Quote from: .shock on March 14, 2008, 14:53
no, this lens is still out of stock on all major US webshop.

I shoot Nikon and have found that they will make something great, get a lot of glowing reviews, and not produce nearly enough units for the market release. Why? I have no idea. I don't understand their production process or marketing tactics. I think it kind of sucks but we still buy their products,  right? I am gussing for them its better to release and create demand then to wait until they have enough units to go around.

A little over a year ago Nikon released the 18-200 VR lens. It is a great lens for what I need but I probably waited 6 months before it was available through B&H and other retailers.   I could have bought it sooner if I wanted buy from resellers (like on Ebay) who were selling them for $200-300 above asking price because they knew everybody wanted it.

Your best bet if you don't want to pay hundreds more is to get on every waiting list you can. Once they release the next round you will probably have a better chance of getting one. 

I would love to own but I rent so I use renters insurance (State Farm).  First I needed to buy a renters policy (cost about $250/yr depending on amount of coverage, deductibles, liability ect). Renters insurance only covers personal damage and damage or loss within the house ( fire, theft, flood, ect) and some policies will cover contents of the car if in front of the house. Make sure to ask a lot of questions now so the insurance company can't deny your claim later.  For example I live in WA  state and earthquakes are not covered in a standard policy and need to be added at an additional cost (something I had to ask). These policies also cover you in case you do something that damages the rented property ( and recently saved my a$$).

From there I added individual riders to cover my camera  and computer gear. Riders  are cheap ranging from an additional $10 to $25 extra for a whole list of items. Riders are different in that you need to provide a serial number of everything you want to cover and a receipt or a  link to a site showing cost. Items under the rider are covered, without a deductible, against pretty much all possible outcomes that are considered "loss" of the equipment , both inside and outside of the home ( theft, accidental breakage, malfunction beyond warranty ect..). Unlike  the renters insurance policy, if I drop and break my camera, or its stolen at a shoot, the rider insurance will pay for the replacement.

Each company will have different requirements and prices so it is best to check before you purchase. The best question to ask isn't "what will you cover?" rather "how can you deny my claim?"

Quote from: dbvirago on March 01, 2008, 23:44
google spybot. Don't know if they have mac version, but it works great for pc.

Nothing like a PC user to answer a Mac question ( I use PC as well)

Little Snitch
http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

This is a program that tells you when a other program are trying to  is trying to access the internet.  I use it so I know which programs I install are are trying to "Phone Home" and it allows me to block these connections, allow the connections once,  or allow forever. Be careful though, if you block an application that needs to access the internet, say itunes, it won't function correctly ( but it is very easy to change any of the blocking rules) .  If there is a stealth operation that is trying to access the internet, Little Snitch will make you aware of it.

If you are using an Intel Mac, or a duel core processor,  go with CS3. Without all of the details why, CS3 runs better on Intel Macs (the Mac Pro, Mac Book Pro, and newest iMacs) and utilizes duel cores much better. I didn't think I would notice the difference but CS3 is so much faster on my Mac Pro and Mac Book Pro. If you are running a single core PC or older generation Mac and don't have the money to spend definitively  go with CS2. The only thing you will want to consider is that if you are legit, and plan to continue upgrading to newer versions in the future, you only have so many versions before you have to start over again and buy new. For example you can't get a free copy Photoshop 5  and expect to get away with buying the upgrade CS3. In fact I don't think you can upgrade from PS7 to CS3 but please correct me if I'm wrong. 

Quote from: Lee Torrens on March 06, 2008, 23:14

Quote from: PecoFoto on March 06, 2008, 21:26
Of course if you don't have a model or property release then also set them as RM.

You can only sell an unreleased image with an editorial license - not with a commercial stock, RM or RF, license.

I had the same misunderstanding in the past, and even wrote it on my blog! After time it seemed a little odd, so I investigated and was assured that model releases are very much required for Rights Managed stock. (I corrected my blog )

Lee is absolutely correct. If someone's image or property ( like a animal or house) is going to be used outside of an editorial context you want to have a release.  Typically you only want to us RM if you have very unique imagery. If the subject matter is more common ( business meeting, family playing in the park) it might be a better option to choose RF and have a better earning potential.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 06, 2008, 23:41

Quote from: The Corey on March 06, 2008, 23:06
We do hire photographers from time to time but have our own dedicated pool. The costs are beyond just the photographers as we set up a majority of the shoot. I was trying to illustrate that most macro stock photography goes beyond the camera size and cost.

