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Messages - Aetherial
26
« on: July 10, 2009, 05:25 »
ok, quick question from someone who admittedly has no idea, why is video different to say illustration which can take hours or photography which can also take hours for the right shot (not to mention almost $20000 now in gear, books, workshops etc) ?
(please take this as asking a question by someone who has no idea  , not as someone trying to start a fight 
illustrations are different from videos in that way that as with photos, it is the content present with micro stock agencies for a really long time and illustrators didn't defend the price of their work when they had the opportunity, so subs agencies managed to depreciate it.
27
« on: July 09, 2009, 02:11 »
this will depreciate the stock footage market VERY soon. I think that we must act on the bitter lesson learned with subscriptions and protect the video pricing. I have prepared my first couple of tens videos for upload and, sorry, FT is not going to get them. Istock video exclusivity is starting to make sense.
28
« on: July 08, 2009, 01:44 »
I've posted the chart so many times, but I can't find it now. Just figure that a P&S camera is 1/6th the size of a crop sensor, and a full frame is 60% larger than an APS. When some of the new cameras came out, say going from a 10MP to a 12MP resolution, it was pointed out that this was a 17% increase in resolution. Not a whole lot of difference to be paying for. In the case of a full frame, you could have the original 5D at 12.7MP vs the new 50D at 14.1 and the 5D still produce images with less pixel density and should be a sharper image. (although the 50D has a newer sensor design, so the comparison is scientifically flawed) The 50D is roughly the same as a full frame with an 8.6MP sensor.
your reasoning is correct until the very end, I suppose it's a typo and you wanted to say that 5D mark II is the same as a crop camera with 8.2mpix sensor. full frame camera spreads pixels over the larger area. crop factor is a linear measure of increase. Canon crop sensor is a 22.3 x 14.9 mm. Full frame camera is 24x36mm. You see, each size of full frame sensor is 1.6 times larger than with crop sensor making it's area 2.56 times greater. 5d mark II has 21mpix, so it's pixels are as big as in 21/2.56 = 8.2mpix crop camera, so apart from vignetting, fuzzy corners and such things that plague the outer areas of lens coverage, highest resolution dslrs today are no more demanding when it comes to optics than a Canon 20D, because they have the same effective resolution (meaning same number of pixels on the same surface area equals same pixel size) ! "It only want's highest class glass" is actually a myth, what's good for a 20D is good for 5DMkII apart from phenomenon I've mentioned (vignetting etc etc).
29
« on: July 07, 2009, 23:58 »
I think this is more than a game - it allows you to spot trends after a fair number of games, and then shoot accordingly. If you don't like it, then don't play it. simple.
30
« on: July 07, 2009, 07:43 »
goings on FT, StockXpert and SS in the last few month have heavily steered me towards IS exclusivity. just waiting to ramp up enough dls and do my 6 months time on DT.... these agencies (with two exceptions) are so busy advertising sales at any prices (the lower the better) to buyers and whoring their contributors' work away in the mean time. Give 'em everything for free. Make us pay for hosting our accepted files. IS is a rare exception, with DT being close. This is the the moment to protect video pricing. If it goes through, noone will pay 75$ for HD resolution video in a years time. 3.5$-4.2$ is insulting and the market is nowhere near as saturated as photo market.
31
« on: July 07, 2009, 05:07 »
This could deprecate the value of stock footage from 75$ per dl to peanuts very soon. Will there be people in a year complaining how 4$ for a stock footage is unfair? They won't see any of mine.
32
« on: July 02, 2009, 00:03 »
I really like the first three, the rest leave me indifferent. For the first one I would suggest better postprocessing to bring out the punch, it is beautiful, but not striking enough in terms of contrast or colors, also try playing with dodge and burn.
