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Messages - Perry

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1151
Newbie Discussion / Re: uploading to multiple sites or not?
« on: October 15, 2009, 11:09 »
A thought I had was to upload to sites which give me a higher royalty, then 6months later or whenever, upload them to the sites which give less comission.

Time is money. You loose 6 months of sales with that method. I usually send my images to the sites with low sales monthly.

1152
General Stock Discussion / Re: More bad news on economy
« on: October 15, 2009, 11:02 »
Okay, the print is going down... I think the micros should raise the prices for small sizes to "compensate" in a way.

1153
Off Topic / Re: Espresso Enthusiasts Chat
« on: October 07, 2009, 04:56 »
I don't have an expresso machine, I make my (almost-)espresso with a moka pot. I usually use milk too, so I'm drinking Capuccinos or Lattes. My next step would be to buy a coffee grinder, I'm thinking that would make a big difference in taste (and could be used for other coffees too, I'm also a big fan of coffee made with a french press)

1154
General - Top Sites / Re: Slow start of the October?
« on: October 05, 2009, 08:30 »
After great september, october has started very weakly for me :(

1155
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS tax from this month
« on: October 02, 2009, 04:49 »
I live in a country with tax treaty, and I filled the form online. But where can I see my tax status? I haven't got any confirmation either way after filling the form. I would like to be sure before next payment.

1156
Alamy.com / Re: I want to join ALAMY, but it is exclusive?
« on: October 01, 2009, 17:49 »

Well Perry, as has already been pointed out, you may have had a point years ago when they actually WERE vastly different price points, but Alamy RF prices have dropped like a rock the last couple of years as micro prices have risen. 

The price difference for Royalty Free images is practically nonexistent anymore (lets not confuse this with what they charge for RM because those images aren't on the micros).
[/quote]

I really don't understand what you're saying... My last Alamy RF sale was 131 dollars for a 678 x 452 pixels image.

I have sold some other ones for 488 dollars (full size)

Those doesn't sound like micro prices to me... I would feel quilty if I sold the same images elsewhere for just a few bucks.

1157
General Stock Discussion / Re: September 2009 earnings breakdown
« on: October 01, 2009, 12:12 »
Best month ever here.

(my big five from best to worst)
IS BME
FT BME
SS BME
DT pretty weak
SX pretty weak

September 2009 RPI on the big five: 1.09
September 2008 RPI on the big five: 1.08

The RPI increase was a bit surprising... :D

1158
Alamy.com / Re: I want to join ALAMY, but it is exclusive?
« on: October 01, 2009, 07:59 »
I don't think it is stupid or unethical, as alamy have done nothing to stop people uploading their microstock portfolios there.  I watched their annual meeting video a couple of years ago and they made it clear that it is up to use where we sell our images and they wont restrict us.  There was no indication that they thought it was wrong to have microstock images on alamy as RF.  

Even if something is allowed it doesn't mean it's wise or ethical.

Personally, I would much prefer it if they had a separate microstock site and I hope they do that one day.

Why? I think we have enough microstock sites...


1159
Alamy.com / Re: I want to join ALAMY, but it is exclusive?
« on: October 01, 2009, 06:13 »
I don't think there is many refunds because the buyer finds the same image cheaper on micros.
Refunds happen propably most because
*the buyer decides not to use the image for some reason
*the buyer don't like the image when they get to see it in full size
*(in current economical climata) the whole project is laid down

BTW: I think it's stupid and unethical to sell the same images at such different price points. Yes, you may get some stupid buyer to pay more for the same cheap images, but that dilutes the whole point of macrostock. It's a very short-sighted approach.

And don't get started about EL vs. Alamy RF, only a very marginal amount of sales has to deal with that issue.

1160
General Stock Discussion / Re: Macworld Article On Microstock
« on: September 27, 2009, 06:08 »
Most professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) work to individual client briefs to deliver the services they need.  I don't see microstock eating into real professional photography any time soon - weddings, product shots, advertising, etc.

But microstock has skewed the view clients have on prices. "Why does your image cost $500 when I a similar is $5 on a microstock site?".

