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Messages - TonyD
101
« on: April 12, 2022, 14:19 »
You're not serious, are you, Debbie? You don't seriously think you're worthy of earning $0.10 a day with that cheap trinket! How arrogant can you be? Do you seriously think you can enter a Formula 1 race with a used 2CV? Sorry, but that's really naive. And when I read your lines again, I come to the conclusion that you haven't bought from pacesetter at all, otherwise you wouldn't write such crap and would have known better long ago!
You have to put some money in your hand if you want to make it in this business. I have understood that. I now own a Hasselblatt H6D. I will have paid it off in no time. My asset manager has assured me that the 53rd generation of my descendants will live in prosperity thanks to the sales I have made with it. Microstock is clearly a sensible and sustainable investment in the future.
I just picked myself off the floor after looking at the price of this camera. (Link below).
Who pays that much for a camera?
https://www.parkcameras.com/shop/hasselblad-h6d-100c-medium-format-camera_h015767c?of_tid=MFRWG5B5GM3TMJTGMVSWISLEHUYSM4DSN5SESZB5HEYTIOI&adGroupId=91916221675&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAiA6Y2QBhAtEiwAGHybPRzVC87GdKm3GOk-EUlFsTEchBBq_ERLyf29aGY7kK3qZAITQ_eArBoCTgUQAvD_BwE
I didn't mean that cheap 100 MP model, Deb. There's also one that can do 400 MP. And that's the least a buyer can expect in terms of technical quality when he spends so much money that we even get 10 cents for it. [/quote] I don't think anyone in their right mind buys this camera for micro. For huge fine art prints for a gallery exhibition yes maybe.
102
« on: April 12, 2022, 14:16 »
People always come up to me and tell me: "Pacesetter, it is just not possible to make up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry."
Hogwash!
These same people also say things like: Once upon a time it was possible to make up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry, but that was before I started and things have gotten really bad now.
They listen to all the doomers and gloomers who run around telling everybody the sky is falling and it is no longer possible to make up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry.
They even do everything on the cheap, like buy a second-hand DSLR camera and lens off eBay or Amazon instead of investing in some quality gear like a new Pentax 645D 40MP Digital SLR for stills or new Sony PXW-FX9K XDCAM 6K for video, and then wonder why they dont make up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry!
If you really want to make up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry, it takes a lot of discipline, practise, hard work and persistence. Quality gear will only take you so far.
But if youre really serious about making up to 10 cents a day in the Microstock industry then you have to get yourself the 14 Dirty Little Secrets to Making up to 10 Cents a Day in the Microstock Industry that Pro Contributors Wish You Didnt Know!
For your exclusive copy of the 14 Dirty Little Secrets to Making up to 10 Cents a Day in the Microstock Industry that Pro Contributors Wish You Didnt Know! rush me your cash, cheque or money order for just $149 today!
Regular sales price for this book is $847. So dont delay! This bargain price wont last!
very funny. I actualy make 10c a day on average but with a second hand camera & lens from ebay.
103
« on: April 12, 2022, 03:49 »
Feb 2022 is my best ever for number of DLs but not amount Thats after just over two yrs of submitting to Sstock
104
« on: April 12, 2022, 03:44 »
Sales total of 1 DL on SS so far this month. Only good thing is the photo sold is my joint best seller with 16 DLs. but sales usualy pick up later in month.
I'm Also with adobe, DT, pond5 (for video only) & Alamy & 0 sales on those. Loads of zooms on alamy but sales don't show for months on there.
105
« on: April 09, 2022, 19:51 »
I believe so, you can always try it and see. As I understand it, the only Editorial they won't accept are photos with people in them.....unfortunately.
I keep hearing this, but my experience is a very different one: I can hardly get any editorial images accepted on Adobe at all. The only ones that always go through are the strict illustrative editorial ones, whith a product placed on a white background for example. As for everything else, like street shots, fabric buildings (without any people!) I always get the the image is against the " Illustrative Editorial Guidelines" rejection.  I could never figure out why this seems to work for other people on Adobe, but not for me.
Maybe Matt can weigh in on this one?
Maybe he can. I don't know.
Luckily I don't really do many editorial photos in general, so it isn't that much of a big deal to me. They are just a tiny fraction of my port. It just always puzzles me when people here say that Adobe basically accepted everything as editorial as long as there are no people in the photos. For me, unless it's a product photo, my editorial photos get rejected more often than accepted and I can't even figure out a pattern.
Randomly rejected photos:
I think Mat said on another thread that some photos submitted as editorial get rejected if adobe thinks it qualifies as commercial so some of your nice colorful photos here will be accepted as commercial certainly if they're public buildings. I submit building & even street photos & as long as some things are cloned out, they are accepted. I don't yet qualify for editorial.
