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Messages - BaldricksTrousers
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301
« on: July 07, 2017, 05:45 »
So a macro picture of a bee on a flower or a distant swimmer in an anonymous sea is an Alamy "Live News" British weather image, but a picture of streets festooned with recently placed pictures in support of the Emir of Qatar during the on-going Gulf crisis doesn't qualify as "news". It's a bit galling.
Oh, well...
302
« on: July 01, 2017, 17:05 »
In like a lion, out like a lamb. Hopefully the slump towards the end is not a sign of things to come.
303
« on: July 01, 2017, 16:50 »
I wouldn't normally want to have distant objects in focus if I've got a subject of interest very close to the lens.
Of course, another alternative is to use tilt on a t/s lens. That was a common approach with large format on film in the old days. Wide-angle T-S lenses tend to be a bit expensive, though.
You'd never pay off a T/S lens with microstock landscape photos.
Probably not, but its not impossible - I've got a travel/scenic picture that's earned more than $1,000 on microstock. You only need a couple like that to pay for such a lens. I did get a T-S lens (for $300, before Hartblei sold their superrotator design to Zeiss who multiplied the price) and I wouldn't recommend it for general photography, I don't use it much.
304
« on: July 01, 2017, 05:25 »
I wouldn't normally want to have distant objects in focus if I've got a subject of interest very close to the lens.
Of course, another alternative is to use tilt on a t/s lens. That was a common approach with large format on film in the old days. Wide-angle T-S lenses tend to be a bit expensive, though.
Yes, that's an alternative.
What you normally would want might not be what someone else wants. 
Anyway, the biggest use for it is with cityscapes where you are RELATIVELY close (not 10 feet) but you want the image to be tack sharp from the first skyscraper to the last.
There is always just ONE spot with perfect sharpness, so it's just all about how much deviation you are willing to accept, or what's visible. To me, skyscraper details such as windows should all be tack sharp for a stellar image.
Well take this one: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doha-qatar-february-17-2016-highrise-615071813I got the palms and the buildings at a focal length of 34mm on f7.1 on a Canon 6D (17-40L f4 lens), with no problems, handheld at 1/200s. Perhaps the OP shutter speed was too short for handheld or he was shooting at f22 or above and getting diffraction.
305
« on: July 01, 2017, 01:59 »
understanding how to use hyperfocal distance
Yes, that.
And stacking if you have something very close to the camera as well as bits at infinity in the same image.
I wouldn't normally want to have distant objects in focus if I've got a subject of interest very close to the lens. Of course, another alternative is to use tilt on a t/s lens. That was a common approach with large format on film in the old days. Wide-angle T-S lenses tend to be a bit expensive, though.
306
« on: June 30, 2017, 14:05 »
This is how you get photos that are sharp throughout the frame:
Use a lens that's sharp throughout the frame.
Stop that lens down to where it performs best. This is usually around 2 stops down from wide open. You can look this up for most lenses.
If you are relatively close to what you're photographing or if there is great distance between important subjects you will need to resort to combining several photos, each with a different focus point - a.k.a. focus stacking.
That is how really, really sharp photos of cityscapes are made. To get even bigger resolution and sharpness you can also combine several photos vertically and horizontally.
Also, using a medium format camera or a DSLR with 40+ megapixels can help if your lens is up for the task.
---
A cheaper DSLR with the kit lens is not going to give you perfect landscape/cityscape shots.
I think that's overkill. The key things are a steady camera, a decent (probably wide-angle) lens and understanding how to use hyperfocal distance. People shot superb landscapes before focus stacking was invented. However, if you want fancy techniques, you can stitch together a sequence of shots taken with a telephoto lens. That greatly increases the resolution but you need to ensure that the closest object in the images is a long way off to avoid parallax problems. I've made 100MP landscapes out of a dozen shots takenhandheld with a 200mm lens on a Canon 5D Mk2.
307
« on: June 30, 2017, 07:35 »
What confuses me is that I've been told a couple of times here that there is no benefit in US based agencies (and DT is working under US laws) holding on to money from accruing commissions because they are not allowed to profit from it by investing it, they can't spend it, they can't even make any interest on it from the bank, so holding contributors commissions is nothing but a burden for them.
So what's the point of hanging on to $94 that can't ever be spent or used to support the business?
308
« on: June 21, 2017, 14:08 »
This must be my worst month since some time in late 2004. It's a complete disaster.
309
« on: June 02, 2017, 07:47 »
What's really funny is this used to be fairly normal up until about 15 years ago
Blame technology. 30 years ago if I wanted to print a colour photo in a supplement for the newspaper I edited, I had to send the transparency by ferry to a processor in Inverness and wait a week for the separation to come back. Fortunately we could just cut them into the page negative - but a few years earlier they had been relying on hot-metal, and the blocks after being made on the mainland had to be clamped into the chase frame. Obviously, very little colour was used back then. Even making the negs for B&W printing took time. So photos were only used for special occasions and very few will have been bought. Digital not only opened the door to masses of amateur photographers, it was also associated with the development of printing processes that could handle a lot of colour with separations being made automatically and inserted into Quark Xpress, then going directly to an offset plate. So instead of a few people getting occasional high value sales we now have lots of people getting masses of low value sales. I can understand why the old-time photographers grieve for the loss of the old ways.
310
« on: June 01, 2017, 13:28 »
Congrats. It's a struggle to believe it but I've had a couple or big (but not unprecedented) sales recently. Maybe they have a new method of upselling. This, however is way beyond unprecedented.
311
« on: June 01, 2017, 03:08 »
Fourth best month out of the last 12 on SS and within spitting distance of a couple of months that beat it, so not bad. However, a handful of $20+ sales were needed to keep it on track, without those it would have been weak.
