It seems that I actually will be making more money if the download distribution doesn't change in the new year. I don't like the percentage cuts thou, it only benefits fotolia in the long run.

What about subscription pricing. Didn't see anything mentioned - no change?

Uhh that really sucks. The ODs were great for me. I guess this way shutterstock will be able to save on commissions since BigStock pays less.

The whole "overnight" move doesn't make sense thou. 

I'd keep both if I could afford it. 24-105 is a great walkaround lens on a full frame body, but 24mm isn't really all that wide, besides the distortion at the wide end is rather atrocious. Really screws up any shots that have horizon in them.

In general I find 24-105 for stock to be average. It sure is convenient but the 21MP really shows it's faults.

Hi, I got 50D when it got released and I actually returned it because of noise. The camera feels great but I had to run noise reduction on pretty much everything if I wanted to submit at full resolution.

I don't think the amount of noise that 50D produces at ISO 100-400 would bother me for making prints etc, but for stock it definitely is visible.

shutterstock: 30.1% BME (+101% from February thanks to 3 ELs)
istock: 27.6%
fotolia: 17.5% BME
dreamstime: 9.9% BME
stockxpert: 6.5%
123rf: 3.8% BME
bigstock: 2.8%

Overall a superb month +45% over February and my BME by 30%, Fotolia did exceptionally well this month except for the last week where the sales dried up. Whatever it was I suspect it will be a while before I reach that level there again.

Same here - uploaded a small batch (11 files) yesterday and they were available for keywording as soon as I checked (an hour later).
J.

I asked that question to bigstock once and this is what I got back:

"The system is designed this way to prevent frivolous uploading and deleting of images, which costs bandwith and storage."


I didn't realize that any other agencies factor the deleted by user photos in the approval rating?

J.

I'm happy with mine

Resolution is awesome. high iso - well it's there. You can easily process iso 12K shot and print 4x6 or maybe bigger and nobody would know, but honestly for stock I'd stay at 400 and under if I can help it.

It turns out that video is such a different thing that I don't find myself using this feature much. It is there and the results are great, but it is a whole different workflow and setup.

After 4 months with my camera I think is fantastic for stock. Due to my hobbies thou I wish I had 1dsIII

J.

The main advantage of the 105mm is longer working distance - at 1:1 with the 50 you'll end up really close to your subject. In fact often close enough to shade the subject with your lens.

I have both. 105mm is very good in the field as a macro. The 50 is very compact but I usually use it in the studio as a regular lens that can focus really close.

Both lenses are very nice. I've heard that Sigma 150mm macro gets great reviews too.

Cool, show us some shots when you get it

A few more things that I thought about after reading other comments-

- my 400mm f5.6L is not weather sealed. I don't know about the 100-400 zoom.
- the reports on the net say that the zoom is in fact a little bit shorter than 400mm
- 300 f2.8L is a sweeeeet monster and takes teleconverters well. It is quite a lot bigger and more expensive than the 100-400 or 400mm lenses.

Good luck with the selection!

Quote from: leaf on March 26, 2009, 15:08
Do you find you miss the 100-300 range j2k?

Nope! Not even a bit. What I miss is the 401-600mm range. And sometimes the 800mm too

I'm mainly interested in birds. If I was looking for a lens to take on an african safari the 100-400 zoom would be a clear choice.

As far as I know you can find a 100-400 just as sharp as the prime. It might not be the first copy thou. I don't know how much can these lenses be improved with AF microadjustments and other calibration procedures.

I chose the 400mm mainly because it was available used locally, the price was low, and pretty much you never hear of a 400mm f5.6 being a dog

Here are a couple of threads from fredmiranda showcasing the zoom:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/742095/0
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/748812/0

And an interesting thread called "EF 100-400mm - chances of getting a good copy?"
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/741386/0

ouch I just deleted a lengthy reply.

so a shorter one:

I'm using 400mm f5.6L and I'm very happy with it. A 1.4x kenko pro teleconverter is practically glued to the lens (taped contacts) except for fancy birds in flight shots -that I suck at anyways- when I take it off for faster autofocus.

