LENS: Dont underestimate the power of the kit lens.

It is a kit lens. It is mass produced and cheap, because its mass produced.
I had one once, and it served me well in stockphotography and has the perfect zoom range for many things stockish.
A zoom is much more effecient at producing stock than a fixed lens, as you simply get many more different cuts out of the same subject, and you can work faster.

CAMERA? Go for a camera that can also make video and timelapses. The bigger sensor the better, the more pixels the better, because again, you can crop frames out that each make a individual picture.

With stock photos its not so much about the quality of the camera and equipment, but more the ability to frame salesworthy selections of the world and certainly the ability to master photoshop. And yes Photoshop elements is enough and will make it you able to make world class imagery.

Stock photograpy is about having skils in 3 separate areas: photography, of course, but also being able to photoshop a certain style, but most important is to be able to photograph keywords so your content stands out clear in the searches.

It is NOT a posive thing if schoolchildren have to be guarded by police when they are in school.

They should be allowed to play and they should feel safe all the time.

In the american fear producing campaign.

for your amusement:
http://theshrug.com/shes-too-busy-texting-on-her-phone-to-notice-something-terrifying-until-its-too-late/

what does  "comeuppance" mean, its a new word for me?

This post isn't pro- or anti-gun, but just asks a question. I have asked it on several forums around the 'net in threads similar to this and have yet to get a response, so I'll try it here.

The question is, What Changed? Why now?

Virtually all guns available today were available 20-30 years ago. Assault, auto and semi-auto weapons have been widely available for a long time. The 2nd amendment has been around for 239 years. If anything, in many places, guns and/or ammo are harder to get now than they were a few years ago.

So, what changed? Why now?

It's not logical to say that the mass shootings of today are because of the availability of guns, because guns have always been available. When I was in high school, in the days of the Uzi, AK-47, and Mac-10, the thought of someone bringing a gun to school was unthinkable, much less that the gun would be used to kill people. Back then, anybody could buy any gun anywhere, but mass killings were unheard of. So, what changed?

I'm not saying that making guns and/or ammo harder to get won't help the problem. I don't have the answer for that.

I'm just asking, what changed?

Anybody?

You asked what changed?
I would answer, that the FATHERS in America has stopped taking responsibility.
Meaning they are under huge economical pressure to live out the american dream, achieving material goods, establishing themselves as owners of things, so they cannot bear the burden of settleling down and raise children and hence their sons are not tought the basics in managing "the force". Meaning every man and his son is a warrior and a killer and violence has to be held behind a screen of politeness and self restriction. It is the fathers that teach their sons that self restriction, and it has been so since the viking ages where everybody had a sword, and were tought when NOT to use it. Same with guns.

be happy and smile.
I have never sold a video.

Quote from: JPSDK on October 08, 2015, 15:02

can someone qoute me the text in the US constitution where it says that every man can carry a weapon? Please?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Thank you for quoting.
Please note there is a comma between the 2 sentences. And the sentence could be intrepretated as follows: To protect the free state, there should be a well organized militia, and therefore people can keep and bear arms.
A well organized militia is not what we see in the US.

The constitutional sentence actually breaks the triangle of power, and add a fourth element with power: The militia. To secure the state. it might be a good idea back then when the new free state was vunlerable to exploitation by feudal or war lords or commercial or religious interests.
Back then it was a regular mean of suppressors that they forbade anyone except the ruler to bear arms, and the sentence should be viewed in that light: So that people and the free state can continue to excist, it should be founded on the people, and their right to resist suppression by forming a militia.
In other words: Its a peoples right or duty to make a revolution and overthrow a supressor.
Thats sound and healthy enough and it often happens. The US constitution takes it a bit further, by writing down that its a right to bear and keep arms.
 It was necessary back then, not so anymore, when there IS an army and a police force.
Ok thats history. That said, USA has a sick gun cult culture. Yes, I said sick. It is sick in the way that they spew out extremely violent films, the next worse than the former, no self sensorship, all blood and splatter, the more the better. When thats not enough they infect people with virus, so they turn into zombies and therefor can be legally shot. So there can be a lot of shooting in the film. All that contrary to the heavy sensorship there is on sex and nakedness.
So its an accelerating spiral of violence, more violence and more guns, more visuals.
And put these visuals on the screens of lonely boys of lonely mothers in a exceedingly competitative society. When the boy hurts, and he wants revenge, because he cannot find a reasonable way to his goals, and he wants and to hurt someone back, he of course does the splatter/ zombie thing. Thats the popular choice on the screen.

BTW.. I own several guns (rifles and shotguns), they are used for hunting. But they could be used for protection if...., but Id rather call the police and also its not likely that anything happens in this peacefull corner of the earth.

I am getting fed up with Shutterstock and their review process.  A recent image was rejected for focus.... the main item in the photo WAS in sharp focus.  Nikon Transfer marks that area as the focus point as well.  There was nothing else wrong with the image either.  The focus point even looks nice at 200%.   Until they rejected that particular image, I thought maybe the focus/sharpness rejections might have been true.

SS rejects images accepted everywhere else.  Lately I have stop uploading bother to upload to them because I am so sick of the absurdity of it.  I do not mind trying to make my images technically better.  Was always very technical when did film-- even mixed my own print and film chemicals from scratch-- not powder mixes but the isolated chemicals, used a medium format camera etc.   I appreciate some feedback but not when it does not make sense.

I have finally come to the conclusion that I am not going to allow SS to dictate my photography.    I know that SS is supposed to be the big money maker for most but I am selling better on other sites.  I think part of the low sales on SS is the review process which has little basis in reality.

Dont worry be happy look on the bright side of life.
Its not about photography, and it is not about your technical skills, or your cameras. You are not selling images, but content, which is a combination of pixels, keywords and availability for the customer. You deliver the first 2, the agency the last. Because there is an overabundance of keyworded images and availability is expensive, they can be carelesss in how they reject, and they come up with strange (or good) reasons  that they hope will push the stream of  keyworded images in a direction. And so it does, images gets sharper, and cameras bought by the contributors become better untill it reaches a current maximum, where it becomes absurd.

And now for your rejected sharp image, it might be so, that it is not about the sharpness, or the focus, but which areas in the image that are unsharp and they way they are unsharp. So take a look and examine the out of focus areas.

there are many problems.

Its meaningless
what does dollars have to do with beads?
Its unresolved.
its not sharp
it is grainy
the composition is cluttered
lighting is bad

Its not sharp, you have bad lighting, wrong white ballance, too dark areas, focus problems, and grain.
Just one of these will get you rejected. ( maybe not on istock), but on shutter.
You need to rethink the whole concept, starting with imagining the customer (there could be one), then present your image in such a way, that it adresses that customer.

Quote from: JPSDK on August 19, 2015, 02:17

because there are no unity among the crowdsourced contributors.

I was thinking about it but how do we do that?

We have discussed it before and it proves that whereas Europeans, Asians and South Americans are not so afraid of unions, and can use left wing means and fight for their rights, even when having losses, Americans are paralyzed by fear and stick to individually providing for their family and all that lonely old song.

"El pueblo unido jamais sera vencido". As we said when I was young 30 years ago. We believed it, saw the good results, and built things up. Now its lost knowledge in the post modern hedeonistic society.

Prioritize photoshop knowledge over equipment, and then when you come to equipment prioritize flashlights and a tripod.
A tripod is the single most important piece of equipment.