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Messages - j2k
26
« on: December 02, 2008, 16:43 »
I'm relatively new on IS (uploading since March), but I have the same results - October down a lot, and November is even worse - almost exactly 50% of September. Barely made the payout.
27
« on: December 02, 2008, 16:12 »
Tell us more about the shoot? What do you mean by "shooting the lighting system"? If you are going to be able to use a tripod and longer exposure time, then stick to ISO 100. Use a cable release or if you don't have it, use the timer. The Digital Rebel is good at ISO 200 and quite all right up to ISO 400 with some processing as long as you don't underexpose. ISO 800 isn't all that good, and you'll loose quite a bit of detail trying to clean the noise. Don't bother with JPGs, use RAW as Litifeta said. What lens are you going to be using? If the kit lens then test it beforehand. Some were very nice, and some just plain bad. As a rule stop it down to F8/F11 if the conditions allow for it. Good luck! Despite its age it is still a very nice camera, but don't count on it if you are planning to take any in-game action shots at night 
28
« on: November 12, 2008, 15:41 »
Steady growth till October and a nose dive since then.
October was at about 50% of September and so far November looks worse. Might not even make a $100.
29
« on: November 04, 2008, 08:22 »
sales are there but at 40-50% of September's level. After the first week of October IS went down, and doesn't seem to be improving at all. Other agencies are doing very well.
30
« on: November 01, 2008, 22:39 »
Shutterstock 30.2% iStockPhoto 25.0% (sales 45% down compared to September) Fotolia 17.3% BME Dreamstime 13.2% BME StockXpert 7.1% 123rf 4.3% BigStockPhoto 3.0% A bit down from last month. All agencies with the exception of IS are doing quite a lot better than in September. Unfortunately IS contributed to over 40% of my microstock income last month, and the new best match reduced my sales drastically. If that doesn't change IS will perform even worse in November  Very nice month at FT 60% over last month, and DT 20% over.
31
« on: October 29, 2008, 15:01 »
Not only my sales plummeted, but also I didn't sell anything bigger than medium in two weeks. That's quite unusual.
To top it off some *!~ is killing all my keyword in my better selling files. I sincerely hope the best match will get another revision soon. I don't think it can get any worse.
EDIT: got a L sale today. yay.
32
« on: October 29, 2008, 07:43 »
I routinely strip exiff from all my submissions. Never noticed any special attention given to my files for that reason
33
« on: October 23, 2008, 10:19 »
Overall 2984
7-day 661
Lowly 399 sales.
Is it possible for two or more contributors to have exactly the same overall rank?
34
« on: October 21, 2008, 20:51 »
I have also had a couple of files sell that never sold before. Unfortunately all my good sellers are pushed so far back that even I don't have the patience to look for them.
I have a small port and possibly I'm being affected more than someone with a diverse portfolio, but so far the best match change is completely messing my sales - from average 10 photos a day down to 1-2.
35
« on: October 21, 2008, 20:46 »
Mean 
36
« on: October 21, 2008, 10:27 »
I have A720 IS. The only problem with it is that it is built with squeaky and easy to scratch plastic.
For the occasional stock shot it is well worth to go through the trouble of installing chdk firmware on those A-series cameras that are compatible. It is not very convenient to use, but the difference in quality between an in camera jpeg, and raw is substantial. Especially when the photograph has a lot of fine details.
I still downsample the files from this camera to 4MP before submitting. And of course stick to the lowest iso if possible.
37
« on: October 21, 2008, 08:24 »
My sales halved at the beginning of August, and now halved again in October. Not even going to make a payout this month. No retroactive sub sales for the first part of the month either.
38
« on: October 18, 2008, 14:25 »
Just did some random searches and non-exclusives are really, seriously handicapped in this current best match.
For anyone who isn't exclusive, it seems kind of pointless to even be discussing what order our portfolios are in. We aren't going to be getting any downloads there anyway....
Yep, and it seems that an exclusive might get a whole series of images on the very first page. No limit at all? Sort of pointless.
39
« on: October 18, 2008, 10:34 »
I don't know if I was sleepy or what this morning, but I'd swear that the order of my images has changed again (for worse actually). The preference for exclusives is at the moment rather astonishing.
40
« on: October 18, 2008, 05:32 »
The placement of my popular files is definetely much better now than a couple of days ago. Previous best match change left me with 2-3 downloads a day which was a severe drop. I'm hoping for the best for the upcoming week.
Re vectors - don't you think that if somebody is looking for vectors then they will tick vector box only? So it shouldn't matter if the vectors are being placed after photos, as long as the sorting within all the vectors works properly.
41
« on: October 17, 2008, 16:28 »
I have 70-200f4 is and 400 5.6 and I'm using them with kenko 1.4x teleconverter - very little image degradation - mainly some CA
42
« on: October 17, 2008, 09:16 »
What I find even more interesting is that he's actually going to be making more at fotolia than at istock now. One would have to wonder if some of the top exclusives decided to submit to other agencies, how much would their income rise?
43
« on: October 17, 2008, 07:14 »
Hello, Just noticed that my StockXpert account is showing slightly more money this morning than yesterday. A bug or did somebody buy my entire port overnight? I'm assuming it's just a dream but did anyone experience something similar after this upgrade?
44
« on: October 16, 2008, 15:58 »
It is "CR0" - wishful thinking category
45
« on: October 15, 2008, 22:14 »
Thanks for the answers. The thing about skipping words like submarine sandwich etc is that people actually use it in their searches - about 80% of my "sandwich" sales on DT have something like "turkey sub sandwich" "salami submarine" etc. It makes sense to assume that similar keywords are used on istock. Right now a bunch of photos shows up if you type submarine sandwich into istock search. All of them refer to the boat, so by not doing it, I'd be putting myself in disadvantage. Now, what would happen if one would put the keywords that were removed by the keyword wiki police back in? (on my turkey sandwich they not only removed submarine - kind of makes sense, but also turkey) 
46
« on: October 15, 2008, 16:06 »
Does anyone have a good way to keyword submarine sandwich on istock?
Judging by DT downloads it's quite popular term - either submarine sandwich, or sub sandwich. Unfortunately istock doesn't have such term in their controlled vocabulary and it gets split into submarine (nautical vessel) and sandwich.
Now I wouldn't care much about it if not for the fact, that 1) I'm trying to sell a photo of a sandwich not a boat, and 2) the "submarine" keyword either gets rejected, or marked as inaccurate later on.
Any ideas??? Phrase "submarine sandwich" doesn't really work since you have to put it in the quotes.
47
« on: October 14, 2008, 07:57 »
All I can say is that my portfolio is bleeding badly. Sales are waaay down. I'd say over 60% down. . I still have a small portfolio on istock with a limited number of well selling photos, so I'm probably getting hit a bit more than someone with a 1000+ diversified photos.
48
« on: October 08, 2008, 13:37 »
Jalap,
I don't believe your choice of words is intentional, but since the original poster has just passed away, maybe you could reedit your post?
Also seeing one of Miz'es topics getting new posts is a bit strange. Perhaps they should get locked?
49
« on: October 08, 2008, 09:59 »
Rest in Peace MIZ
50
« on: October 07, 2008, 13:30 »
Sales down by 40% as well. My best selling images far gone from the first pages of the appropriate search terms
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