So, sorry - are you saying you expect contributors to foot a tens of thousands of dollars bill to be able to submit there?

No, I'm not.  Most stock houses  base decisions on content and quality of the imagery, correct metadata,  and proper releases. Cost of production has no bearing on the decision process. If you can get amazing photos, that fit within submission requirements,  out of a point-and-shoot with very little production cost you will probably be very rich. For the most part however stock photo shoots  cost money (Photographers, Models, Locations, Lighting, Food, Travel, Stylists, ect).

Aremafoto
"So, do you accept images that are in microstock agencies right now? Or do we need to submit something different?"
We aren't exclusive.  But why wold someone pay hundreds of dollars for a image that they coudl pay $10 for? Please use this link: http://www.gogoimages.com/index.cfm?id=410  to submit your portfolio. We are a small group and just launched a site so we may take some time to get back with a response.

Madelaide
"Does the site focus on people images?  Not locations nor signs/texts in different languages?"
We do focus on people but don't rule out other types of location/still life photos we judge on a case by case basis but your chance will be pretty slim if this is all you have.

sjlocke
"So, you provide the financial backing for photographers to do these tens of thousands of dollars shoots?"
We do hire photographers from time to time but have our own dedicated pool. The costs are beyond just the photographers as we set up a majority of the shoot. I was trying to illustrate that most macro stock photography goes beyond the camera size and cost.

Hatman12
I am intrigued as to why a stock photo agency specializing in multicultural images should choose to call itself 'gogo'.
You are thinking way to much about this but its funny none the less. The company, GoGo Images,  was named by one of the owners 9 year old daughter.

The camera MP size can become a contentious issue for sure. The idea is that the final RAW image from the camera can produce, with some up-resing in Photoshop, a final 50MB, 300DPI, 8bit, Adobe 1998 Tiff image without noticeable flaws, distortion, pixilation, color banding ect. The image also needs to go through postproduction and have the most amounts of data possible to insure a clean outcome.

To tell you the truth the camera is just one small part of the equation of being a macro stock photographer. Our shoots cost  tens of thousands of dollars to plan, cast, locate and pay for locations, travel, style, light, produce, and edit.  Once the image return we send them through postproduction and key wording and finally ship out to our distributors. The shoot cost does not include the costs of marketing our images, setting up and maintaining distributors and hardware, and long-term storage.

When one looks at the equipment requirements and assumes that dictates the quality of the photographer, I think this is incorrect. I shoot most of my images on a Pentax KM film camera and my digital on a Nikon D200. Does this make me a bad photographer? I like to think not, however I don't submit these as stock. Equipment requirements, like in most professions, merely describe a guideline for doing the job in accordance with a standard.

This is why I love to see the micro stock world flourish. It does allow a much larger swath of people the ability to contribute their photographic talent to a much wider audience with fewer cost and equipment barriers. It also allows people who may be limited by budgetary restraints access to a large pool of images an affordable price.

With our lowest web resolution size being in the neighborhood of $150, not everyone is going to be able to afford our images. The same can be said for macro stock photographers. It takes a lot of upfront costs, learning, networking, marketing and shooting to be a successful macro stock photographer, and not everyone is going to make it. I think in a larger context this can be applied to just about anything in life.

Generally it is better to work with files and formats that give you the most amount of data headroom. Hence RAW converted to uncompressed Tiffs or PSD files, 16bit, Adobe 1998 or even better Pro Photo RGB. (Storage is cheap ).  At my job for a stock company we keep a 300dpi, 8bit, 50MB, Tiff, Adobe 1998 master file of all of our final select images ( and we have close to 10,000)

Why? Room to manipulate and longevity of the file. Adobe 1998, without explaining the science, gives you a wider color spectrum to work with ( and Pro photo RGB even more).  This translates to more shades of color within the red, green and blue spectrum. The moment you convert to sRGB you are basically throwing colors out the sRGB translators don't understand and matching them with the closest value. It's  like going to the paint store and looking for a specific shade of blue to match the paint in the living room and they tell you " Well we don't have that exact color of blue but we have one that is almost as close". The manipulation thing is a whole different story.