33
« on: June 12, 2009, 01:24 »
you may think so, but you're not selling photographs. renders, vectors, illustrations, everything that is not photo outsells photographs by far on almost every of the sites, StockXpert included. So, non-photographic artists stats are not representatives, I'm afraid. Most photogs are unhappy with declining sales at StockXpert. I have not had a decent pay per download sale for two months now, only rare 1.5$ at most, mostly they are one subscription a day and they are originating from JIU more than from StockXpert, it will take me months till a next payout now, and I used to have one a month. My former bestsellers have suddenly stopped selling at all. My new images don't get views. That's what we're all talking about, and trying to figure out how to solve or, better yet, make someone responsible for it there solve it.
34
« on: June 06, 2009, 13:48 »
I am so glad that info is disappearing. I never liked the fact that so much of my personal sales info was available to the entire world without my permission. I tried removing my name from the list to no avail.
no offense, Karimala, but don't get carried away, with less than 10000 sales in 4 years, I don't think you're the one people were spying or comparing themselves to. and you see, that info is still available it took me just a click to find it and you provided it in your signature, huh? it's the gold and diamond contributors and those managed to become at least silver in less than a year that were the targets to snooping.
35
« on: June 06, 2009, 12:55 »
I have had only two sales in May, one $1.6 and $0.3 and my rank hasn't changed in a month - it's stuck at ~7800. does that mean that all other people are having crappy sales last month. but, two bucks, come on...they gotta have had more than that
36
« on: May 29, 2009, 01:55 »
If you work for a company, how would you like for it to move for a different country? Should the employees at SS be thrilled with the idea of having to move to a foreign country and turn their lives upside down so they could keep their job in a time of world crisis just to satisfy a bunch of people who don't take this activity seriously?
you forget one important thing: IT'S NOT EMPLOYEES OF SHUTTERSTOCK THAT MAKE THE CONTENT THEY'RE SELLING, IT'S THE CONTRIBUTORS, MOSTLY FROM OUT OF US. Employees are just administrators, guys with bunch of servers as someone noticed. Digital Railroad sank, Lucky Oliver sank, Photoshelter sank, Shutterstock will float as long as people making images are making it float, not guys in the board room making insulting posts to their business partners (yes, we're their business partners, vendors that is) on their forum. if you're fishing for shrimps in the middle of Sahara, of course it makes sense to move somewhere where there are shrimps, even if it is "problem" for you.
37
« on: May 28, 2009, 00:30 »
congratulations!
38
« on: May 25, 2009, 00:10 »
same here. fresh batch of ten or so images, no views for a week.
39
« on: April 16, 2009, 01:50 »
infact, their loyalty is rewarded with double commision. everything else is just oppression of other contributors and tinkering with search results. being exclusive doesn't automaticly mean your images are more likely to be suitabe for the buyer.
40
« on: April 02, 2009, 01:46 »
Its same for me Fred. Started may08 at SS. No I have almost 400 pics and less dl:s than the first couple months. It seems they push the search engine for newbies. Istock is definitly coming slowly. $/dl is much better.
Wow! Your portfolio is great and where I thought I should be heading. Surprised you have any problems selling anywhere.
c h e e r s
fred
sorry for the OT, but that avatar picture of yours (sunrise and two acrobates on the top of the church with the fog covering the background) is one of the most iconic images I've ever seen! Bravo!
Thank you much I do what I can... I feel that people-shots are the "secret", wich I dont have much of unfortunately. Also, Im a little young in this business as well, since pictures need to mature a bit in searches it seems. time will tell.
Your stuff is truly one of a kind!! vivid colors, depth and composition. Lets hold our thumbs for the future 
41
« on: March 13, 2009, 02:50 »
maybe he meant Wall-E? he's looking for people because he's tired of being alone (at industrial place, etc etc...)
42
« on: January 14, 2009, 04:44 »
does this rating and visiting and commenting improve image search rang at all anymore? it seems to me that since the change in October it is irrelevant, at least for my images.
43
« on: November 21, 2008, 01:08 »
Good people from the support (thanks to them for quick response) informed me that it was indeed the problem with the database and that they have reset the status of my files. now they are just regularly pending for approval hope they would get approved and hopefully quickly.
