Sorry, I was posting earlier in a hurry, and that didn't quite come out the way I intended.  You are right, they do essentially balance out, but the other nice thing you get with longer lenses is a more natural perspective and less distortion of facial features, etc.  Obviously this all depends on circumstances, because if you want to shoot full length on a long lens you need lots of room to back up.

Yes, you have more camera shake, but even 1/125 should be hand holdable on a 100mm, especially if it has IS.  A prime will be sharper at lower apertures than a zoom, which means if you don't need a huge DOF you can use a wider aperture without having to worry as much about lens distortion, vignetting, and corner sharpness issues.

1,012 so far

See expanded thoughts below.

Quote from: Eyedesign on September 27, 2010, 15:08
A little under 500.

Ridiculous, there are only 800 or so diamonds to begin with.

Wouldn't it be interesting if iStock had quietly bought them and shut them down to make it more difficult for their exclusives to jump ship?

Watch it, yer getting close there to infringing on a future Apple trademark

Quote from: ichiro17 on September 26, 2010, 06:12
Some of you guys underestimate so badly its hilarious.  I'm with Sharply on this one, he's gotten the math right more often than not - and well he seems to be pretty smart and thorough instead of just bad guesses

Sharply is neglecting to factor in the large number of diamonds who contribute both photos and illustrations, many of whom have been pretty vocal about no longer being able to make 40% in either category.

The way the Fovean sensors work is that they are a stacked chip, transparent to different frequencies of light.  Essentially the various frequencies for Red, Green, and Blue light are filtered down the photocell to individual sensors for each band.  Thus their 15MP size is actually made up of 43MP of photocell information.  This lets them render colors much more accurately than on traditional digital cameras, because the regular digital cameras actually have separate red, green, and blue photocells laid out in a pattern.  Then they interpolate what the color was supposed to be based on what each cell recorded.  With the Fovean sensors, it knows and doesn't have to guess.  From the samples I've seen in the past color is very rich, and the images are very sharp.

Quote from: sharply_done on September 21, 2010, 20:19

Quote from: dgilder on September 21, 2010, 20:00
Sharply, don't forget that I have already deleted over a third of my portfolio, and E+ along with the rest.

Yes, I know, but I assumed you'd only deleted those images which weren't generating income. Correct?

Incorrect, I've been deleting based on my own cataloging system as I sort out what is going where next month.

Sharply, don't forget that I have already deleted over a third of my portfolio, and E+ along with the rest.

Quote from: sharply_done on September 21, 2010, 19:40
Also, dgilder, a quick look at your portfolio shows a lack of attention to your E+ image management. I know it's moot now, but you might want to consider Googling "optimal product mix". Or maybe go here.

I went exclusive mid Feb, so perhaps you are right, but either way, it doesn't have much impact.  You need to make iStock a lot of cash to bump to the higher levels.

Quote from: gostwyck on September 21, 2010, 19:07
I gather an exclusive might average about 7 RC's per sale?

Yep, 6.9 here.

Quote from: sharply_done on September 21, 2010, 19:19
which can be scaled down to $0.46 for Gold. My data also shows that the average main collection commission for Gold to be about $4.80.

I (gold) come up with $0.44 / RC, or $3.04 / sale

Quote from: hawk_eye on September 21, 2010, 18:47
FWIW, so you can accurately calculate my percentages....I'll be at 55K RC thereabouts by the end of the year. I won't be reduced, except in terms of the additional 5% I would have been raised once I hit diamond. I understand what that translates to in actual percentage, but that wasn't really my point.

if you have to try SO hard to invalidate my opinion, what does that say about your position?

I'm just trying to keep you from introducing bad math again, so you don't confuse someone new who comes reading this thread and doesn't fully understand the impact.  It happened many times in the iStock threads.  So its not an attempt to invalidate your opinion, just an attempt to clarify something that you apparently wanted to keep muddy.

I'm also not sure why you think I have to put much effort into invalidating your opinions, you seem to do a pretty good job of that on your own.

Quote from: hawk_eye on September 21, 2010, 17:39
the 5% loss is theoretical for me on my next canister

Again, math issues, 5% = 12.5% money loss for 40% royalties to 35%; 10% = 25% money loss for 40% to 30%;

How you read that entire thread and managed to still get this math incorrect boggles my mind considering how many times it was mentioned.

I don't know how many of you venture into the 'Shout Box' on MM, but I wrote this to make it easier to use.  Its a little tray application that converts MM's Shout Box into a more normal chat window (only works on Windows at the moment):

http://davidgilder.com/misc/SBChat/SBChat-1.1.2.zip

Just make sure you shut down the tray app when you are done, someone told me they thought it was keeping their computer from going to sleep.

This is what it should look like if it is working correctly:  http://davidgilder.com/misc/SBChat/SBChat.jpg

I'm sorry, where did I say I would publicize whatever I might uncover?  I'm just interested in sorting out who I am discussing things with.  Its hard to gauge where someone is coming from when they are hiding behind a screen name (for whatever reason), especially when they are obviously very familiar with you.  Hawk_eye, feel free to send me a private message, and I assure you I will keep your identity in confidence.

You sound a bit nervous, you must have something significant to hide.

Quote from: hawk_eye on September 20, 2010, 16:32
as for the graph indicating traffic of unique users ... the main point is the amount of traffic that iStock regularly gets.

A graph you yourself brought up, and tried to manipulate people with by only including Fotolia rather than Dreamstime.  While it shows iStock has more total traffic, it also shows that SS and DT have more combined traffic, disregarding all other microstocks.   

Quote
as for cracking down in the forums, it's about time. I've had about enough of watching the same jerks dump all over the company, other contributors and life in general. go piss in someone's else's pool. it's awful.

Honestly a little piss in the pool by contributors doesn't even slightly measure up to iStock taking a crap in its own pool.

Since you insist on hiding behind your anonymity, which makes everything you post essentially meaningless, I think I might take it upon myself to do some statistical language analysis on your posts both here and in the iStock forums to find out who you really are.

Quote from: pseudonymous on September 20, 2010, 07:14

Quote from: dgilder on September 20, 2010, 06:47
Sorry, who were you addressing in that last bit there?  I canceled exclusivity last week and have been removing my portfolio since then.

Well then it makes even less sense that you're surprised that they revoked your forum privileges.

Please seem my previous comments in regards to that subject.

Its even more fun when you add dreamstime instead of Fotolia:

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/

Sorry, who were you addressing in that last bit there?  I canceled exclusivity last week and have been removing my portfolio since then.

I added the 'Buyers Beware' here, as their response to my speculation (banning me) made me think it might be much more plausible of a scenario than it had sounded at first.

Far worse was said than anything I posted.  The fact is they had already banned the people they were going to ban that morning, and I wasn't one of them, until I pointed out that people could look at iStock in a whole different (and much more positive) light than they had been.  So they decided I was past my expiration date, thats fine, it just seemed an odd thing to reference when revoking my forum privileges. 

Who are you hawk_eye, what is your port on iStock?

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