When printing Adobe 1998 is going to give you a richer photo than sRGB. However the difference is online viewing. For example if you take a photo saved as Adobe 1998 and try to display on most web sites ( take Flickr for example)  it's going to look terrible. Why? Most websites display mode is sRGB.  Since sRGB doesn't "contain" all of the  colors of Adobe 1998, it will replace them with the closest match (this is where the dull look comes from).

The best option is to  shoot, work in, save, and submitt images in Adobe 1998. If you need to make files for web viewing run the conversion to sRGB in Photoshop first before you post. Sites like Alamy  do this for you. You submit a file in Adobe 1998 and they run a batch operation generating the correct thumbnail and sRGB conversion. I even have a really simple action set up in Photoshop that converts the images to sRGB before saving for the web

If you have any questions please let me know. This is all pretty dense but well worth knowing.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 06, 2008, 01:05
My port is certainly fitting your profile but the image quality request is forbidding: Images should be captured using professional level DSLRs of 12+ mega pixels or Pro Digital Backs
My D200 only shoots 10MP.

The image size can be tricky and the correct file sizes can be achieved if you have really quality images. If you think your images can stand up to the test follw this link:
http://www.gogoimages.com/index.cfm?id=410 and submit a link to your work . We can let you know if the images pass the muster.  The potential difference is measured in dollars, not cents per image sale.

Hi Friends,

The company I work for just launched our new multi-cultural stock photography site, GoGo Images at:  www.gogoimages.com . Although we are a "macro" site we are always on the lookout for great photographers shooting multicultural imagery. If you think you meet our requirements or want to know more please visit our submission page at: http://www.gogoimages.com/index.cfm?id=410

Here is the press release if you want to know a bit more about us.

GoGo Images Fills Gap for Multi-Cultural Stock Photography
Opens Stock Photography Boutique Featuring Latin, Asian, Indian, Black, Middle Eastern, Gay and Lesbian Images to Address 2-Million Image Gap

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GoGo Images, www.gogoimages.com, a stock photography agency, has opened the doors to the first specialty store of multi-cultural stock imagery depicting the accomplishments of Latin, Asian, Indian, Black, Middle Eastern, and LGBT population segments, to meet a multi-million image gap for use in marketing and publishing.

Source: GoGo Images   

·    GoGo Images fills gap for multi-cultural stock photography; opens stock photography boutique featuring Latin, Asian, Indian, Black, Middle Eastern, gay and lesbian images to address 2-million image gap. (Copyright GoGo Images).  View Multimedia Gallery
        

"65% of the world's Gross Domestic Product is produced by people who are seen in 5% of the world's existing commercial stock images," said Joe Barrett, GoGo Images CEO. "40% of the world's purchasing power is in the hands of people who are seen in 5% of the world's commercial stock images. GoGo Images was founded to close this gap."

Mirroring the marketing segmentation strategy of leading specialty retailers such as Sephora within the cosmetics industry, the GoGo Images boutique offers advertisers, marketers, and publishers a well-merchandized mix of premium multi-cultural stock photography, deliberately absent of other content categories. "Professional users are tired of pawing through millions of image SKUs in the leading stock photography mega stores to uncover the few hidden gems or the politically correct 'United Colors of Benetton' images," said Jennifer Hurshell, Chief Creative Officer. "They're under huge time pressure to find relevant content that can help sell their products and services to multiple target audiences in multiple regions, and actually pushed us to open a one-stop shop."

Barrett and Hurshell — both self-admitted "recovering marketers" and image industry veterans — co-founded GoGo Images in 2006, following executive posts at Bill Gates-owned Corbis. The launch of the boutique follows the creation of GoGo Images' multi-cultural royalty free (RF) stock photography collection, which can be licensed at more than 100 stock imagery distributors around the world.

