Quote from: ale1969 on March 08, 2008, 10:28

(Another solution would be the communist revolution but shooting with a Kiev88 isn't very practical nowadays  )

pfff... 88 is for pussies, 60 is the real deal!

Sssshhhh... I'm trying to grab a Pentacon Six from eBay just now 

From my short experience in MS my isolations sells a lot more than shots with setups and props for the very reasons you put in your post. An isolated apple with good diffused light can be used in a gazillion of ways by designers, a shot of a bowl of apples with great dramatic light, while artistically a lot more interesting, can be used in a handful of graphical situations. That's why I'm trying to add those shots to the macrostock market, if they sell once there they can be profitable, if they sells 3 or 4 times on MS they are a waste of time and work.

I have the same problem and I solved it ordering today an Epson v700 for about 500 euros.

It can scan till large format and if quality isn't enough I could order the wet mount (to keep my slide on the same focal plane) and at www.betterscanning.com are on sales several other accessories to make scanning easier and more accurate.

The real resolution of the v700 is at about 1500-2000 DPI, not the nominal 4800, at least so it appears scanning resolution targets (here http://www.fotoavventure.it/freecontent/FC_ProvaV700/index.htm there's a really professional review with comparison with higher price dedicated scanners, even if it's in italian the images are really interesting).

The v700 has fixed focus lenses so you have to find the best distance from the scanning plane and you have to be very careful to keep your slides or negs flat.

Recently Microtek released the new Artixscan F1 with glassless film scanning (film must be inserted under the superior flat glass plane) and autofocus lenses but since we are european and we have to suffer it costs from 1000 to 1300 euros while about the same model (the Artixscan M1, it lacks digital ICE noise removal because of copyright issues in the States) costs about 599 $ from B&H, alas 400 euros at the current exchange rate. But you have to add shipping (more than 200$ from USA to Italy as the scanner is darn heavy), duty taxes and VAT, plus different electrical plugs and warranty problems, so all in all it's not all that bargain for us but maybe in the UK you could find easier ways to trade with your ex colonial cousins

If you're referring to me, I'm not called Susan."

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to insult you at all, just a pity case of writing when I was tired. My excuses.

And I'm afraid you're wrong.  As I explained above, it's perfectly acceptable to sell both licenses at once.  The rights managed license primarily protects the seller, not the buyer.  That's one of the reasons it is cheaper.

We are NOT talking about exclusive licenses here.  Clearly you cannot sell RF images as exclusive licenses.

While your explaination makes sense teorically, the hard facts are that on many agencies you can't sell an image as RM if it has been sold as RF before because some (not all but many) of the RM licenses include exclusive usage relative to time, space and medium. I saw on some stock sites lines like "image not available for the US till 31/12/09" or "image not available for book covers till 31/12/10", etc...

And on Alamy this concept goes to the extent that once you tagged your image as RF you can't switch it to RM anymore (while the inverse is always possible).

To be safer I also choosed the "licensed" option on Alamy for images that I submitted to Photoshelter (always as RM) because this way I can manage if I can assure exclusivity on an image or not. It's my responsability, not of the agency and I can be sued if I fail to accomplish it professionaly.

To be more precise you can't manage the rights of an image already sold as royalty free because you can't grant exclusivity anymore.

If a customer who boughts the rights of your image through Alamy (or Photoshelter or whatever else macro agency) discover that the same image has been sold royalty free elsewhere you can be legally sued.

So you can still upload your images as RF on Alamy because that agency doesn't tie you with exclusiveness, but not as Rights Managed or Licensed.

Still I don't think is a good commercial choice selling the same image with so huge difference in prices. I kept separate collections of images, one for micro and the other for macro. The market segments (and needs) are also pretty different.

In food shots is far from unusual to have the main light coming from behind because it helps to define the shape of the food itself.
I don't also see anything wrong with having out of focus objects with blown out highlights but, as Hatman sharply put, here the strawberry catches too much the attention of the viewer to act as an effective background.
Then the other problem is the nature itself of the microstock market. My "arranged" food shots are viewed and sell far less than isolations in microstock agencies.
If you instead browse throught the catalogs of food specialized macrostock agencies you'd find a handful images with "everything in focus", the current trend is to have a very very selective focus to highlight the texture and the "appetizing factor" of the food.
They're different markets that evidently satisfy different porpouses. I'm keeping my "arranged" shots for macro now, they're wasted in micro.

As an example of what I'm saying here is one of my food images with shallow DOF and light from behind (and just two views on IS):


This is my bestseller on IS:


This other instead is a shot (wonderful in my opinion) of a very good food photographer named Michael Ray (http://www.foodportfolio.com/) with main light form behind (then a couple of reflectors and a fresnel spot probably), shallow DOF and blown highligts.

Thanks for doing an excellent job, Leaf!!

I wholeheartly agree. Good job and many thanks, they'll never be enough.

First shot imho has 2 problems that really comes down to 1: you had to use a zoom to put in evidence the wireless ear piece and to blur out the ininspiring background using an adeguate aperture.

The second shot has a lot better composition but direct flash kills the model's eyes and if MP large preview is faithful to original it is way out blurred out by noise reduction, so much that it seems out of focus.

I agree with some of the posters. That is a great shot but I think it doesn't belong to the micro market, if I were you I'd keep that shot for some macro like Alamy or Photoshelter (I think the latter would love it).
I learnt it seeing how in microagencies "simple and stupid" isolated food (which can be used in a gazillion different ways) sell a lot more than nice but specific table setups (usable just for some specific projects).

I don't want more I want better.

This seems to be the overall feeling of all users except for the consumer P&S range.

We're on the limit of some lense capabilities so the Kodak path is really interesting, the 24mb Sony sensor doesn't sincerely wet my pants.

They give the opportunity to everyone to download for free webpage resolution images!!!!!
They call it "comp download". As their watermark is almost useless the whole thing looks ridiculous.
Just have deleted my portfolio!

Also Alamy permits this and about every other macro site. Just go to the Getty page (example http://corporate.gettyimages.com/marketing/Galleries/5048_TaxiRM/usa/Gallery.html ) and you could alt-stamp all the images you want at web resolution without watermark, but I never heard of panicked Getty photogs who scream on forums about deleting their portfolio there. It's a different market.

Basically what Alien Skin Exposure2 does is really simple. It's nothing else than a contrast curve together with some color filters added to mimick the behaviour of the various films.

So it doesn't add any noise or banding in itself BUT it could if the shots isn't properly exposed or lacks some dynamic range just the same as it could happen when you use curves, blending layers, levels etc.

For example I processed a shot of an orange with the velvia setting and it came out with the red channel bleeding everywhere, I switched to Astia and it was fine.