|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - klsbear
Pages: 1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 [21] 22 23 24 25 26
501
« on: December 18, 2011, 22:38 »
I have the Elinchrom D-Lite 4 set and I've been very happy with it. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to studio lighting and I've had no problems with it - very easy to set up and use, sturdy stands and it integrates with almost all of the other Elinchrom items so when I'm ready to expand I won't be left with something I can't use. I have a former co-worker that went pro with his photo work and he's a big fan of Elinchrom. I think he's using the BX line. After about a year of using them with no problems I'd definately recommend them.
Cool thanks. Do you have the Skyport and if so do you like it?
Yes, the kit came with a Skyport and it works just fine - I just had to open the box, set it up and a half hour later I was ready to shoot without having to get anything extra. I shoot a lot of food shots, smaller tabletop images, etc., so this set works for me since I haven't yet needed more power. It's worked consistantly from day one. I would have gone for the BX line but it just wasn't in the budget and knowing I could add to the set was a big plus.
502
« on: December 18, 2011, 19:04 »
I have the Elinchrom D-Lite 4 set and I've been very happy with it. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to studio lighting and I've had no problems with it - very easy to set up and use, sturdy stands and it integrates with almost all of the other Elinchrom items so when I'm ready to expand I won't be left with something I can't use. I have a former co-worker that went pro with his photo work and he's a big fan of Elinchrom. I think he's using the BX line. After about a year of using them with no problems I'd definately recommend them.
503
« on: December 02, 2011, 18:23 »
I wonder how it is that some of us have stats up to 26th Nov and some haven't any for the whole of Nov.
I think it's her terminology that's confusing. The update is for the Last DL column on the My Uploads detail page. I'm now showing lastest DL through Nov. 26 instead of the previous Nov. 1. My profile stats page has always had the bar graph showing up to the 26th, just nothing after that on the Royalties or DL's graphs, only the DL by file type would show increased count.
504
« on: November 30, 2011, 19:52 »
I just went through something simlar at DT - $0.36 short of payout and I was just sure I'd get a sub sale for $0.35. But luck was on my side - got a 4 credit sale that put me over the top. So I'm handing off my lucky payout gnome to you for the rest of the month. Good luck in getting that last sale, and may it be a EL just for good measure.
505
« on: November 27, 2011, 18:48 »
I can picture the November sales tread now - everyone will be posting that they have no idea what their November sales are because the but still isn't fixed and the numbers are jumping all over the place and they haven't received their e-mail telling them what the adjusted amounts are for the timeframe with the lower commission rate.
506
« on: November 26, 2011, 21:39 »
I can't say I'm surprised, but I think it is a disgrace that a whole week has gone by with no e-mail follow up on the missing royalties from the time when all sales (we hope!) were being recorded with the minimums. I would have liked the money and the accounting by now, but at the very least a mass e-mailing to contributors apologizing for the delay and giving a deadline by which the payments will be made.
I suspect that their internal systems are so inept that it isn't trivial to do the mass e-mail and they don't know when they'll make the payment because their tangle of script-running catchup procedures is a mess too. So they tweet things and ignore the forums and hope. Not good.
Lobo had an "update" with no real news this afternoon. Basically said that they were working on it and it was a lot of data and he thought maybe by the end of next week they would have things back in order. Not specifically indicating that there would be an e-mail accounting by that time though, seemed to be talking more about restoring the online data that's visible to us all.
507
« on: November 20, 2011, 16:43 »
Lobo is already setting us up for the delay in hitting the promised deadline that seem to be the status quo at IS. Maybe they are working on it over the weekend and finding it's a bigger mess than expected. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337113&page=1#post6532493We will have more clarity provided early in next week. I'm hoping we can resolve things for Monday but you can never be sure.
Rest assured it will be resolved as quickly as possible.
Thanks.
508
« on: November 19, 2011, 13:52 »
After 100+ comments, You-Know-Who finally weighs in with his usual elementary school principal snarkiness and closes the topic and remind us it's the weekend. Wait til Monday. Right...Monday...beginning of a holiday week.