And yes, microstock has eaten into real professional photography too. In the good ol' Rights-Managed days it was often cheaper to hire a photographer to shoot something that is going to be used over and over than pay royalties for every use. Those shoots are now totally gone.

1161
Okay here comes some hars observations, don't take me too seriously :)

#1 - A christmas decoration
http://nickburton.smugmug.com/photos/659890225_oqyzQ-O.jpg


*the focus isn't in the right place. IMO the right place would be in the middle of the ball, the string needs to be in focus
*The ball would look better with one specular highlight
*the ball have scratches seams and dust that would be better if cloned off.
*a real natural branch would look better
*what's that hairy thing in the branch? (left side)
*some blue-ish color tints, the color temperature of the light sources doesn't match 100%

#2 - Chess pieces
http://nickburton.smugmug.com/photos/659889778_tKyLb-O.jpg


*Too tightly cropped in the bottom.
*Light could be better, a strip light would give better light than two small-ish light sources.
*Some color cast here also, seems to come from the background.

#3 - Big Ben
http://nickburton.smugmug.com/photos/659891913_c9Xr8-O.jpg


*I don't like the leaning of the building. It could work if the crop was MUCH tighter
*Too dark and murky and the sky has some strange colors
*A sunny day with blue sky and white clouds would be much better (yes, I know it usually rains in England :))

#4 - Money
http://nickburton.smugmug.com/photos/659891180_GH74A-O.jpg


*The main subject (the coin in the middle) has very flat lighting. The coin in the left bottom corner has much better light

#5 - Pray Mantis
http://nickburton.smugmug.com/photos/659891309_WvLi3-O.jpg


*There are some isolation issues.
*The position of the legs isn't optimal, now the legs are "melting together" too much
*The focus should be in the eyes.

1162
Nikon / Re: Nikons response to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II
« on: September 25, 2009, 10:53 »
Rember that it took three years for Nikon to get something equal to old Canon 5D.

Canon 5D (launched in 2005) got its serious rival with Nikon D700 (launched in 2008).
("serious rival" = Full-Frame 12mpix sensor, prosumer price tag)

And yes I think D700 is superior to old 5D, but hey, it's three years newer!

I think Nikon wasted too much time with their crop-sensor silliness.

1163
Canstock is quite dead for me. The easy uploading and occasional Fotosearch sales keep me uploading.

1164
Concept shots like the one you mentioned with the map or passport sound the most likely to be sellers.

Isolated shots are probably not too usefull.  You could consider uploading them to Alamy as RM so you make a decent return if someone does end up buying them.

Thanks. Humor me--why RM on Alamy?

so you make a decent return if someone does end up buying them.

( :) )

1165
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Highest sync speed in pro-sumer DSLR?
« on: September 17, 2009, 16:02 »
<MORE OFF-TOPIC>

Great example of why I don't come here much now, I try and help the OP out by suggesting he made be mislead in his original question which as it turns out he was (he PM'd me), but as you want to highlight to everyone how great you are by taking the topic to the extreme maybe you should first download that milk drop shot and then send it off to a lab to view under a microscope just to check because I have a suspicion you'd probably find there's still some tiny insignificant blur and and as you're clearly one of the worlds perfect photographers that might not be acceptable for you.

Sorry, never meant to offend you - please don't take my writings too personally. I just wanted to straighten out some facts. Like that "slow" studio strobes aren't enough to freeze fast motion (flying birds or trampoline jumpers).

I have shot athletes in a dark hall doing their stuff with 1/900s (t=.5) strobes and had problems with motion blur, I know what I'm talking about.

Let's do some maths.
Usain Bolt's top speed is something like 28 mph.
That's 493 inches per second. During a 1/1000 second flash exposure Usain runs almost a half an inch. That would cause a significant blur. And his hands would be making even faster movements. Usain would look sharp only from a far distance.
Usain Bolt isn't even the fastest people, far from it. For example tennis players or karatekas make much faster movements.

I think it's a good thing to inform people that you can't just buy any kit of studio strobes and get sharp images of fast moving stuff.

