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Messages - basti
151
« on: May 03, 2008, 09:26 »
When US economy hurts, then it hurts mostly US but many other markets will be affected also though I dont think it will hurt too much. Economy changes anyway and there are many other big players like China, Russia, Taiwan etc.
It maybe means great times for agencies paying in bucks which means they pay less and prices in US are not 35% higher from year ago what was the drop od U$ here. That means they sell cheaper pics and so attract customers, pay less to photographers and still earn great money. Its pretty bad for most of photographers outside US - we have to increase portfolios very fast just to cover drop of $$ value. So maybe great for customers but not so much for photographers - imagine you have to work 20% harder every year in your regular job just to earn the same - how long can you do it that way?
152
« on: May 02, 2008, 04:04 »
As said above, Im not yet above $500 so I dont expect anything. And if they do increase payments more then 5c I will be very surprised.
153
« on: April 23, 2008, 03:21 »
The best way is to set it like A6-A5-A4-A3 sizes with 300dpi. Only few cameras go beyond A3/300dpi so that should be all XL.
1200x1600 is mostly pretty enough for even A5 prints and you rarely need larger picture. So its not so bad though I completely agree that the step between 2MP and 7MP is pretty stupid.
154
« on: April 21, 2008, 14:00 »
Dont worry, just grab a "blur tool" about 50-80% blur and "paint" the sky and thats it. Or select just the sky and use median with high radius. Theres always solution to this "invisible noise" policy.
Btw. I dont think FF camera will help, 40D is not worse then 5D.
155
« on: April 18, 2008, 04:03 »
Concepts/models sell probably best. However this requires studio, good lights, models etc. which all costs money. So you must sell much more just to cover the costs and I personally dont think its very wise to sell superb pro model photos in microstock. If you want high quality image go to macrostock/midstock and offer fair price. $.3 for eg Yuris pics is a clear dumping price but if he wants it, then its his choice... I do offer mostly monuments/landscapes/nature pics, they dont sell so well but its a nice bonus. As Tom said - I also have 1000% more money from direct contracts then from microstock but I dont mind. Im new in microstock biz and if it works for me I will stay, if not I just give up 
156
« on: April 18, 2008, 03:45 »
US dollar is not going up any time soon, rather it will drop even more. I dont see any reason for waiting.
Maybe good choice could be to use your paypal account for shopping in US - cameras and lenses usually cost the same in USD and euro so its bargain now.
157
« on: April 17, 2008, 10:53 »
I have pretty fast link and sometimes can upload all five, sometimes even one is problem. No firewall problems.
Yes you can see your pending photos - go to your portfolio and click pending, thats all. Though theres no direct way there from upload process, you must go thru your profile. The site could have a bit better "ergonomics/navigation" but I think its still much better then IS. In case they fix the upload method or allow ftp it could be pretty good. The navigation needs just little "cosmetic" upgrades to work properly.
158
« on: April 17, 2008, 10:41 »
I dont think many of good photographers are "with them" though I completely agree they do play games with us with tons of requirements and restrictions with incredibly small commision if we realize they are nothing without us. Thats of course also our own fault - they just push us where we let them push.
159
« on: April 13, 2008, 09:34 »
Fast solutions how to solve isolation 253-254 pixels: grab a white brush, about 100-200 in size with soft edge and simply repaint all background. Same works for black. I got two "feather isolations" yesterday where there was no isolation at all and it was shot on black glass and even there was no "isolation" word in keywords. So be carefull.
About exif - best to strip it. I think only real apperance of the pic is important, not what Ive done to it in PS, what camera took it or what iso was used! If it looks good and meets technical requirements its not important, if its junk the fact it was made with $5.000 camera cant help.
160
« on: April 12, 2008, 05:46 »
I dont know about you guys but IS raise is heavily scaring me! Why?
1) Absolutely slow and user unfriendly upload and website combined with their incredibly low upload limit is deadly. In case you have now about 1000 pics to upload, you are out of business there - no chance to get it there in several months!
2) They refuse some pics for very disputable reasons and I really dont have time to waste and "fix" and reupload everything they reject. "Artifacts" which are visible at 200% magnification (thats about 6-7x larger then printing size with 300dpi!!!), "bad clipping path" with objects never clipped (just minimum level adjustment)... then if I fix that and reupload they find something else.
3) They clearly show their connection with Getty - brutal requirements to be IS exclusive photographer, you cant upload even refused files elsewhere, very small commision... simply doesnt look very much like fair business for me.
So I hope SS will find some way how to competete with them though I agree they must do serious steps and pretty fast. I can clearly see why is IS so attractive for some ppl with great portfolio already there. SS is not an ideal agency and we can also say alot critical things but I think we should wish for competition rather then fusion - fusion would probably result in lower commisions and more requirements, limits and corporate brutality just because theres no other agency.
161
« on: April 10, 2008, 16:49 »
It took about month for me so dont be surprised if it takes pretty long 
162
« on: April 07, 2008, 03:36 »
Action -> batch process -> save result in SS folder and another in Alamy folder and thats it.
In fact I probably wouldnt bother myself with downsizing in case I have super quality camera but now it helps me to avoid any potential noise/artifacts trouble. And unless they change their subscription to various prices for various sizes I dont see any reason to put bigger images there.
163
« on: April 06, 2008, 08:12 »
Chode: it is loss of quality. But SS sell pretty well their interpolated oversaturated pics so I dont mind. Clients want it, clients get it. I do always downsize to avoid potential refusals for noise/artifacts.
164
« on: April 03, 2008, 03:06 »
SS heavily interpolates pics so thats why are so picky about noise - if you multiply it 4x during interpolation you get pretty nasty picture!