Everyone on the IS forums should just move their comments over to Twitter - he can't ban them there. Just occured to me to wonder if the credit levels to purchase images has reset too. Has anyone checked to see if the images of top contributors are still at the higher royalty or if the credits to purchase have reset too?
509
« on: November 09, 2011, 07:39 »
Last week was slower than I expected after having a strong October but I'm starting to see things pick up now this week.
510
« on: October 30, 2011, 15:24 »
They're my #4 earner this month but miles ahead of FT when it comes to income. 123 gave me 3 times the earnings despite having one less DL than FT.
511
« on: October 29, 2011, 09:22 »
It's also highly subjective when it comes to images illustrating a concept. I had an extended e-mail discussion regarding a request to expand on the range of options for disambiguation on a word based on my experience from other sites where you can see what word or words were used to search for the image. It was ultimately denied and consequently those photos are downloaded much less often at IS.
512
« on: October 25, 2011, 19:22 »
I've had the opposite experience this month at DT - almost all credit sales with an average RPD this month of $1.45. I'm non-exclusive and most photos are still at the lowest level so while it's small potatoes for those with more experience, it's been a nice jump for me this month. FT on the other hand has been dismal. I've had better credit sales there in the past, but this month it's almost all sub sales paying a whopping $0.18 each. My one credit sale brought me a very nice $0.14 for the image. 11 sales this month and I haven't even topped $2.00 
513
« on: October 22, 2011, 08:26 »
That's what I was afraid of. And no-one seems to be getting replies from support these days either. AND it's the weekend... At least it's not the last day of the month. I would hope that they would send a response to e-mail if a password was changed though.
Edit to add THANKS FOR CHECKIN MANTIS, my bad manners!
I changed my password at SS recently and I did get an e-mail saying it had been changed and to contact suppport if I was not the one initiating the change so they do have a notification system in place.
514
« on: October 16, 2011, 11:19 »
Sales are slow for me but I usually get something each month and the upload process is easy so I've continued to upload. I only have about 200 images so I know I need to greatly increase my portfolio before I see more. I also do a lot of food shots and when I look at the Recently Sold photo stream I can see that the buyers at CanStockPhoto are leaning towards more business and lifestyle shots so I know that my downloads will be lower until I expand to additional niches beyond food.
515
« on: October 15, 2011, 13:37 »
My experience with Snapfish is that it's mostly a site where you can upload snapshots of your kids, personal photos, etc. to make photo-gifts, mugs, posters, calendars, etc. I've used it to make a small quantity of text-based themed mugs for my husband's business and coffee mugs for a freiend with pics of their puppies and photo-calendars for my parents. I can't see it being a lucrative site for stock. I think the majority of customers are using their own photos.
516
« on: October 10, 2011, 19:39 »
I saw a big bump at IS last month but it's slowed down again. SS is on the slow side of normal for me. Activity at FT is a bit more than usual but it's all subs and as a lowly white level contributor that gets me a whopping $0.18 each - oh, I did have one XS credit sale - an underwhelming $0.14 on that one. Fast becoming the "why do I bother" site for uploads - at this rate I'll hit the next level and still won't have my first cash-out. DT, on the otherhand, has been a pleasant suprise this month - several larger-sized credit sales. All the others are on the slow side of average.
517
« on: October 02, 2011, 17:46 »
YTD my sales at FT and 123 are just about the same with 123 ahead by a few dollars but if you look at just the last 3 months, 123 is more than double the sales I've been getting at FT. RPD at FT is just $0.35 for those three months whereas RPD for 123 over the same timeframe is $0.87. I've seen a definate trend of one site moving down and the other moving up over the past few months.
518
« on: October 02, 2011, 11:49 »
Take my stats with a grain of salt... I have a small portfolio and don't have last year stats to compare same month growth.
This month was a good increase in sales over last month.
IS was 49% of my sales followed by SS at 30% - first time that IS surpassed SS which is usally ahead despite the lower RPD.
123 has beat FT in sales for the last 3 months and has been right up there with DT as they swap off 3rd or 4th place from month to month.