106
« on: April 09, 2022, 19:36 »
Will be interesting to see the next quarters if they are winning or loosing customers. We will surely know by their stock price. Last months it has fallen down.
Their margins cannot be trimmed more. Well, yes, if they pay 0.03 for download. I am sure many would be still uploading. Heck I think if they would make contributors pay 0.01$ per upload there would be people uploading too 
These people who still upload even for these tiny amounts which happen on some other sites are wasting their time, energy & data. I just don't understand why they do it even if they come from a third world country.
107
« on: April 09, 2022, 19:20 »
They have a Hal 9000 system doing reviews now.
This one genuinely made me laugh.
The topic of Shutterstock rejections has been discussed to death, and the general consensus is that it's ridiculous.
Some people still claim they have no rejections at all... well, they must have a magic trick.
Every now and then I keep trying because I feel like an image really has sales potential or it has sold on other platforms.
Had to upload my bestseller 3 times before it got accepted and now it is... well, my bestseller.
Another thing that seems to mitigate the problem is downsizing to 5MP.
At 10 cents per sale that's still 4MP too much.
All in all very time consuming, and for most of the images not worth the effort if you ask me.
Just fire and forget.
I found some old images last week from a vacation in Portugal in 2009. Shot with a Panasonic Lumix FX33 if I'm not mistaken.
They were bad. I mean the images. The vacation was great actually.
Snapshots with a point and shoot standard end consumer camera and looking at the images, it's clear that I had no idea of what I was doing.
But you know what? Screw it. I uploaded a few shots which I think are still half-useful. Even did some post-processing on those old dusty jpg's.
BAM. All accepted by Shutterstock's evil Hal 9000.
Yep I can get 10yr old photos with a cheap olympus P&S camera accepted but only if processed & downsized to 4-5mp. yet SS's stupid machine often rejects my high quality sony mirrorless camera shots (even if downsized) I filed a complaint but the person who replies doesn't even work for SS & did nothing except send a standard reply. They don't even check the photos to see if review was wrong anymore. I did the same with adobe & they accepted a photo that was rejected and it ended up selling. These agencies should start trusting contributors more like alamy does.
108
« on: March 23, 2022, 00:25 »
I'm not sure it's worth uploading to SS any more
I'm sure - it isn't. I stopped uploading there when they changed the commissions in June 2020.
If you're getting rejections there and the images are OK and getting accepted elsewhere I would just resubmit until they pass, or just forget about it and move on. Definitely not worth worrying about it for 10 cents a download.
When they lowered the amount in may 2020 I'd only been uploading photos to ss for 6 months. had I known that, I wouldn't have joined in the first place. I got to payout eventualy. I also uploaded to DT & alamy (and adobe sometimes) which are a joy to upload to but nowhere near the sales numbers as ss even thogh I have far more images on those. I wish the buyers would see sense leave ss.
109
« on: March 23, 2022, 00:10 »
Recently from last 2 batch of uploads Shutterstock rejected all of my photos with some various reasons. I don't know if they are dying, someone hate me at SS or they don't like Easter.
yes the same happened to me mainly for focus or noise (& they were editorial) because they can't be bothered to tick the real reason why they don't want then. yet I uploaded a photo which I knew had a problem: a raindrop on the lens showed up & was accepted. If the photo is a subject that's more likely to sell (how whould a machine know that?) then they accept it.
110
« on: March 19, 2022, 18:19 »
...
God I just hope I don't look like that when I reach DT payout
111
« on: March 19, 2022, 18:19 »
112
« on: March 19, 2022, 14:36 »
I noticed Dreamstime advertisement on Contributor Dashboard. It's kind of weird 
that bottom photo & caption is the same as one on SSTK's contributor page
113
« on: March 09, 2022, 20:20 »
Therefore, if I do the math correctly,
if a customer buys a credit pack for up to 500 video downloads,
I earn
$.0.056 for HD, or
$0.14 for 4K.
Do I shoot in 4K using an expensive camera with custom profiles, color correct, denoise, export in 4K ProRes for that amount?
On a personal note, it's more viable to only upload photos for a minimum of 0.33.
Unless photos sales also take the road to the subscription plan.
Even if someone buys a sinlge clip, that's $2.80 - $5.60 per clip now.
I suppose if one wants to keep on uploading videos, he just sends his content as is.
Shaken, uncorrected at H.264.
Since it's a game of numbers, some wil be rejected, some will be accepted.
That is what these prices lead us to do.
Treat them accordigly, low care for the low price they wil deserve.