I do upload only 4MP pics there, at first to avoid any potential trouble and second - I get no advantage for uploading larger pics.
I dont think huge size of 25MP pics is problem for reviewing but more for interpolation - because they interpolate all pics and imagine the memory requirement when you upsize 25MP pics 4x!
165
« on: March 31, 2008, 09:41 »
Third month for SS and DT, first for IS.
SS: 82%
DT: 16%
IS: 2%
166
« on: March 31, 2008, 09:01 »
Its common 17-85 IS USM, check the description down the page. Not bad but also not very good, its fast and stabilised which is both quite useless in studio/stock and its quite dark (4-5,6) which is big disadvantage. Also its optical quality is lower then those lenses i mentioned which cost about $500-600 and Sigma 17-70/2.8-4 is even cheaper then 17-85.
167
« on: March 29, 2008, 15:15 »
Quite good and not too pricy lenses:
Sigma 17-70/2,8-4 macro
Sigma 18-50/2,8
Tamron 17-50/2,8
Tokina 16-50/2,8
Very good but pricy:
Canon 17-55/2,8
168
« on: March 29, 2008, 09:23 »
Well, for me with microstock micro-prices I think fast upload process is essential. Ftp doesnt work the same at all - I have pretty fast connection and SS is about 2x faster then DT, it also depends on daytime and how many other users are uploading.
SS is very fast in all ways - ftp, batch processing and fast review.
DT is much slower, one by one photo processing, is significantly slower then SS and review takes up to week.
IS is extremely user-resistant system - 5 pages to upload one (!!!) picture, 3 of them are completely useless. First you dont have to click that No-No-No-Yes nonsense - you will violate the agreement with them anyway if you brake those rules so its just bothering paranoia. Last page with "I love uploading" - completely useless, just wasting time; then you could go just to upload form and not again to upload home page, then click "upload" and no-no-no-yes nonsense again! It could be 2x faster even with their "controled vocabulary" after some optimization.
169
« on: March 28, 2008, 03:24 »
Yep Dan, I agree with that. If the rule that 90% earnings are made with 10% of photos, then there is hundreds of thousands junky photos. The review process should be a more objective, right now there is some real garbage accepted but some pretty good pics rejected with very poor reasons. For me SS is mostly ok but DT is extremely picky.
Another issue is dolar decrease - 25% drop in a year means you must now earn 25% more then year ago to get same money (if outside US).
I dont mind more photographers and more photos, it just kicks you to work harder. Getty has 11.millions of pics and I dont think they suffer from that but more from their marketing strategy.
170
« on: March 25, 2008, 03:35 »
I think SS is not going to push it much higher, maybe 35c or 40c but wouldnt be surprised with first $500 still with 25c. If they offer subscriptions in euros, they should pay in euros. $$ is dropping lower and lower and +5c per photo is not even covering the loss!
171
« on: March 20, 2008, 07:47 »
You dont need to prove it isnt him - HE needs to prove its HIM! And he cant! Thats it. Anyway I got refusal with just sihouttes of persons far in landscape - I dont think they even could recognize themselves! I stay away from shooting models for microstock and thats it for me.
One refusal of 600 years old building because of property release was also LOL. I wonder how I could ask Mr. Matyas from Arras to sign property release when hes dead couple centuries... And I dont agree with signing it by current owner (state) - at first they are not the copyright holder and it was shot from public place and second they will never agree to that just because they dont have any office for such purpose so nobody could sign it!
172
« on: March 17, 2008, 02:40 »
Vonkara: Thats true but for stock the advantage of extra 4MP is very important. Im not using sequence shooting and 11 AF points are not too big disadvantage for me. I do mostly landscapes and macro so in fact I dont mind even 3 points AF with Olympus;)
I saw test pics from both Canon 40D and Pentax K20D and maybe Canon is very very little better. Both have pretty invisible noise even at iso800 so thats not an issue. With some denoising SW you can use them up to iso 400-800 with no problems, and if you downsize 14MP picture to 10MP, noise will surely disappear.
Back to Nikon - I dont see any reason to start with Nikon now - 80D is still plastic and no competitor to to K20D or 40D. D300 and D3 are again very good but too expensive against their competitors. With todays stock trend with extremely high MP requirements I dont see any reason to buy pricy 8-10MP camera while there are 14MP in semipro already.
173
« on: March 16, 2008, 04:14 »
The basic problem is that they set same (!!!) price in euros and USD while USD is about 40% less then euro! When we realize very high custom fees and taxes in europe Im not surprised that it costs here twice as much as in USA. Anyway D3 price is far beyond reality because its better then 5D but lower resolution and still here in Europe nearly 3X more expensive with maybe 30% added value. Its very good camera but I wouldnt buy it for this price.
Vonkara:
I wouldnt be so sure about Pentax and Sony - they showed very aggresive strategy last year with quite high quality models. I dont think Canon 40D is competitor to Pentax K20D. Canon still have big advantage of its reputation and huge set of lenses and cheap accesories but cant competete against 14MP cameras with nearly same image quality with their 10MP camera - what is better for stock photography? Just think how much you must upsize pics from 40D and from K20D to alamy and you clearly see the difference!
174
« on: March 09, 2008, 17:22 »
Oh I see - here in czech was CS2 for students for about $1000 but commercial use was not allowed.
175
« on: March 09, 2008, 04:20 »
To the SW licence guys - using Photoshop for microstock is commercial, so any Photoshops bought under educational licences are illegal. Theres exactly written in the licence you cant use it for commercial purposes.
In case you dont need the latest ACR formats I would stick with CS2. CS3 also requires much stronger HW to run properly and under Microsoft Vista its complete disaster in case you dont have very strong PC.
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