The big EVENT OF THE CENTURY  this weekend begins with Old Beatle Paul playing a super show . I was thinking that perharps some stock photographers who is his fan (I am not, I was a Searchers fan not Beatles; John 's fan, not Paul's),would take this momentus occassion as a photo-op .
But as I was chewing on junk food in a super take away worldwide joint (no names mentioned, they really don't need any more PR ) , I can't help but the headline story with a sidenote : "WHAT TO LEAVE AT HOME"...
PROFESSIONAL VIDEO AND PHOTO EQUIPMENT. or words to the effect.

The tickets are a whopping $350+- ringside to the lowest 150+- standing only bring your own chairs...

 I just spent an equal amount for the "lowest bring your own chair ticket price" on the new Pentax 50-200 OEM DA zoom. My pal at Henry's showed me the newer moisture resistant similar FL version priced a little less than the ringside ticket price.  Hell on wheels ! If I wanted to dish out $350 for the show, I'd rather splash it on another Pentax lense, or put half of it to a Sigma super wide aspherical lense.

I guess Paulie is a pop icon and he can do what he wants. But I can't help to think that in Brazil during the carnival and other shows at SP, RDJ, Bahia,etc..
the tickets to the biggest stars of Musica Axe and Tropalismo costs far far less,
and after the show the fans are even given the op to meet the stars to take photos and get their autograph. No big stink about videoing the show,etc.

Quite a diff , isn't it?

I wonder if any pop or rock fans have come across any other shows that do this thing on cameras and video cameras. It's not very photography friendly.
I know many indie group are quite photo friendly. But I have no first hand testament on that as I am not a concert fan.

Input anyone? Pros and Cons welcome. If you adore Paulie, go ahead and scream back at me..
 I encourage open discussion all the time.

I was just curious about my commissions with BigStock and went in to look at what sold for me . Comparatively speaking BigStock has sold the least number and is #3 earner. However, I quickly retain perspective after looking at the list of downloaded images. Many that earned me $1 are images that I submitted of the size that would be considered XS, S, and not even L.
Whereas with the Big 6 sites that have championed me "more downloads" the majority of my earnings were for L and up , earning mostly from subs. ie. a few cents.
 
Compared to my minimum earnings of 50 cents from BigStock, this looks very small.
Larry, I think I am going to have to rethink my priorities, and not just take into consideration HOW MANY DOWNLOADS a site gets me, but more like the accountant that sees the bottom line that says $ per dl.

Maybe it's a bit soon to judge on BigStock new search options. However, after a few months of no sales, I just had a sale on my latest image. This is a good sign, as only Fotolia has been selling my new images with this speed.
So I am glad, it's nice to have a site listen to what we say in forum,etc... and work with us to keep a good relationship. It's no secret how much I cheer for the support team of Liz and Joseph, only the sales were not that hot. Maybe now things will change and yes, I will start getting active again with new images, now that my images are being found.

Knock on wood ! Let's get Bigstockphoto to be in the Big6 where they deserve to be.

Larry, I noticed it was you who said some CEOs do read what we write in this forum. eg. BigStock just made an improvement wth their new search model.
So maybe voicing our opinions like Perry's article here isn't such a silly idea.

Fingers crossed.

FT pay me the most because of my ranking, They sell for 200$ of which I get about 76$.
Istock pay between 20 and 40$ ,
only had a couple at 123 at about 20$, 
at DT the highest ones I've had have been 25$
and SS pay a straight 28$.
Don't remember if I've ever had one at bigstock or StockXpert.
And to answer the Peter's question, no my EL sales didn't change at FT when subs were introduced.

Wow 76$, sweet!
I was smiling all day when I got 6$ for my first ever Ext Lic with Fotolia the other day. Which was also the first ever being in microstock for only  over one and the half years, and no Ext Lic with any of the Big 6.  I joined Fotolia last of all. Within 4 months, I get my first Ext Lic. which was a hoot to me, and now I am optimistic and contributing more to Fotolia, hoping to build my tiny portfolio.

 Can you imagine what would happen if I got 76$ like you , fotografer?
 I would be dancing in the rain ! heh!heh!

I sometimes tie a rope to the models ankle so he/she won't run off before the shoot is over.
Usually only needed when the models are sheep and goats.
Does that count as tethered shooting? 

lol, not sure about this, nosaya ! let me check.

