I'm a hobbyist photographer and sell photos on microstock since 2009.
I have about 400 images in my portfolio and I used to work with 5 popular agencies: SS, iStock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, DepositPhotos, and 123Rf.
Microstock for me is a motivation to improve quality of my photography and an ability to buy some accessories for my hobby.
After analyzing total income from different agencies I started to think that some of them not worth spending time for uploading in my case.

Shutterstock and iStock made me more than $1000 each from 2009, but others:
- Fotolia - $70
- Depositphotos - $35
- Dreamstime - $170
- 123Rf - $100

So I started to consider to leave some of this agencies.
1. iStock - took a lot of time for keywording and upload when it was iStock, but I didn't try to work with Getty contributor interface. Is it still bad?
2. AdobeStock (Fotolia) - didn't earn as much as I expected but easy and quick to upload/categorize and looks perspective because it is Adobe.
3. Depositphotos - the worst, but it is Ukrainian and I worked with them only because of that (I am from Ukraine).
4. Dreamstime - the worst after iStock in terms of upload/categorization, takes a lot of time.
5. 123rf - didn't sell well.

It is also a problem for me to manage/organize portfolio on different agencies: to track on what photos were accepted on what agencies, to synchronize keywords, etc.
So I think, maybe it will be more effective for me to work with 1-2 agencies? Definitely with Shutterstock and maybe iStock+AdobeStock.
What will you advise?

So I watched several videos on youtube and made a setup shown on attached image which gave me result as shown on second attached picture.
Any advice? Is it ok, or what mistakes am I making?

Off topic, but how low in power can the D1 500 go? It might be too strong even at it's lowest setting to use the speedlite to light a white background.

D1 500 energy range: 7 f-stops (7,8-500 Ws).
But I can't find 430 EX energy range.

Another question - should i delete images that did not sell at all for a long time?
I don�t want to make them free as Dreamstime suggests.

Hello!

I'm new on this forum but I am not new with selling stock photo.
I have been uploading few of my photos to microstock web sites from 2009, I worked mostly with iStock and SS, and worked a little with Fotolia and Dreamstime.
But i had a long period of not uploading any content and not checking my sales. I have only 260 images in my portfolio for now.

Now I want to get back to this business, but I have a question about agencies.

SS and iStock is not question, they are the best for me.
But Dreamstime earned me about 200$ from the start, and as far as i see now - I have no sales at all from July. Is it worth spending time for upload?
And about Fotolia, it didn't earned me nothing at all, about 10$ from the start, and now I see that all my files gone there - is it worth reuploading?
And what about other stock agencies, are there some new and good worth trying?
General question - what stock agencies are worth working with?

p.s. sorry for my not wery good English, I am from Ukraine.