Question for Clipcanvas "vets": Are sales recently really slow ?

THNXINADVANCE 

Not a vet but have been there a while and based on their sales I am surprised to find out they are still in business. Sales are non existent. I stopped uploading a few months ago.

Not worth the time.

Quote from: Zeus on March 01, 2013, 12:15

I find the number of views varies drastically from image to image when compared to the number of sales.

Me too but more views tells me the subject matter interests buyers.

If I get 500 views in a short period of time of a 747 landing but few purchases it tells me the subject is sought after which will motivate me to go out and get more creative/wait for better lighting etc.

Excellent point. The one exception to this is of pretty girls. There are some genuinely "weird" people out there. I get huge numbers of hits on young girls and no sales.

Quote from: Zeus on February 28, 2013, 18:43

Quote from: sharpshot on February 28, 2013, 17:31

Pond5 is the best by far for me.  Some clips take a year or two to sell.  I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now.  It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.

Sharpvid,  Your prices are way too low.

If I had a highly commercial portfolio, I'd price them higher but I don't think my clips are in high demand.  As Pond5 pay 50% commission, they don't need to be priced as high as the sites that pay 15 to 30%.

It doesn't need to be highly commercial to ask a decent price for your work. Early on I put some of my "simple and not too commercial clips" up for $10. They sold and later I re-priced them to $75 and they still sold. Except now of course for every sale I get 7.5X the amount per sale. I would say $30 to $40 should be the minimum for all HD clips 5 sec on longer. .i.e. all clips. You may not get as many sales but you will get more money in pocket and you will keep prices strong so that you can get the appropriate value out of your more commercial work. Don't kid yourself. Lot's of my clips are barely considered commercial but still sell for $50 to $75.

What I'm seeing is promising or at least hopeful returns from SS and P5 and even the occasional sale from iS for videos but Revostock has left the building. I haven't had a sale there for 2 months. That's pretty darn bad when compared to other sites. Actually it's pathetic.

I owned both at one time. I sold the 24-70.

To me, this is analogous to the knock on the door late at night. It doesn't matter if the individual is well liked or not, subversive or not. The fact that it happened is very disturbing.

99999/1000000 no one will likely care. The other time becomes a gong show with mostly lawyers invited to the party.

177 deleted today. What's bothersome is I am 100% sure I had deleted some of these in the past. Perhaps a year or more ago.

Funny Zeus, and you could make a toasted cheese sandwich at the same time to did the shoot? 

Grilled cheese sandwiches or you can open your own gyro stand and shoot passport photos on the side.

Ring flashes are often used in macro, so you can raise your aperture from 5,6 to 16 and such get a better dof.
BUT with the better dof of the ring flash also comes a flat and too even light. And with macro, shadows are important, to enhance details like scales or hairs, so the ring flash is both a curse and a deliberance.

There are people who have blinded parts of the flash to control the shadows.
They are � succesfull, but still the light comes from the camera and not from above or from the side, and that is impossible to do anything about.

I would say a ring flash is only meaningfull as a fill light as long as the main lights are quite a bit stronger.

This is what makes photography an art. Although what you say has total merit, I totally disagree. I always thought ring flash results look best when it's used  on camera as the principle light source. Usually against a flat background to show those cool looking shadows.

I made one once using a set of six par30 lights in a hexagonal pattern mounted on a piece of plywood. It works quite well and of course can be used for video but usually the subject can't look at it, it's just too bright. Plus there is a chance you can burn someone (especially yourself) quite badly.

Quote from: Michael Lancaster on January 16, 2013, 08:48

I am not supporting the Getty deal but let face it: today a "thief" can find almost any best seller with the google image search function at a reasonable size.

Here's the problem.  These images aren't just being marketed to "thieves".  They are being marketed to design pros as acceptable content they can legally license for FREE to use in commercial applications.  These aren't thieves, they are our legitimate customers!

It is a form of auto-immune disease.