Any other Nikon users out there who'd like to add their cameras to the list? It won't cost you anything except a few strokes of your mouse finger.

Canon users may believe it's right      but I don't believe that only 2.25% (38/1687) of us on this forum use Nikons.

Personally, I think the Olympics Games are a farce.

Sure, the athletes (when they're not drugged up to the eyeballs, younger than they state, or men pretending to be women) are amazing.  They put a hell of a lot of work and dedication into it and I admire them for that. The honest ones deserve the glory.

But the honest athletes deserve better than the 'smoke and mirrors' shenanigans that is the Olympic Games nowadays. A few examples:

-  At the beginning a 9-year old girl sings in an angelic voice that sends shivers down the listeners' spines. But, it turns out, she wasn't singing at all. The voice she was miming to belonged to another little girl who was deemed too ugly to appear. Where's the 'Olympic Spirit' in that?

-  Two old women, in their 70's, try to protest legally, in an area set aside for it, about being evicted from their homes to make way for the Games. Result? They are sentenced to a year's 're-education through labour'. Action by the Olympics Committee? A statement: ""The Olympics are about sport ... (they) are not a panacea for all ills." Yeah. Right. We get your 'spirit'.

And the Olympic Flame? Don't make me laugh. They fly it to a few big cities in the world, run it around the streets for a few hours, and then fly on to the next big city. What a farce.

If they lit the flame on Mount Olympus and then physically ran it, every goddam step of the way through the different nations in between, to the Games site itself, then it would really mean something. But who on the Olympics Committee gives a s**t about those distant tribes in something-or-other-stan.

Grumble ... grumble ... grumble. I'll get back to Photoshop.

The Sigma 17-35 generally has worse reviews than the 10-20, but I find it okay for Shutterstock/iStock etc.

I just avoid the maximum apertures, which is quite easy to do on a wide angle.

Stick with f8/f11 and you should be okay. Most lenses give acceptable results at those settings.

I use the Sigma 17-35mm. It's not a particularly brilliant lens. It was a bit of an impulse buy and, being wise after the event, I'd probably buy the 10-20mm now. Apparently it's a much better piece of glass.

I use mine quite a bit at wide angle and stopped down to f8 or f11 it gives acceptable results for stock.

Hey, wow! I've been looking at the Asus Eee.

In fact I actually bought one a few weeks ago but had to take it back. I bought it in French-speaking Switzerland, it had the Swiss-French keys on the keyboard (QWERTZ) but the OS was set to the Swiss German keyboard (AZERTY). I couldn't tell what keys did what!

I couldn't fix it, I took it back to the shop and they couldn't fix it either. The only thing they could suggest was I bought an external CD drive and loaded the keyboard file from a CD they gave me.

No way. I was going on a trip the next day and didn't have time, which was why I bought the thing.

Moral of that story .... get your equipment well before you go.

I still wish it had worked and I'd had it with me. So light. Let us know how you get on.

 

Glad this got straightened out.

A while ago I realized that I was being very foolish to have the same password at each of the stock sites. That would mean that signing up somewhere that had a rogue employee or weak protections for the site would put all my other accounts at risk. At a minimum it's important to have a different password at each site - and make sure that your PayPal password (or Moneybookers) isn't the same as any of them.

Good point about the passwords.

Thanks for thinking of it. I'm checking mine right now, and changing them where necessary.

Thanks for posting this opportunity ... but 5 bucks a pop doesn't sound like an awful lot for the amount of work that appears to be involved.

They don't just take your image. It looks like you have to lay out the card yourself, doing all the graphics. They just add the text in the appropriate place.

To clarify, are you asking which ones we have or which ones we use for stock? I have 3 Nikons but only use 2 for stock.
 

For stock photography ... not counting the little Coolpix you may carry in your pocket for family snaps.

I've changed the question accordingly.

I'm not sure what happened.          I was listing the options when it suddenly posted, all by itself.

I went back to it through 'Edit Poll' but that doesn't allow me to change the number of votes - only add more options.

I'd rub it out and start again if I could, but I can't see how to do that either.

Help!

Sorry ... I hit the wrong key and it posted all by itself   

You've only got 2 votes, and I don't seem to be able to change that. Choose your favourite 2   

As a matter of interest, what cameras do you guys who upload XXLs use?

Of course I do, for piece of mind.  But if you think locking your car or house will keep out a determined thief, then you are crazy.

And if you think that a Microstock Agency putting a watermark over your image is going to keep a determined thief from using it, you're even more daft.

Of course a determined thief can get anything, even if it's locked up in Fort Knox. Nothing will stop a determined thief - certainly not a water mark on an image on the web. But ...

a)  It will mean the thief has to do a bit more work

b)  You will have something in the way of proof that a theft has taken place.

If you reported a burglary to the police and then told them you there was no sign of forced entry because left your house unlocked "... a determined thief could get in anyway ..." , what do you think their reaction would be?

And if someone wants to capture a max 400x400 screenshot to use for free, I'm not complaining.  If someone really wanted to steal your stuff from any of the stock sites, they will.  It's not that hard to remove those overlays that SS, StockXpert, DT, etc.. put on images.

It's like locking your car or house...  Kind of useless, if a thief wants in, they're gonna get in.  The purpose of the lock is just to keep honest people honest.

So you never lock your car or house?

Good luck, mate.