A friend of mine wants to get into microstock and is looking at an olympus E-410 or E-510 to start. He has a collection of old olympus compatible lenses from his film days when he used an OM-2 and an OM-10. He asked if I knew if they were compatible with these Olympus digital cameras, I told him I didn't know and have a feeling they are not. Being unemployed at the moment he wants to not spend too much money and feels he cannot really afford a Nikon or Canon plus all new lenses. Anyone know if these old lenses would be compatible with Olympus digital cameras?

 Thanks for everyone who responded to my post. I was not having a good day when I made my initial post, so my apologies if I came across the wrong way.

I didn't notice the date, oops, just saw it at the top of the threads here and clicked on it.

Other than the ones Lisa suggested, here are a few that I would try-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15720939@N04/3347731656/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15720939@N04/3385524404/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15720939@N04/3426892797/

good luck

Thanks for the feedback, when I wrote that late last night I was just upset about the rejections and was tired, etc. It wasn't Fotolia even though they will probably be rejected there too based on what you are saying about them.

I used to upload lots of generic landscape images to the site in question and they were mostly accepted back then(1-3 years ago). Then I started selling my better landscape images as RM on Alamy but I am not sure I am making more there than I would if they were on the micros. I have seen other photographers who specialize in traditional landscape do quite well on the micros, in particular Eric Foltz and AVTG on IStock seem to do quite well for some reason. I have seen other particular images of landscapes do well also, perhaps not quite as successful as vectors or the kind of images Yuri Arcurs produces, but I have seen some do quite well. I like to have variety in my portfolio and I wanted to upload some of what I think I am best at (landscapes) to draw more attention to the rest of my portfolio and give it some uniqueness.

I don't have CS3(only CS2), but maybe if I adjust the curves slightly they might be better? As far as the oak tree shot, I dunno, I saw that and thought it looked interesting and unusual because of the lighting, I was experimenting. What is wrong with it, is there anything I could have done to better take advantage of that lighting situation?

How are these landscape images? Do you guys think they are better than snapshots? The top one is Mt. Rainier at sunset, the middle ones are Death Valley, a saltflat and some sand dunes, the last one is an oak I shot into the setting sun at Mt. Diablo state park in California.











And here is my website for a wider range of images I have taken-

http://rasmussenimages.smugmug.com/

I am not pimping my images or anything, but all of these were just rejected by a certain microstock site for being low quality and like too many others in their collection, and yes, they did hurt my feelings. I know it is late but I can't help it, I am so upset I probably will not even be able to sleep tonight. I keep thinking I am getting better at this but I keep getting shot down/ignored. I am fairly successful with vectors and a few other things on the micros but it is frustrating that my passion is with landscape photography and I don't seem to be any good at it. Sorry to complain but my frustration has been building up for quite some time now. I put more work into this than the average snapshooter, generally use a tripod, filters where appropriate, like a graduated ND filter, and put considerable effort into shooting these. The Mt. Rainier shot I had to hike back at night because I cannot camp there.

So this post is still going. I think people misunderstood it to mean that I hate doing it or something. If I did hate it I wouldn't be uploading images, I would take out a second job if I wanted to make extra money. I was just curious what motivated people more on here, the $$ or the intrinsic joy of creating and producing commercial stock art. Or like me, maybe they would be photographing landscapes or something if it was purely for enjoyment, but they figure if they can make money at it, there may be other ways to make extra money with but they are not as fun or creative as this.  In short, do you do this for the money, the fame, the creativity, or a combination of all of this?

Quote from: py on September 30, 2008, 00:25

Quote from: CofkoCof on September 29, 2008, 22:19
It's growing worse and worse everyday:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/29/us.congress.bailout.deal/index.html

Maybe soon the topic needs to be changed to "What is a rotten economy doing...." instead of "What will...."

But how much worse will it get before it gets better? During the Great Depression 1929 wasn't the worst year of it, in fact I think in 1929 they were barely in recession, but the damage had been done and they were overlooking an abyss they were about to fall into.

I was thinking this may be in part why subscription sales are becoming more popular. A slowdown in sales causes the agencies to cut each others throats looking for more sales, and the buyers want the best bargain possible.

Quote from: michaeldb on September 27, 2008, 07:42
An idea I have seen expressed on microstock forums is that a deep recession could increase sales, because publishers and designers will be looking for ways to save money, and will cut back on hiring photographers or going to Getty and will look for bargains.

It should also be kept in mind that a recession or even depression in the US may not have a deeply negative effect worldwide. Germany for example is a large market for microstock and the German economy need not suffer just because the US is hurting. The euro could benefit from an ever-weakening dollar.

I don't buy this argument because the total market for traditional stock, in terms of the volume of images licensed, is a minute fraction of the microstock market. It would be about like all the customers going from Featurpics and Canstock to the other agencies and noticeably increasing the sales volume at Shutterstock and IStock. As you know, the relatively rare sales at those two sites would not have a noticeable impact on the high volume microstock sites. Same with traditional stock where the sales are few and far between and the only reason they make money is on price per image licensed.

I am surprised this isn't being discussed at all. Hopefully things will straighten out and we will only have a mild recession. But what if the doomsayers are right and we are going into another great depression? Or even just a severe recession? Any predictions on what that would do to our sales? Can we forget about making any serious money with this if a real depression comes?

QuoteGiven how quickly the technology is moving, I think 10 years is too long..   Comparing what Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, etc.. could do 5 years ago vs now, I think we're closer to 5 years away from "hyper-realism" in 3D humans.

I read a book by a futurist writer Ray Kurzweil some years ago, and as I recall this was one of the things he predicted in the 2010-2020 year timeframe, and this was back in the 1990's when I read this. He has some even more radical predictions before 2050, like artificial intelligence exceeding human intelligence and the implications of that.