I think it's OK so long as they are (1) centaurs or minotaurs (half man half stock),
(2) they belong to a modeling agency.
oh, don't forget, you must get the model's date of birth, and ethnicity, lol.

Quote from: bobkeenan on July 08, 2009, 16:52

So I am not a total failure in life as the fotolia rejection made me feel but I just need some more work.
 

Oh yes, definitely Fotolia rejections are not the be all and end all.  If most of us based our self worth on Fotolia's opinion of our work there would be a high suicide rate in this job

rofl Pixelbytes, yes I laughingly agree. When I first started in micro,  I started to drink a lot more alcohol     But nowadays with less rejections, I went from hard liquor to a casual drinker of Guinness 

So I am not a total failure in life as the fotolia rejection made me feel but I just need some more work.
 

Rejections are more common with Fotolia, but that's only because they are more picky to suit their buyers' need. Don't let it be negative to you, but more so, just be aware of what kinds of images they prefer. And like others said, try to stagger similar images in submission. 2 , 3 at the most per upload.
Variety works best with Fotolia.

Whatever, good luck and keep at it. Fotolia is worth it.

Excellent. Thanks Phil !

Quote from: graficallyminded on July 08, 2009, 15:30

Great if you have time to stop between each shot, but I think it would just slow me down. 

Why would someone need to look on the screen after every shot? I only look at the screen when I think I have a "keeper", but I'm not completely sure.

BTW tethered shooting allows me to sort and flag images on the run. You could also sort them in folders like "good ones" and "crap". Without laptop it's really annoying to flip trough a lot of images in the camera.

Perry's right. As a regular freelance in fashion shoots, I seldom find problems with the models wanting to see anything between shots. Perharps the amateur model or the newbies might be curious, but the experienced models don't do that.

My intention of using tethering is strictly for still life isolation shot, as I like to check depth of field and accent lighting,etc. As Perry also mentioned, this saves a lot of time not having to edit through a pile of RAW images that not only eat up storage space, but takes forever to load with Photoshop.

Once again, with the K20D I can do a screen capture and hopefully be able to view it on a large screen rather than squint on my LCD.

tan510jomast, I actually don't think there's anything that contributors could say or do at this point that would change things. 

Microstock has just gone through a 'boom' - bigger players with more money have rushed in - new sites showing up every week - and they've all been sucked into a mindless price war.  We will just have to wait for the 'bust' that inevitabley follows a 'boom'. 

There will be a shakeout, and maybe after that, new ways to sell images will emerge.  Until then, all we can really is put photos on the big existing sites and accept the trickle of money they generate.  Just pulling them all and not participating is an option too, of course, but it has no benefit, until we have somewhere else to sell them.   

I do think that we are at the point where skilled, experienced photographers are losing motivation and probably shooting and submitting less.  But no one at the agencies cares about that, yet.

stockastic  Your last para. reminds me of what a top gun in CBS once said re. record sales. viz: only Bruce Springstein & a handful actually mattered to  CBS. They make  $$$$ for the record co. All else was more or less window dressing. If the other 85%  faded away, CBS wouldn't give a rat's ass, as Bruce + the few cream on the top brought in the dough.
I think micro is the same. Only what the top slice say matters, at least that seems like it these days. Has it always  been this way?

you can do it with pentax assistant. I got real excited when they finally brought it out a while back. Tried it about 3 or 4 times and found it painfully slow and frustrating with a little window to look through and gave up on it.  That was when it first come out so it may have improved since (I dont shoot pentax anymore so I dont know).

I did a workshop a while back and the guy running mixed between tethered and not, often using it at first making sure everything was alright for the first half a dozen shots and then disconnecting and being free

He had the canon software just grabbing straight from camera and putting the images in a folder, which he had lightroom set up to know this was the folder and keep checking.  He could check everything on a full screen and zoom in etc as well as it being very valuable for those of us in the workshop and the models liked it a lot

that setup seems like the functionality of the pentax software you have (the one I used gave control over camera settings etc nice idea but implementation of software was bad) and so if you have lightroom (I'm sure other software could do it too) you could do the same.

Awesome, cheers phil for taking the time to response.
I was under the impression that perchance the delay was due to the memory of the computer being used to run Assistant. Maybe not.
I read somewhere else that there is also a Pentax K20D forum and posters are pushing for some firmware to improve with tethering speed using Assistant. Not sure if that was an old post.

Cheers once again.
Anyone else with K20D success , let me know. PM me.