That cannot be right
114
« on: March 09, 2022, 09:10 »
Not really good seller for me with over 4500 pic around 10 sales per month  Only positive is sometimes I have $15 per sale, mostly editorials. Images is approved very fast, sometimes just couple minutes but you can not buy to much for that
I have less than 1 sale a month on DT but only have 860 images. But they accept smartphone & even old compact camera photos as well as of 35mm film pictures
115
« on: March 07, 2022, 16:52 »
That you had good months with Istock might mean something or nothing at all. Depends on if you sell dozens o thousands of images every 30 days. I sell over 1000 images per month at Istock and just a few weeks ago I made a 15000$ market freeze sale. Does it mean iStock is doing good. No, not at all. They are slowly sinking for different reasons. Debt that is dragging them down is a big issue and that is the reason that they have to go public again so investors can pump in money that they don't have now for their expansion plans. Let's see how this pans out.
Adobe on the other side is a huge player. Their stock value is 222 billion. Shutterstock Mkt is only 3.2billion. So who do you think is going to be the last man standing in just a couple of years. We surely will find out. I made my bet. It will be surely be interesting. I for once hope that SS sinks . They surely deserve it
Can someone sell more on istock than SSTK for the same images?
116
« on: March 05, 2022, 22:20 »
russia is 57th in per capita GDP well behind any other major industrial country (US is 13th), oligarchs control almost as much as the entire Russian GDP (even the massive inequality of the US 1% 'only' accounts for 40% of US GDP)
Here is an updated, 2022 list:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gdp-per-capita-by-country
The USA is 7th, Russia is 53rd and there are 8 East European countries ahead of Russia. All of them EU and NATO members.
It shouldn't be a surprise that security and good trade relations are prerequisites for prosperity.
Good god, my country GB is just ahead of Japan.
117
« on: March 05, 2022, 17:32 »
To get to the original question. I haven't had a DL since Feb 26 which was on SS so probably buyers are all watching the news
118
« on: March 05, 2022, 17:11 »
I saw searches by Alamy users for 'central park' where my photos showed up but that was for New York, mine was for central park in Boston UK so I had to change it to 'park' only.
119
« on: March 05, 2022, 12:40 »
Whe don't know yet. Once they get public if they do as the whole stock market is in turmoil now we will see for how much the company thinks is worth. Much closer to SS that Adobe thats for sure.
That you had good months with Istock might mean something or nothing at all. Depends on if you sell dozens o thousands of images every 30 days. I sell over 1000 images per month at Istock and just a few weeks ago I made a 15000$ market freeze sale. Does it mean iStock is doing good. No, not at all. They are slowly sinking for different reasons. Debt that is dragging them down is a big issue and that is the reason that they have to go public again so investors can pump in money that they don't have now for their expansion plans. Let's see how this pans out.
Adobe on the other side is a huge player. Their stock value is 222 billion. Shutterstock Mkt is only 3.2billion. So who do you think is going to be the last man standing in just a couple of years. We surely will find out. I made my bet. It will be surely be interesting. I for once hope that SS sinks . They surely deserve it
What is Getty stock value?
SS will decline like getty did then they won't be stupid with rejections ie. for noise / focus when the photos are perfectly fine.
120
« on: March 05, 2022, 11:27 »
Thijs has departed this forum, I see. What a shame. He was much too nice for this group, I think.
I've decided to follow Thijs out the door. No more interest here for me either.
So bye, ya'll. It's been a hoot!
i hope both you & Thijs will reconsider - both of you have been vital participants. i know it's difficult, but in programming we have the concept of egoless-programming - not taking any criticism of code/views as personal attacks. however, some comments are ad feminam & deserve condemnation, but once condemned, shunned
This sucks so bad. We are haemorrhaging some of the best members of this forum. If you are still reading so sorry to see you go Martha, though I completely understand. Honestly considering the same thing myself.
Martha is gone - PM doesnt find her.
It's sad because she was on here for years & must have been a great photographer shooting for N Geographic which I used to read at school.
121
« on: March 05, 2022, 09:13 »
They have dropped for me like 60% compared to how it was a few months ago.
You should not compare your February sales with sales from a few months ago. Sale numbers are very different in different months, depending on what your port has to offer. February tends to be a rather slow month for most contributors comapred to other months.
I uploaded about 1000 images and around 300 videos and guess how many got accepted? around 300 photos and les than 10 videos.
Compare to Adobe stock they accepted around more than 500 photos and about 100 videos.
If you have a rejection rate of 90% on Shutterstock and 50% at Adobe you should really re-think your strategy, because there is something seriously wrong with your content. It's not Shutterstock, it's your photos.
A rejection rate of less than 5% on both SS and Adobe would be normal. With everything more than 10% I'd really re-evaluate the quality of the content I submit.
I just had 17 out of my last 18 photos rejected for noise / focus 1 for trademark yet they are downsized & have no noise & are sharp at 100%.Haven't had this rejection rate before. I process from RAW & save to JPEG. Same photos were accepted on DT Alamy & even Abobe so something has definately changed at SSTK recently but the never say what. I even contacted support but no joy. I'm giving up on them they aren't worth the hassle. I wouldn't care if I got enough sales on other sites but I only had two DLs on adobe this year vs 25 DLs on sstk & none on DT since Dec 2021 when I had 2 in one day. Alamy not a sale since July last year.
