It has been my experience that the CV doesn't have the words I am looking for a lot of the time.

The problem that I'd have with recommending DT is that their 'Relevancy' often produces awful results with multiple near-identical crappy images from the same contributor.

Sky does seem to have rather more noise than I'd expect - large expanses of blue sky like that are always a bit of a problem.  You could try noise reduction, or perhaps a gaussian blur, with a mask for just the sky.

You'd do better to post in the iStock critique forum.  If you're lucky, an inspector will come by and give you a better idea of exactly what they see as the problem.

Quote from: nruboc on December 11, 2009, 01:51

Quote from: helix7 on December 10, 2009, 23:47

To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.

The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"

And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.

I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.

Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives),  xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.

And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites.  We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites.  They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.

Quote from: averil on December 10, 2009, 17:10

October '08 I think it was that istock decided to encourage contributors who were 'sitting on the fence' (rogermexico's term I think) about exclusivity by favouring best match even more towards exclusives than usual. istock dropped to number 5 position on that poll over on the right, independents got totally hammered, and exclusives still remember those heady days when the dls never stopped. I think that's what's about to happen again.

I think Avril is right about this.  My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.

I do think Gostwyck is right, though, that this will backfire as a motivator to get independents to go exclusive.  The lower my sales at IS, the less likely I would ever be to consider exclusivity.  In fact the gutting of my sales in last year's best match was when I finally stopped torturing myself with the question of whether or not to go exclusive.   

Hello,

I have made a bit more research on the lighting equipment I might need...
What do you think about this set?

http://www.ephotodiscounters.com/product_info.php?products_id=221
http://www.ephotodiscounters.com/product_info.php?products_id=5
http://www.ephotodiscounters.com/product_info.php?products_id=231

It would give me:
- 2 strobes 150Ws with sync chords
- 2 softboxes 16"
- 2 reflecting umbrellas
- 2 light stands 7"
- 5-in-1 reflector
- reflector stand
- backdrop white
- backdrop black
- backdrop support 9"

for 388 USD.

What do you think? Can I save on something, like making some backdrop or backdrop stand myself?

I would also need a stand for my SB-900 flash - what is generally used?

Do I need two strobes or is one enough?

Oh and do you know a comparably cheap store in Canada? I have the shipping and tax fear with this Californian one ;-)). Actually I go to California in 10 days, but I doubt I can bring these things home by plane ;-)))).

Thank you!
Simone