"The new reality is that our content is highly salable on a global basis, not just within the markets it mirrors," said Joe Barrett, CEO. "Clients tell us that increasingly — regardless of where their headquarters are situated — they have to localize their communications to the many regions in which they operate, and they have a hard time accessing relevant images." Jeff Yang, VP of Iconoculture, the leading strategic consumer research and advisory service provider, agrees. "Successful global brands have to be both creatively and visually authentic. This requires the painstaking integration of deep customer insight and creative execution — going beyond the obvious need for diverse talent. In order to show that your brand "gets it" you have to get the nuances right."

Carlos Segura, named one of the "World's 100 Best Designers" in Taschen's Graphic Design for the 21st Century, said, "It's about time someone paid attention to this gap. GoGo Images has made my job easier by bringing together the highest quality multi-cultural content in an organized and tightly edited site."

About GoGo Images

GoGo Images is a stock photography agency dedicated to produce, acquire, and represent the best multi-cultural commercial images to meet the 2-million image gap bemoaned by advertisers, marketers, and publishers around the world. The company's highly focused content offering is based on extensive ethnographic research, trend-spotting, creative intelligence, and economic analysis, and is produced by the world's top photographers. Clients can license this imagery at www.gogoimages.com, the first dedicated "multi-cultural imagery boutique," or find the GoGo Images collection at more than 100 leading international stock imagery distributors.

"may you share your template? have you write some applescripts to import thumbnails or other useful tasks in the records? I do one for File maker pro 5.0 version but it don't work in the last release. I can share it if someone like to adapt it to his database"

I do all of the work within in File Maker Pro 8.5 I don't use Apple scripts because FMP does all of this for you. I simply add a thumbnail field to the database, point FMP to the thumbnail folder, and if the Image IDs match, FMP imports the thumbnail.

I also create scrips in FMP to run multiple batch operations at once. For example I need to send our new images and metadata to 50+ distributors all over the world and some like Alamy, Jupiter, and Veer have very specific metadata requirements. Instead of building all these metadata sheets by hand in excel ( which I was doing a first) I import the all metadata fields into FMP first and write a script that exports the metadata fields into the correct format based on distributor. Then I wrote a script that runs all of the individual exports at once so I don't have to do them one by one.  This all may sound confusing but it really isn't if you just spend a little time to understand databases and FMP ( I had no formal training when I opened up FMP).  Spending a few hours learning FMP has saved me, and my company, hundreds of hours of time, money, and headaches.

Databases are powerful in that if you set them up correctly, you only have to put the information in once and use any number of reporting functions to customize the data the you want to see it.

My rule of thumb with any type of digital information is  " If you find yourself doing a repetitive task on a computer, someone has written software that can do it better..."

Database - File Maker Pro. ( I use it on a MAC)

I am self-taught and it is really easy to figure out. I had never used a database program until I started working at my current job.

I use it to keep track of all sorts of image and contact information. 

For example I work for a stock photo company and we send out images to 50+ distributors each time we finish a shoot. I set up one database that keeps track of the distributors contact and submission information.

I set up another database for our 10,000 images containing all of the metadata and photo information (including a thumbnail preview). I also set up a database for tracking which drives and assets are sent where. This way I can generate any number of reports on demand.

I use to do all of this in Excel and it became overwhelming.

-Corey

All to often the argument comes up that volume equal money and the quality of experience has no bearing on revenue.

For example I work for a macro stock photography company that has a current image collection of around 10,000 images. We send our images to around 50 different macro site  distributors around the world and one particular distributor only took 1500 of our images, or 15%.  These images are highly produce, professionally shot, color balanced, and retouched. We couldn't understand why and even flew out to visit with their editors (I guess we all deal with rejection) .  They also take more of a cut then a majority of our other distributors.

After months of sales data they are killing most of the competition in generated revenue.  Why? Creative know when they go to this site they are going to find exceptional quality and don't have to wade through tons of images to find the exceptional ones.

This is in no defense of Cresstock as I haven't dealt with them directly and don't know their business model, but in general less can sometime mean more money in the end.