1166
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Highest sync speed in pro-sumer DSLR?
« on: September 17, 2009, 09:29 »
<OFF-TOPIC WARNING!>

At 1/1000th you could freeze a bird in flight!!

No you can't. You can't even freeze people moving fast with 1/1000th. Of course if you have low standards on what is "sharp", what you say may be true. Here are closeups of a droplet travelling less than 8 miles per hour http://www.scantips.com/speed.html
Notice how Alien Bees are not enough to freeze movement. (I'm saving my money to get me a set of Elinchrom Quadra with 1/6000s speedhead.. :))

1167
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Highest sync speed in pro-sumer DSLR?
« on: September 17, 2009, 04:58 »
I could if I wanted to totally freeze somebody jumping off a trampoline in mid air using nothing more than two 400w strobes and the camera set at 1/60th (in fact I could set the shutter at 2 secs and freeze them if I really wanted to)

In that situation it's important to have strobes with short flash duration. Most (cheap) studio strobes have a duration of 1/1000s (T=.5) or longer, that isn't enough to freeze fast movements. The cheapest way to freeze action is to use small on-camera flashes, they generally have short flash durations, especially when used at a small power setting.

1168
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Highest sync speed in pro-sumer DSLR?
« on: September 17, 2009, 04:44 »
1/500 for medium format cameras.


That's not quite so. Only medium format cameras with central shutters in the lenses have fast sync speeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_(photography)#Central_shutters

My old Mamiya 645 has a sync speed of 1/125 if i remember correctly, the 1/500 is Hasselblad stuff.

1169
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Is this the best agency?
« on: September 16, 2009, 06:09 »
iStock has always been my best earner. The uploading process and the weekly limits annoy me, but that's okay because of the good earnings. I don't "love" iStock, they have their quirks and annoyances.

I wish they would adjust the weekly limit of 25 images upwards. They could at least give some non-exclusives more uploads depending for example on high sales or low rejection ratio just so they would get more good stuff (my stuff!) in.

1170
My sales are up (for the fifth year in a row), so you must be doing it wrong :)
In fact I'm about to have earned as much this year as I did whole last year. The three last months of this year will be pure growth... :)

DT is a bit weak tho.

1171
General Macrostock / Re: agefotostock
« on: September 14, 2009, 11:19 »
I became interested in Age, but I couldn't find any info if they require exclusive images or not?

1172
Have you tried faster sync speeds? If I remember correctly 1/200s is the utter maximum of 5D, I have had many succesful shoots using 1/160s with Elinchrom gear. I know, that's only a 1/3 stop shorter speed, but still...

1173
I think you answered your own question with the image and information you posted, you seem to do just ok without our guidance :)

One thing to considerate is the flash sync speed of your camera, with a 1/500s sync speed (Hasselblad etc.) you get some advantage compared to a slow curtain shutter (35mm SLR's)
(Was 1/125s the fastest sync speed on your camera?)



1174
Tineye sucks!
Will it ever get out of beta? It hardly finds anything!

Quote
Wondering why TinEye couldn't find your image?....Our search index is still very small blah blah blah!

Remember that a great part of sold images are not used as images on the web. They are either used in print or inside some flash thingy on the web.

And as they say, they still have a very small search index (they are in beta...) I'm not sure if you are aware of the HUGE amount of images that are on the web.

I have found some of my images in use with tineye. I recommend you install the TinEye plug-in on firefox, so you just have to click right button with mouse and choose "Search image on TinEye" instead of uploading files or copy+pasteing links.

1175
General Stock Discussion / Re: Microstock tug o' war
« on: September 09, 2009, 13:50 »
The goofy upsizing requirements gave me an image of Alamy as being seriously  out-of-date and not going anywhere.  Maybe I'm wrong.

No... It has been the digital cameras that haven't been up to the task to provide images that are large enough for a magazine spread. Luckily some prosumer (for example Canon 5DmkII and 7D) cameras have large enough images so no upsizing is required. I definitely have shot more for Alamy after I got my 5DmkII.

If your images are of good quality, it's easy to make an action with image size -> bicubic smoother -> save as.

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