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Messages - Freezingpictures

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1
Bigstock.com / Re: account hacked ???
« on: August 05, 2016, 04:25 »
Mine got hacked to. Today I received a message from Bigstock that my e-mail was changed to my original e-mail the one I always had with them. But I did not change anything. At the same time I got a message "Your Bigstock payout email address has been updated to (PayPal) "
This was around midnight. Then I logged in to Bigstock this morning and saw that there was a payout of over $450 on July 11th . But I never requested it and it never reached my paypal account.

2
General Stock Discussion / Re: Is it worth it?
« on: March 12, 2015, 16:43 »
Thank you all!! :)

3
General Stock Discussion / Is it worth it?
« on: March 10, 2015, 17:02 »
Hi guys, I have not been on here in a long time. Also, I have not submitted to microstock in a very long time. Microstock started my career as a photographer. Now I have a photography studio and a part time employee. We are doing mostly wedding photography but recently started to work in other areas of photography too. Despite the lack of uploading I still earn a chunk of money every month from microstock. I am quite surprised actually how well it is still going.

So my question is, is it still worth submitting? Do you still get a reasonable amount of downloads from new images?
There used to be a trick to get your new images to the front at SS, when customers searching for the newest images. It went like this: You uploaded one image. Shortly before this image got reviewed, you submitted the rest of the batch. Is that still working?

Thanks!

4
General Stock Discussion / Re: February 2015 sales
« on: March 10, 2015, 16:47 »
Just looking at SS, my most profitable agency - its down like 2-3% from last year February. Have not submitted images in years. In fact with the Euro dropping in value compared to the dollar, I am now making more money than last year :-)

5
Adobe Stock / Re: New relevancy search at Fotolia
« on: April 30, 2013, 02:18 »
Fotolia is at about 10% of its former glory for me. But in the past days there were a day or two when my sales were up quite a lot. I registered the first time at Fotolia USA when I was in the US but then changed to Euro when moved back to Germany, I keyword in English.

6
Off Topic / Re: 24-70 vs 70-200 Lens for protraits
« on: April 29, 2013, 02:14 »
As a wedding photographer I strongly favour the 70-200 2.8 Lens compared to the 24-70 for portraits. If I use my 70-200 for portraits I will use it mostly at the long end. My most used portrait lens ist the 85 1.4. Of course you will sometimes also do creative portraits with a wide angle lens but just not as often. At least that goes for me.

7
What would be interesting is, if this is true on average for new images. For example if I make 250 dls from 500 images a month an then add another 500 images, would I really make 500 dls? I am asking this because I am not sure if the new images can move up in the Popular search so well with almost weekly 100000 images being added. I have not uploaded for s long time so I would be interested in your opinion.

8
Since April 2010 I have not really seriously uploaded images. Just end of January I started to upload a lot again.

Interestingly earnings of all agencies went down except Shutterstock. On Shutterstock I had my best January ever.

My earnings compared to the last years:

Total current income went down from 2010 (best January ever) by: 52%
 from 2011 by: 44%
 from 2012 by: 36%

Shutterstock now generates over 50% of my income,  istockphoto (BIG drop) 20%, DT 20%, Ft 10% (this one went over 80% down from 2012- really crazy)


9
These sorts of discussions are akin to religious arguments and I'd recommend staying away.

If there's a discussion about how to get accurate white balance, or use of a gray card, that's worth reading as you can learn about a technique you might want to use.

Any of those "you always..." or "you never..." conversations are generally filled with people who do more talking than shooting :)

Jsnova, are you implying all religious arguments are bad? Wether it is religion or white balance there are always good and bad arguments  :)
In this case he "being lazy" because he adjust WB in lightroom is a very bad argument and I agree with your recommendation.

It's been a while since I saw 'freezingpictures' as a name in the recent poster list.... welcome back :)

Thanks :-)

10
These sorts of discussions are akin to religious arguments and I'd recommend staying away.

If there's a discussion about how to get accurate white balance, or use of a gray card, that's worth reading as you can learn about a technique you might want to use.

Any of those "you always..." or "you never..." conversations are generally filled with people who do more talking than shooting :)

Jsnova, are you implying all religious arguments are bad? Wether it is religion or white balance there are always good and bad arguments  :)
In this case he "being lazy" because he adjust WB in lightroom is a very bad argument and I agree with your recommendation.

11
I was wondering why I am suddenly selling so much. It is awesome  :) They should keep it like this. Bestseller should allways be at the front  :)

12
Canon / Re: Canon 5D Mark III: Official announcement
« on: March 02, 2012, 07:43 »
This is a super cool camera. Yes for microstock and in general stock photography, it is not a big upgrade from the 5d mkII, but for a wedding photographer this is really the perfect camera. Dual card slots - way improved AF- improved high iso IQ. Can't wish for anything more.