Other sites, not so good.
312
« on: May 31, 2017, 12:58 »
for u? maybe for m mediocre i we talk about serious food photography.
http://stockfood.com
here u can see very good professional food photography.
these guy produce amateur photos of food, that cost nothin, penny.
i can go to supermarket and replicate all their portfolio in a week, as most of them simply do this, replicate somebody else portfolio.
Firstly, microstock is meant to be a cheap alternative to high-end stock photography. Secondly, although most of that stockfood stuff is very good indeed you don't have to go very far into it to find the occasional rubbish shot.
313
« on: May 31, 2017, 12:31 »
bye the way...
Very good photos.
Except the sausage with the fiendishly blown highlights. They are all of the same style, though.
314
« on: May 31, 2017, 02:17 »
It seems a bit like when you are approaching a new payment level......things slow down and it takes longer than you thought.
I'm top tier and approaching another milestone. And downloads have reduced to a drip......
If you're top tier what milestone is there that would matter to SS?
315
« on: May 31, 2017, 01:51 »
Change frightens me*. It usually means lower earnings.
(*That's probably why I've just bought a "like-new" Nikon F2 and six rolls of FP4).
316
« on: May 29, 2017, 10:03 »
those who make money todays have 100000 images.
I'm only 4% there... 
If you do a proper accounting of costs in terms of time spent shooting, processing and uploading and take account of the cost of equipment I doubt if anybody really makes money any longer. Say setting up, shooting, tweaking and keywording each image takes 20 minutes and reckon your time at say $240 a day. You need to get a return of $10 on every image just to cover your time and effort. Lets say each microstock image makes on average $2 per year, you're waiting five years to get paid (assumes sales don't go any further down the drain).... and then you need to deduct the interest that you might have made in five years if you were in a job that paid on time. The only way to justify it nowadays is to regard it as a hobby and write-off all the time and effort as something you enjoyed doing, so all the money is a bonus on top of your real job. Which is how it all began in the first place.
317
« on: May 28, 2017, 23:48 »
ok, let me repeat myself, i never had zero sales on a weekend, on christmas day, on memorial day, on the 4th, or whatever day
so you can come up with all possible celebratory days, it still doesnt change the fact that that didnt hinder me before.
I'd be amazed if holidays didn't hinder your sales in the past. I usually only get about a quarter of the sales on a Saturday that I do on a Tuesday so I'm hindered, even if I don't drop completely to zero.
318
« on: May 28, 2017, 15:38 »
This whole weekend will be slow, including Monday. It's Memorial Day weekend in the US and slow sales are normal during this holiday.
the world doesnt revolve around the USA. in europe its a normal weekend.
4 days off in France(since thursday)
And it's also the start of Ramadan, with reduced working hours, for billions of people in Asia.
319
« on: May 28, 2017, 12:06 »
Spacefootage, i am just getting to apoint where i lose faith that it will correct itself. Ss always had ups and down for the last 3-4 years, but now the trend is really down. and getting no downloads on any given day is very worrying. slow downs on memorial day or christmas days are expected, but zero...... thats sign of the new times
To be honest, I'm waiting for it to happen to me. Saturdays have been dire for a couple of months, but so far I've managed to get by without a zero sales day since May 2005. I'll be sad to see that record end.
320
« on: May 28, 2017, 12:01 »
Probably because today is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_hygiene_day
Strewth, guys. Be professional about it. Take some photos to illustrate the menstrual hygiene concept. How can you expect to get sales if you don't take advantage of the opportunities?
321
« on: May 28, 2017, 05:19 »
None so far, although i've only been submitting regularly to them for about 4 months. I'm working towards getting 1,000 images on there, which will take about a year, and then i'll reassess.
Another interesting travel agency is 4corners. I've attached a list I put together a few months ago that I trust you'll find interesting. I've got a comprehensive guide on microstock coming out soon...
Thanks. I've got reservations about sending exclusive images (and no similars elsewhere) to an agency unless it is selling like hot-cakes. I see their stuff on Alamy, I don't know where else they supply. If it's just a back door to Alamy then you're just giving a cut of your commissions to a third party.
322
« on: May 28, 2017, 04:09 »
I submit all my best images to Robert Harding,
Do you get many sales? I keep seeing their name pop up with travel images similar to mine.
323
« on: May 27, 2017, 11:34 »
Is it best to only upload those images to Alamy or also on microstock?
I uploaded an excellent travel image a year ago to both SS and Alamy. It's sold 62 times for a total of 61 on SS and hasn't sold once on Alamy. In fact, hardly anything of mine is selling on Alamy at the moment and probably more than 95% of my files there have never sold. I get maybe 10 sales a month on Alamy from 6,000 files which averages about one sale in 50 years per file. A good pic is less likely to get buried on SS than it is on Alamy and if it starts selling on SS it is likely to keep selling, at least for a while. That's why SS is ranked so much higher than Alamy in the poll results.
324
« on: May 27, 2017, 05:44 »
I think you would have to upload as RM but under their new policies they seem willing to sell RM as RF if that's what the buyer wants, so it doesn't make much difference.
325
« on: May 26, 2017, 07:18 »
Shows the contrast between istock or the old fotolia and shutterstock. You would/ did catch a ban from those for looking into or criticising their figures while ss has engaged in conversation instead. Good to see that some of the old community relations is still going on. Maybe they are learning from fotolia's apparent recent change in the way they deal with contributors?
My understanding is that we are still under caution not to reveal any data concerning SS that might be useful to a rival company, on pain of having our accounts closed.
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