Superb lens, sharp wide open even with the tele. I wish it had IS thou - I need 1/1250s or faster to get reliable results when handholding.

A note about taped contacts on the teleconverter - obviously not necessary for 1 series bodies, because those can autofocus at f8. 5d, 5dmk2, 30d, 20d, rebels - no problems using center point autofocus with taped teleconverter. 40d and 50d - center point very unreliable - the other af points seem to work fine thou.

There is supposed to be some variety between copies of 100-400mm zoom, so if you go that route you might want to compare a couple different ones.

300mm imho is too short. 400 is too short. I want the 500 f4is

Here is a comparison (not mine) between 70-200mm with 2x tele, 100-400mm, 300mm with 1.4x tele and 400mm prime:
http://www.ejphoto.com/400mm_shoot_out_page.htm

and one of my recent ones - white breasted nuthatch - 400mm with 1.4x tele, 5dmk2, iso 1600, f8 (wide open), 1/400s, crop from full frame to about 9.5MP



I'm cheating here because focus is actually on the belly not on the head, but at web resolution that doesn't show  It's a lucky one because of 15 or so frames this is the only one that's sharp at all - 1/400s is too slow.

Quote from: melastmohican on March 24, 2009, 17:47
My estimates shows that week before end of month it's going to be disaster on SS. ...

How are your uploads? You gotta be steady there unless you have a bunch of files that show in the first few pages when sorted by most popular.

For me a really good month despite low number of regular sales. 3 ELs - I usualy have 0.7 EL/ month , and a bunch of ODs (at least twice as many as in previous months).

As far as I remember from the shutterstock thread it is also supposed to give you cross site statistics - on image basis.

The idea behind using this site for uploads is that you only upload once to them, and they take care of distributing it to all agencies.  If one uploads to 10 agencies the bandwidth / time savings would be quite significant.

J.

Good ODs this month (February was crappy thou) and 3 EL's. I usually have 1 EL a month or 1 every other month. So March is shaping really nicely for me

The couple of flames that I have were selling steady from the beginning. Nothing special thou. Took them between 6 and 8 months and I didn't notice any changes once they flamed.

The only thing that affected their sales was the November best match change that basically stopped my sales altogether for 2 months.

For me the flaming images are the same ones that sell well on other sites. 

I saw a rebound in January, and February should be good as well. Nothing spectacular thou - I had better sales before the previous best match change that cut my sales in half, but anyways it looks quite promising.

Quote from: Allsa on February 18, 2009, 17:18
3% pay cut, just what we need during a recession. Thanks, Fotolia 

It hardly is 3% pay cut. The commission percentage is lowered by 3, so your actual comission will go down a lot more.

For example I'm bronze, my commission now is 35% and is going to be 32% - that is 8.57% lower.

I'm having the same problem as posters a while ago adding photos to lightboxes. Nothing in the description but the banner link, and I get an error message that the banner is not there. Any tips?

I'm getting mostly subs these days as well 

I did some cityscapes tonight, and I think that is a prime subject for black dot artifacts. Didn't see any. Interestingly enough I've had it sometimes on my digital rebel.

BTW. switching from 300D to 5D2 is ... pleasant ;-)

got mine on Dec 2nd

With the horses you might have trouble keeping the iso low - at 1/30s you'll probably risk some motion blur unless the horses can stand really still, and 1/30s isn't even very likely to be sufficient at iso 100-200 to capture the performers.

Digital Rebel doesn't have flash compensation, unless your friend has a hacked firmware. If he doesn't then the camera doesn't really allow for much control on how fill flash looks like. You'd need access to an external Speedlite (which has it's own controls).

I suspect you'll be playing quite a lot in post with that project Bracket your exposures, find some cool angles, and you'll be fine. Good luck.

So far it looks that I'll be using my regular stock lenses - 70-200f4is, sigma 50f2.8 macro and sigma 105f2.8macro

The 24-105 zoom is nice for all around stuff, but corners suffer too much (at least on my copy) - on the other hand it is nice and sharp in the middle and I can crop the heck out of the photo with 21mp and still end up with XL size image