My advice would be to get the 20D (or even a 30D) over the 400D. One advantage is having the thumbwheel on the back, to change aperture and exposure compensation. You might well prefer the bigger body too.

I have lent money to 8 people now, having seen the thread here. It's a great way to lend money directly to people who need it. So much Aid from the West gets mis-used and I think the microloans method is the best way of helping people help themselves out of poverty.

The first three families I lent to are already paying back their loans.

Quote from: sueC on December 02, 2007, 21:41
Used to be istock but to be honest loosing heart over there  so it is now about the last place I upload and check these days

Me too. After a shoot I normally ftp everything to FT, DT, BS, CS, SX, AL and then upload 20 images at a time to SS. Once they are approved - upload again.

When I can be bothered, I upload to IS.

My sales have been terrible for November and this new best match has only made things worse. I guess I am a niche shooter (people - mainly Asians) and to only have 2 images show up in first 100 on a search like "Asian Woman Business" is going to restrict. On the searches I have tried, I get images in the first 100 normally but they are not my best images so I see two problems.

1. How is the current best match working?
2. The restriction of 2 images per photographer.

Solutions...haven't really had time to think about it but one solution could be to allow a proportionate number to the size of portfolio, or the no. of files in portfolio with those keywords.

I am worried about this...although the way IS has been going for me since they first changed the best match, I am not surprised and am glad that other agencies still beat IS for income each month.

I absolutely LOVE Lightroom and it has quickly become an essential part of my digital workflow. Admittedly, it really comes into it's own for studio work, where many changes can be made globally - it's also great for keywording batches of similar images.

My only gripe is that it is slow to export as jpegs, especially when re-sizing. Apart from that, just love it!

Please please please upgrade the MRF to allow us to attach more than one!

Site is getting faster all the time and sales are picking up to levels before V2. I have always had a soft spot for FT and now upload quite a bit of exclusive stuff for them. I like having the option of setting my own prices for the exclusive stuff.

I have a lot of images on Shotshop as I was contacted by the owner and asked to send pictures on CD. They did all the keywording in German for me. Had some good sales figures at the beginning but it's slowed dramatically now. Haven't sent them anything for a while but if you are interested, it might be worth emailing them as they do speak English.

Since I live in Singapore and a lot of my pictures contain Asian models, I really hope the market picks up here, without too many photographers starting to submit. The greatest challenge will be to get people to actually pay for images. I know a band here in Singapore and for them, there is no money in the Asian market as in most countries, people will just download their music for free. Japan is probably the exception to this. Guess it might be same with images.

I will set at $10 too, since this is the same as an XL file on IS

Much better month for me at FT, almost back to it's best. 30% higher than IS and just pipping SS for #1 spot this month.

I can't get in at the moment

Everything looks like it is working properly again, well at least for me. Would've been nice to have been informed that we could upload again though.

Ok, so just read the quick guide and I see there's more to it than that, depending on number of downloads and usage. Guess I have to be reassured that if lots of you are uploading then it's wise to do so too

A few people have suggested I start uploading to Albumo and I see a lot of the photographers I really respect already have 1000 images online.

After checking out the uploading process and finding the ftp very good, I checked out the T&C (I know, wrong order!) to find that they sell full-size images for $1. How does everyone feel about this? I prefer to see my large images go for more than that - although of course I do put up with in with the subscription sites.

So is Albumo really worth the effort??

Quote from: epixx on September 11, 2007, 02:22
iStock is an increasing headache. All their "enhancements" and changes only seems to make my sales go down. The most interesting part is that new images don't sell at all. The last three to four months, I've been uploading my maximum weekly allowance (the number that goes up and down on a daily or weekly basis, depending on the latest screw-up at iStock). Still, with one exception, not a single photo uploaded after 3 July has sold even once!

If I'd been a Certified Bad Photographer, and a regular guest at Judge Ross' horror cabinet, I would have understood it, but my new uploads sell well enough at other agencies, and some of the newer ones have even made it to my personal Top 10 at a couple of sites.

That, and the incredibly arrogant attitude I meet in their forums and in the way they generally treat contributors, non-exclusives in particular, make me question if it's worth the hassle and irritation. I guess I'll keep uploading, but I don't spend much energy on them anymore. They get the same as the others and whatever is first in the queue when an upload slot is available.

You sum up everything I feel about iStock at the moment but I am persevering with them of course, as the old images still bring in a substantial amount of money. However, I feel your pain regarding new images, which seem to muster very few sales, apart from the odd image which thankfully falls through the net.

However, with all the site outages recently, it sure makes sense to be non-exclusive and there is some discontent from exclusive members now the forums are up and running again.

I had the same problem and didn't notice until I had uploaded 55 images. *. Emailed support so waiting to hear back from them!

Thanks for the info - been away from the forums for a while and didn't read everything before uploading. I actually found the uploading process quite easy and I like the fact that I can set a price and opt out of subscriptions. I hope the site sorts itself out and takes off.

I think if you scan US currency and try to print it out then it will not let you. Sure I read this somewhere but can't for the life of me remember where now.

I uploaded ten files to SnapVllage on Thursday to see how they would be received and to test the uploading process. The blog says that images will be reviewed in 1-2 days or else to email. Now it's Monday evening here so shall I email or just wait? Anyone else getting images reviewed in 1-2 days??

Yes I have that problem too - works with Safari but not Firefox at the moment for me

I had a best month ever on Bigstock in August!

Nice one Sean! 200,000 is no mean feat.

Having trouble accessing CanStockPhoto the last couple of days. Just me or anyone else having problems?