122
« on: March 05, 2022, 08:16 »
Dear Russian friends, I know there is a significant stock photographers community, so I have an appeal to you.
Please do not believe in your Russian media propaganda saying that terrible war is some kind of "special action". It is regular war against Ukrainian civils. Putin is cannon firing kindergartens, hospitals and civilian areas. Your Russian dictator is not better that Hitler or Kim Jong-un. He started the worst kind of war in the middle of Europe so no one can feel safe now.
I am asking you to inform and spread the true information wherever you can in your country. Putin already cut you off from most foreign media, so all ways to reach you are good.
Thanks!
BTW, I am not Ukrainian, but I have so much sympathy to their people that I had to post it, hope it won't be removed. If is reaches even one unaware Russian, my message makes sense. The only way to bring peace back to Europe is to make Russian aware and ready to avert from their ruler.
Dear users, do not believe this person and the lies he is spreading on this forum. He makes no sense, he has no proof, he is biased. The West is spreading lies, the same lies when they showing us pictures of dead bodies when coronavirus strike. Nobody is innocent in war. It's always two sides. But in this case, we can all see that West has gone too far.
The west is not spreading lies how can they fake news videos which are geolocated so proven to come from Ukraine. In any case the whole world thinks Putin is wrong killing civilians for NO reason how on earth can you agree with that?. COVID 19 was very real no way it could be faked.
The West is spreading lies. Are you blind or ignorant? Can you remember of weapon of mass destructions in Iraq? Google that. Can you remember bombing Yugoslavia? Let me help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_of_the_NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia. Russian attempt to end the bombing was useless back then. More than 5.000 people died.
In any case, the whole world thinks what media wants you to think. There is no single evidence of Putin killing civilians. It's just childish. Covid was real but the media makes us sooo scare of that. Did you forget vaccines? Where is this deadly virus now?
Learn history and stop being ignorant.
This picture is a snapshot from the movie.
I an visually impaired NOT BLIND & Ignorant. Someone kick this insulting troll off the forum NOW!
Those things have nothing to do with Russia invading ukraine. Saddam Hussein was killing his own people and was also a dictator the west doesn't have dictators.
So whose bombing Ukrane then the fairy godmother? I bet you cannot answer that?
You are a nasty bitter troll calling someone blind & ignorant whom you don't even know. GET VA LIFE and I will report you to the moderator
Are you crying baby? You are blind in your mind. You are ignorant. You are also rude. Your lies goes beyond any logic. We all know, the whole world knows, there was no weapons for mass destructions. If that was a lie what else they (USA) lied too? It was the oil. This is you, Americans. This is your politics.
Nevermind, be ignorant as much as you want. Or you can take a deep breath and learn history. It'll help. If you failed at school you can try now. Seriously.
You not been banned from the forum yet? you will soon if you keep this up. If this was a russian forum you'd quickly ban us for what we say. We have free press in the west that is NOT controlled by corrupt governments END OF so they tell the truth. There is fake news but not FROM THE BBC AND you keep bringing in past wars which have nothing to do with Russia invading Ukraine. You don't even believe that russia is attacking them because russia tell you that Ukraine is attacking it's own people which is total nonsense. Oh I went to school alright IN FACT I am a trained graphic dewsigner / photographer else why would I be on this professional microstock forum? I though I'd remind you that this is a microstock forum NOT A WAR/CONFLICT FORUM! I am NOT american I am english & YOU started the personal attacks so GET LOST do not bother to reply because I will block you & so will others on the forum
123
« on: March 05, 2022, 00:29 »
A question for whoever is in charge of the forum - Why are you allowing Russian trolls spreading putin propaganda and refering to past conflicts that no only nothing to do with stock photography but is insulting to forum users.
And why would you want a forum that is against the freedom of speech? Because one of the core principles of a democratic world is build on freedom of speech which in its definition includes ideas that some find extremely offensive. If you don't like that you can always try to join some North Korean forum or some of that kind.
Because this is NOT a forum about war or politics. Some forums even ban posts on these subjects. North Korea? you must be joking with that evil fat b'' in charge. Democracy is decided by the majority and I bet most people on this forum do not want to talk about war. We've already lost members of this forum thanks to the pointless crap spouted about war past & present. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT you know what you can do!
124
« on: March 04, 2022, 19:04 »
I only had 1 jan sale on there since Dec when I had 2 in three days. Now I just had 2 in just over a week so it's picking up at last. The pics that sold recently are what SS rejected.
125
« on: March 04, 2022, 18:06 »
A question for whoever is in charge of the forum - Why are you allowing Russian trolls spreading putin propaganda and refering to past conflicts that no only nothing to do with stock photography but is insulting to forum users.
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