With all the discussion surrounding low commissions I've been watching RPD closely. The increasing number of subs at FT (giving me a whopping .18 per DL) has cut their RPD from .40 to .38 calculating all-time averages so I expect it will continue to drop if the subs continue at their current level.
IS was a nice increase from .95 to 1.01 RPD - lets see how the migration to partner programs changes that in the next few months.
123 comes in at a health .80 RPD - looking forward to continued growth at this site.
519
« on: September 29, 2011, 20:47 »
I think it would be a much more sensible policy to make us tick a box for new images to declare if we have them on lower priced sites. Those that are on lower priced sites could have a lower price. That's the only solution that would interest me, going back to white for my entire portfolio would just lead to me reluctantly terminating my FT account.
Look at the terminology used in the first line of their terms (below in bold). It really doesn't matter if it's the same image or not. You could be selling Business images with models on one site, and uploading Food shots to the "Site That Must Not Be Named" and they would still bust you down to white because you're willing to distribute any image you create at another site. That doesn't sound like a site worried about competing images at varying prices, that sounds like an effort to shut down a competitor by trying to coerce others from supplying any goods to them, as well as trying to grab as much profit from the suppliers as they can during the battle. "If Fotolia becomes aware that a contributor is distributing any images, vectors or videos (the Works) through another stock agency or website (regardless of whether such Works are the same as the Works being distributed through Fotolia),..."
520
« on: September 27, 2011, 20:27 »
They've been growing for me too - in the #3 spot for the past few months.
521
« on: September 24, 2011, 17:18 »
I don't think it makes much sense that FT complains about other sites, given they are among the lowest commissions we get.
That's exactly what I've been thinking. I'm realtively new there, still at white, just a few DL's from bronze, but their EL's are for white level contributors are substantially lower than SS. If they are so concerned about parity maybe they should be raising their entry level EL's to match SS - they don't seem to have any guilt over undercutting other sites but they're right there to squawk if someone does it to them. This latest announcement is certainly not incentive to try and get to higher levels with them. I noticed too that they state if any contributor is participating in one of the anonymous offending sites regardless of whether or not it's the same images you're at risk of getting slapped back down to white level, so even if you post different images to the sites they may still come after you.
522
« on: September 17, 2011, 11:29 »
I think they have a check box on upload giving them permission to upload to the free section if rejected. It used to be blank as a default and you had to choose it if you wanted rejected images to go to the free section. Perhaps they changed the default to be checked, automatically giving permission or changed the question so you have to check it to keep them out of the free section. I'll be watching that closely if and when I upload there again. FT is definately at the bottom of my pile for RPD and it's getting lower.
523
« on: September 17, 2011, 09:11 »
"The issue of the million dollar treatment mention by some is a red herring. Sure, a very minimal number of such cases would occur, but the vast majority of individual treatment costs would not come near that."
Minimal? At the least, we are a nation of obese people, racking up treatments for diabetes, heart transplants, bypass surgeries. Smoking, cancers, AIDS.... It's easy to pile up the bills.
And unfortunately there are too many people here that would rather just take a pill for it than treat the root cause. A lot of those treatments could be made unnecessary if the patient would just lose weight, stop smoking, etc. Seeing how well our government is managing medicaid fraud, social security, welfare, etc. makes me very reluctant to let them start managing my health care.
524
« on: September 14, 2011, 12:08 »
Move to Canada... It's cheaper here 
Of course you could end up paying in other ways too. When I was diagnosed with a condition that required surgery I was able to get that scheduled within 2 weeks. Canadians on a forum for those suffering from the same condition were waiting about 8 months to get approved to get the surgery. Some from England had been waiting over a year and had still not been approved for the surgery. I've rather pay and have quick access than wait forever for government approvals on my health needs.
525
« on: September 05, 2011, 19:19 »
I was under the impression that the brainstorming covered all aspects of their business such as new ideas on analytic tools, innovative marketing, maybe a killer search methodology that none of us have even dreamed of, but some programmer is envisioning based on his knowledge of new database technology. Did anyone see what the winning idea was that was supposed to be posted on the giant NASDAQ screen in Times Square?
Pages: 1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 [21] 22 23 24 25 26
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