13
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Sales in iStock
« on: February 19, 2012, 09:22 »
Maybe my experience does not weigh much, since I stopped regular uploads almost two years ago, but iStock is the one agency where earnings really dropped massively. There is a small decline in all other agencies as well, except with shutterstock. If I would start again to submit regulary, I would not see a point in uploading to iStock, I fear it would only slow down the demise.
I am totally surprised by SS, I never thought they would hold up so well. But altogether, I do not see a future in microstock, if it continues the way it always has. I am happy I ventured off into other areas of photography to have a income with a better outlook on the future. But istock above all other agencies has really highlighted this and this really discouraged me of doing more microstock.

14
If I would have stayed in the government health insurance me and my wife (she is also working) would probably have to pay $1400 a month here in Germany. So I decided to go privately and we are down to around $900 together. But at least the coverage is pretty good. It is amazing how expensive insurance is if you are are self-employed.

15
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istockphoto Best Match Tweak 5/27/11
« on: June 10, 2011, 06:23 »
Just to illustrate how bad the best match search is now. I have an image at IS, a polar bear image with has over 2700 Dls. If you search for Polar bear ist comes in the results a little bit behind 800 other images!! There are images in front of that image which have 0 Downloads - Vetta - exclusive and even non exclusive images. Why is it that IS puts highly sellable and proven images so far behind in the search??

16
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istockphoto Best Match Tweak 5/27/11
« on: June 10, 2011, 05:26 »
I just noticed a small best match change. My at once very popular images advanced a little bit on the best match search result. On "penguins" where I have by far the most sold images I now have 4 images amongst the top 200 search results by best match. a week ago I had only 2. It is still very disappointing, but a a slightly little tiny positive change.

17
Panthermedia.net / Re: PantherMedia, how do they work?
« on: June 09, 2011, 08:52 »
Sales are owever not so regular but if get them they can be up to 40

18
Panthermedia.net / Re: PantherMedia, how do they work?
« on: June 09, 2011, 08:51 »
It is a good agency, actually in average more income than Bigstockphoto with less photos, but still way behind Dreamstime

19
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istockphoto Best Match Tweak 5/27/11
« on: May 30, 2011, 14:24 »
Ahh nice, sales are picking up again... I was waiting for the change.

20
iStockPhoto.com / Re: P+ How are your sales?
« on: May 20, 2011, 01:10 »
Downloads are decreasing, but income is slightly up from last month through P+. For a while now I am looking at my files in best match placement.
What I am seeing is that slowely these files are moving further back in best match placement. Since Vetta and agency and exclusive files are have increased exposure my files are doing less and less well.
Because they are doing less well, they cannot hold their positions - and move further back ... doing less well.

Circle of a slow death.
I guess the fact that they are in their category the most downloaded files helps to keep them a bit going, because hopefully more and more buyers will search files based on downloads.

21
Bigstock.com / Re: Sales at BS ???
« on: May 19, 2011, 02:30 »
It never worked out well for me with BS, I earned like $5-$10 or so a month with them with 150 images or so. Because I wanted to put some of my images exclusive with another agency, I decided to delete the whole portfolio, I figured that would be easier. The funny things was, that a couple of days later I got a message from Shutterstock that I am invited to join the Bridge to Bigstock program. I accepted and they put my 800+ files on BS. Now I am earning about $40 /month. Not much but worth it :-)

22
I will opt in. It cannot get much worse at iS anyway.

Yes, it can. Should our best sellers stop selling after putting in the Photo+ collection, 6 months are enough to ruin their placement forever.

I am not ruling out opting in anyway, just still evaluating.

And just think about it. If files cost too much at iS buyers are slowely migrating to the other microstock agencies. It is the perfect deal for non- exclusives :-)

This is the good part indeed. As an independent, the whole IS issue is already resulting in higher overall earnings for me across all sites.

My best sellers already kind of stopped selling. My income at iStockphoto has fallen so much dollarwise it cannot fall the same amount again. If it would , I would have to pay iStockphoto each month. Thats why I think what ever, give it a try, not much to loose anyway.

23
I will opt in. It cannot get much worse at iS anyway. And just think about it. If files cost too much at iS buyers are slowely migrating to the other microstock agencies. It is the perfect deal for non- exclusives :-)

24
Go with whatever most of your friends have so you can swap lenses :-)

Personally absolutely Canon, but I never owned a XXXD body just XXD or Xd bodies which are in my opinion from the handling much much better amongst other advantages.

25
In Lightroom you can change the size of the print. I make black borders all the time with lightroom: www.janwillphotography.com

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