I have been submitting a variety of different images to them lately, including illustrations, isolated objects, food, and landscapes. They are accepting just about everything except my landscapes. I think the reviewers were told to reject all landscapes or something. And before someone tells me my landscapes are crap here is my website where you can see for yourself-
www.rasmussenimages.com
I don't really care that much anyway because there are better places to sell landscapes than the micros. Fotolia just rejected a few of my leftovers from before I started selling my landscapes as rights managed at places like Alamy.

thanks for the reply. I was enduring the upload all the while thinking, it can't be this bad or no one would upload here, but I guess it must be worth the effort if people do. I actually don't have MS word for Vista other than the trial copy of it, so it may be even more difficult for me. 

I am interested in knowing if my experience trying to upload to these guys is typical, or if I am doing something wrong/inefficiently. I managed to get one single image up a few months ago, and it actually sold the other day. So I decided to try to upload more images. I don't have FTP yet, I noticed you have to apply for an ftp account whatever that entails.

Anyway, I upload another single photo to this agency. When it is uploaded, it apparently doesn't read the IPTC data or whatever they call that where you put your keywords into the document though Photoshop.  This means that I have to open the image separately in PS to copy and paste the keywords. They also have a system similar to Alamy where you have to put your main keywords and then the rest of the keywords so it takes more than one copy/paste to put them there.

As I was going down filling in all the info they wanted I realized I had to also upload a property release for this particular image. So I click on their link to upload a property release and proceed to put it in their database. No problem. However, when I go back to the upload section everything is apparently erased, as if I never uploaded the image. I cannot seem to find where the image I uploaded is at on their upload system so I upload the image again and start from scratch filling in the keywords and blanks. At least this time I have the property release in there.

Finally I think I am finished and I click submit, only to come back with an error message saying I need to separate my words by commas. You see, if you fill out your keywords in Photoshop CSII they are all separated by semicolons, not commas. Perhaps there is a way to change that in CS2 but I don't know what it is and in any case I already have some 2000 images with keywords separated by semicolons and not commas.  Since I already got this far with the image, I just go back and erase the semicolons and put commas after every keyword. I didn't watch the clock but I think the time it took me to do this was between 15-20 minutes for one single image. This if worse than IStock's uploading system. Is this what you guys go through when you upload there or are there shortcuts/I am doing something wrong/being an idiot? Just curious.

WooHoo!!! I just had a subscription sale and  I am just so excited!!!  I don't know what I am going to do with all the money from this sale, but I will try not to spend it in one place.

Quote from: sharpshot on June 10, 2008, 18:43

Quote from: cphoto on June 09, 2008, 23:35
.....Fotolia is a French company and in France that's how we do business... everybody goes on strike until thing changes.  That's why we have strikes all year long

I like the way the French stand up for themselves.  I wish we would do this in the UK.  It does work, if enough people join in.  Most of us can manage without uploading to fotolia but they will suffer if they don't compromise.

Alamy is a British company, where the majority of contributors are British. Alamy recently did something that the contributors did not like and they protested. Alamy changed their policy within a day, so it seems the British were doing a good job of standing up for themselves in that case.

Also, the bulk of Alamy images are editorial/travel images, very different from the typical microstock photo. I don't think many of Alamy's photos would do very well in a real microstock market.

At least they are not offering a subscription service...well, not yet, anyway

QuoteBoy, CS is really cheap, isn't it? No wander subs prevail so much there.

Regards,
Adelaide

IMO Canstock is a joke anyway, irrelevant to the rest of the industry. I didn't hear that Snapvillage is selling .19 subscriptions, did I read that right? Last month I got about a dozen sub sales there for a whopping .30 each, much better than .19 

QuoteGeez, you sound bitter, marcopolo.

I didn't know I sounded bitter, having second thoughts maybe. What prompted me to post this is that there is a thread in the Photoshelter forum. Photoshelter tries to have a different style than microstock, and there were a bunch of photographers in the thread saying they would never shoot the standard microstock fare, that they would have to sell their soul, or that it just isn't in them to make mass produced photos of business people. I was curious to see if the people who really were shooting this kind of material also felt that way about what they were doing.

This question is for those who are successful at selling classical commercial microstock imagery. Do you guys enjoy shooting the classic microstock image-teams of business people in board rooms, happy people on laptops, people shaking hands, doing various things, or various objects on white backgrounds? Is this what really appeals to you? Or is it more you do it because you are good at it and it brings in good money so you don't have to do things you like even less, such as working for "the man"?
What kind of images would you produce if you were given full artistic freedom?, i.e. make similar money no matter what kind of image you produced? Would you do more editorial, nature, landscape, travel, cultural, artistic, black and white? Or do you like commercial lifestyle imagery that you would still produce that regardless of what sells best? What really appeals to you deep down?
Do you think to be successful at producing this kind of stock your heart has to really be in it? That you cannot be in your studio shooting the commercial imagery while secretly wishing you were out shooting some scenic golden hour landscape or black and white artistic nude or whatever?

Are you a reviewer for them Miz?

I already said on their message board that is it no longer worth the effort for me to upload there the way things are now. Good time to work on my Alamy portfolio now that summer is here.

Lizard - 3904 images
cuneytselcuk - 315 files
grp_photo - 1861 files
sharpshot - 1948
frankmedrano - 497
skvoor 1873
marcopolo 2104

Remember when various traditional microstock photographers like Ian Murray were saying that Microstock would result in a "race to the bottom"? That is, the agencies would undercut each other until the price dropped to almost nothing. Looks like they may have been right after all.