up to the reviewer to catch spam and such.  The trick is to enter it the way SS wants it to be entered.  If you enter "Herring Gull", with the quotation marks, in your IPTC, when uploaded, the SS system will break that into two words (dumb, but that's what it does).  When you are in the preparation window, selecting categories and such, you can type in the two or more word phrase, put the quotation marks back in and the system will accept the phrase.  It's often advisable to leave the two words split up, even though there may not be a herring in the image, as designers will often enter each word by itself (gull, herring).  As for scientific names, you don't want those split up.  Re-enter those with the quotation marks and delete the individual words.  Some other wording may be a judgement call as to how to enter, but at least you can go back in after the image has been accepted and add/delete keywords.  They used to review the image again when this was done, but I believe that is no longer the practice today.  Leaves open the danger of spamming the daylights out of an image, but whether or not that is actually happening I can't say.  Honor system ... what are your ethical standards?   

iStock resembles a red giant star in the final stages of collapse.   Shine bright and expand then sheds its content; then a cold core cinder remains at the center slowly cooling until there is nothing left.

More like a giant star that shines brightly, then collapses into a black hole (called Getty) that greedily tries to suck everything into its gaping maw.

I've several 19th century postage stamps in my portfolio on SS, IS and 123.  They aren't really big sellers, but do sell periodically.  Even had an EL on one on IS.  They were all shot with a 5D II on a black BG.  SS requires them to be submitted as editorial.  The others did not.  It's interesting how a couple become much more popular than the others, selling 5 to 10 times as often as the majority.

Quote from: lisafx on January 01, 2012, 18:23

Quote from: leaf on January 01, 2012, 13:27

Yeah, as long as you ticked the box (at the end of the survey) 'I took part in the 2011 Survey' you'll be entered in the draw

I tried.  I ticked the box and entered my info, but it kicked it back saying you already had that address on file.  Hope it works out.  Either way, the info is even more useful than the prize

yeah, me too.. I was wondering the same thing. 

Same for me.  I took the survey from the e-mail received, ticked the box at the end and got the same message as above.

Images reviewed and made the grade.  Many thanks to Alex and all the crew at 123.

Quote from: Herg on December 29, 2011, 02:00

So far I am finding my experience uploading to SS very positive. Ok, I had a few initial rejections but on the whole I am experiencing good results getting images into the collection, especially ones IS rejected over and over. I can't wait until I can flick the switch and get them all live to start earning. Only 15 days to go !

are the IS rejected shots being accepted by SS ?

Mine have been, almost universally.  And several have sold in the 100's and have had EL's.  The usual rejection at IS ... look too Photoshopped.  Another reason I stopped uploading to IS earlier this year.

Great.  E-mail just sent.

According to the site RFQ, images remain in the rejected file until removed by the contributor.  As I didn't delete them I don't know what happened.  Even the numbers don't reflect the missing images (submitted minus accepted equals 5, not 13).  I sent an e-mail to support to see if they have any suggestions.  With the holidays, I probably won't see a reply for a while so it's sit back an wait for now.  I've plenty of others to upload in the meantime.

This is the reply I received when asking about how long it took for a purchase to clear:

"It can take from 90 to 120 days for sales to clear.

Please be assured that alamy have a dedicated Credit Control department constantly working on outstanding payments, we pride ourselves on having an outstanding record of recovery.  In very few circumstances do we not receive the full amount of the payment."

The image I was questioning has been pending since 12 August.  That's 130 days as of today.  I'm just hoping the sales I had in November clear a bit faster.