44
« on: November 21, 2008, 01:03 »
for me SS is the best followed very closely by StockXpert, then by FT, DT and unfortunately trailing IS.
I'm new, I have ~150 photos online on each site (except IS).
45
« on: November 20, 2008, 08:22 »
my files are still waiting. first of them uploaded on 06-Nov-08 (Id numbers starting with 7710). I see non exclusive queue has progressed to 778* and upload date of 15-Nov-08. Is something wrong? It's 9 days overdue. I could have improved them and reuploaded them had they been rejected. What did I do to deserve to be in a doghouse? what to do to let me out? 
46
« on: November 19, 2008, 00:53 »
is it customary that some images wait for inspection much much longer than other images with similar numbers? should I contact support? have they forgotten about them??
for instance, I have now some images pending that start with 771 and 773 and the queue for non-excl has long time ago progressed beyond that (two days ago), it is now 776 and 775?
47
« on: November 18, 2008, 04:13 »
I'm very interested to know, based on your experiences, what of these is closest to (statisticaly) average buyer:
a) do they want to buy an image that is proven with many sales (which means that it is a strong image but also appearing on many many other places)?
b) do they want to buy an image that hasn't been used much (low number of dls)?
c) they don't care
it seems to me that pushing good sellers on top of search which is kind of standard search engine behavior forces those images on buyers leaving much other material unseen. if it doesn't sell quickly it gets burried. maybe it was the best option in the beginning when image database had less than 1 million images (which is zilch compared to macro stock libraries), but now maybe more than 80% of content never gets noticed. what is the point of having 3,4 or 5 million images that are not easily available to buyers. how deep does the majority dig into search results? page 10, page 50...? I don't think so.
if you would shuffle search results to enable equal exposure to both old and new, sold and unsold files and in the same time tighten the reviewing standards to be even more strict to weed out bad photos, it would yield better, healthier image library and in the same time contributors would know to play the quality game over quantity game, because accepted images would pay off even if not noticed immediately, no need for large series of same images.
48
« on: November 17, 2008, 04:49 »
I also think that some weighing system for keywords should be employed. When you allow 50 or 100 or whatever keywords people rush to fill all the slots because that increases the chance of image being seen and consequentially spamming. if you reduce that to 10 or less people start complaining how thats not enough.
IMHO problem is that there is no boundary between conceptual and descriptive keywords. for instance, if you have a boy and a girl with a bouquet of flowers, i pressume most people would tag it with "love, relationship, romance etc..." to broaden the chance of it being used for that purpose. And then it also gets "Valentine, anniversary, gift" etc etc... is it spamming? on one hand it is, because it is arguable that the picture represents solely one concept and that it represents it clearly. on the other hand, the buyer searching for Valentine picture for next magazine issue might and most probably will include Valentine and then if your image doesn't have it as a keyword it will never be found. what should the image tagged with Valentine have? Who is to say that? kisses, roses, hearts, people in love....?
i think that categories are useless, they just waste contributors time when uploading and can also be misused. I think that you should give slots for up to 5 keywords, but no more for describing concept that photographer had in mind when he made the picture. those keywords should be ordered by importance. the buyer could check whether he wants to search by preconcepted photos or just go after whats in the picture. the rest should strictly be descriptive keywords describing only what actually is on the photo and have no weighing. maybe splitting them into major keywords (are there people in the picture, how many, full body or closeup, what objects) and minor (what hair color, what composition, what clothing).
now, how to rearrange the 3 million photo collection....
49
« on: November 12, 2008, 17:27 »
Overall rank 12697
7 days rank 2747
portfolio 141
50
« on: November 02, 2008, 02:44 »
no sales in five days??....I haven't had a sale there in almost a month...it's my fifth site by earing, behind SS, StockXpert, FT and DT, in that order. this search engine is a killer.
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