Quote from: Xanox on April 29, 2013, 01:37

actually 85mm F1.4 and 105mm F1.4 are the professional choice for portraiture, F2.8 zoom lenses are ok for random stuff, travel, and weddings.

or at least that's the marketing mantra, i even sold a few portraits shot in F8 with crap lenses and bad light, in the end it's really all about the image, buyers just dont care which lens you used.

all this technical talk about using F1.4 primes holds true for corporate portraits and wedding in my opinion, for anything else we're free to debate forever about the pros and cons.

When I was in school so many years ago we called the 85mm a short portrait, the 100mm the med. portrait and the 135mm the long portrait. But we were also taught to use a 200 to 300mm to shoot tight portraits, it created graphic compression, the nose is made smaller and the eyes larger.

so true, versus seeing so many tout the 50mm as the "allrounder" but all it does it create horse face portraits IMHO.
what student can ever afford a 200-300mm lens? my teacher had a 400mm prime that he let me borrow once for a class shoot, I was waay back and had to keep asking everyone to move out of my shot. crazy heavy, would only use with a tripod.

I did a test one and it went through ok.

Quote from: stockastic on April 27, 2013, 12:00

A few weeks ago I got the DT 'email of death' on a photo that had just sold as an EL on SS a couple of days earlier.   I'm not giving DT anything.

Exactly.  These sites by in large already are making big bucks off of us and I see no reason to help them further that by giving them free images even if those images don't sell well anywhere.

sweet, so while you are helping them fill out the free section, I won't.  I don't disagree with the idea of the free section, it's that if all of us contribute we could probably make an entire stock library with our castoffs.  Agree, a somewhat low quality library... and if you look in the free section there is a lot of junk there, so i suppose it can have the added bonus of sending a buyer to make a purchase of something good. maybe. it's a risk that we take, not DT.

i've got 10 editorial in the queue at SS. seriously, between the different requirements of iS, DT and SS i find editorial to be a bit of a PITA. unless it was Wills and Kate I'm thinking it's not worth it?

Quote from: gillian on April 14, 2013, 01:52

remembering of course that this is an American ruling. We are heading into different times now where a global company like FB can impose USA rules of the entire planet (ie, the no 13 year old "law").

Hasn't France tried to rule out street photography too?

Nope. More strict rules, yes. More lenient rules, no. Every country has its own laws, and if a US company wants to operate in that country, they would have to abide by the laws in that country. So maybe the 13 yr old rule is accepted elsewhere, but if they tried to be more lenient it wouldnt fly.

Look at Microsoft, they got fined by Europe for not following EU laws on offering more browsers in their software. Fined $732 Million Over Antitrust Law

my point was that due to an american law about not being allowed to collect info from under 13s most websites globally have had to adopt this rule, even though local jurisdictions haven't the same law (I think ours is 18!!).

If I use FB am i operating in US territory? Well I'd say no, because 1)I'm sitting here in Australia and 2) I'm not allowed to access some content that is US only. Ditto for iTunes. Yet the American "no under 13s" rule applies to us all, and most people love to tout that "the legal age for facebook is 13" even though it's not true, the legal age for an american company to collect info from a person is 13+. I don't think American companies try to abide by local laws, I think they try to railroad and change local laws to their way (surely we all want to be like "the land of the free"?) I'm not trying to turn this into an anti-US rant, I'm just pointing out that laws are way behind the ever-changing global online world. (unless you're in China)

on a different note, but similar subject. I am amazed by the technical quality of the average professional stock photographer. Way higher than in my original field (events, people, design). competition drives quality. But since it was mentioned before, I sense a lack of humanity and authenticity. (compared with the level of technical quality). Images that really grab the viewer emotionally. Is that just my perception or a result of business logic?

[speaking as a newbie, only 1 year in]

I think this is due in part to the high technical standards of places like iStock, which force us all into 'safe' territory with regard to exposure, composition and so forth. It's very like my days at college, where creativity came second to technical perfection. A brilliant shot that captured the moment and made you smile came second place to something that had better technical skill or - worse - was "arty". ugh! Out in the real world of magazines, newspapers and other publications the reverse is true. They really don't care/can't tell if you shoot at ISO640 and the colour cast if off a touch, so long as the moment is good. Anyone noticed the pics of celebs that DT has been featuring lately? Hardly brilliant photos are they? But if it's Kate and Wills, who cares if your focus is in the right spot and you use an on camera flash?

Having said that there are plenty of different sites that have different standards, and places like Stocksy are certainly veering away from "bland blonde perfection" that has been so popular at other agencies. SS is launching Offset which will probably be similar, and iS have their own version (but we shant talk about them too much, they're still in our bad books).

edit: sp and grammar

^ cool, thanks, that was easy and i like the extra info.

that is true, although I do get to do what I love, and then I get to work from home in casual clothes, no shoes, no make up, messy hair, endless coffee breaks, and dont' have to tolerate other people..... unless I come in here

I'm up to 19th, tell me we aren't done
iS are in 4th spot for me for March.

I just got my last lot through, 7 days, 100% through. let's hope they are on top of it again.

just had a batch of 12 editorials reviewed and rejected in under 24hrs. I can't get the hang of their captioning system.

Quote from: gillian on April 25, 2013, 20:07

ah well if that works for you.... go for it.
but i'm not about to pay for another program to do something Bridge does for me, and makes no sense to my workflow.

you need to read before posting, its freeware

oh but I did indeed read

XnView is provided as FREEWARE (NO Adware, NO Spyware) for private or educational use (including non-profit organizations).
If you enjoy using XnView, Don't hesitate to help the developer with a small donation.

that's not how i read that. I see they also say "If you intend to use XnView in a company, you should purchase a license." I guess it depends on how grey your "running a business Vs being an incorporated company" definition is. Forgive me, but aren't we all in the business of paying artists fairly for their work?

Also, I don't see a MAC version.........

but it's a moot point, I use Bridge. what's weird annoyingis that in Bridge they aren't alphabetical, but they land in Fotolia alphabetically!