I don�t think anyone has mentioned this site yet, I just saw it mentioned on Twitter and decided to check it out. https://www.stockai.com/ This is a stock site giving away free AI generated stock photos. I had a quick look through. You will find people with 5 arms here and there, or a dog with a human mouth. But other than some really obvious AI errors, there�s so far a lot of beautiful photos on there.

How did you guys do for March on iStock? I was really dreading the worst due to the coronavirus. It ended up being the highest earning month since last August. So pleasantly surprised. Though now I'm really dreading April's stats, again due to the coronavirus.

Typically I use Adobe Bridge to keyword on my Mac. I have a huge list of saved keywords in the keyword panel and I just search for the ones I want to use and select them from different categories.

I realized today that as I go from category to category selecting prewritten keywords, sometimes all previously selected keywords would get wiped out from the metadata of those selected files. The difficult part is that this glitch isn't repeatable. It just randomly happens on different files and I have no idea why. I can even go through the exact same steps of choosing keywords on the same files and it won't repeat. But I've seen a bunch of different files lose all previously entered keywords.

I'm using Adobe Bridge 2020, so I downloaded AB 2019 and saw the same glitch happen there. Again, not repeatable by following the exact same steps a second time.

Clearly at this point Bridge is not trustworthy. What are my other options for keywording on a Mac. I had a look at xpikes but it doesn't seem to allow a pre-saved list of keywords to choose from. I don't want to use any software that requires me to do a search on shutterstock/adobe stock and then select a bunch of similar files and then manually choose which keywords I want. I just want to presave keywords in the software and then select from it as needed, just like I can do in Bridge.

BTW I don't seem to want to use lightroom to keyword. I've taken a look, I don't seem to like their interface. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as easy to use as Bridge.

Also I've looked at the mac software on this page
https://shuttermuse.com/best-digital-asset-management-software/
that suggested DAM software, then I went to youtube and search for videos on each mac software's keyword features and they all look incredibly time consuming to use. Thus all inferior to presaved keywords in Bridge that I can quickly search and select.

Thanks.

I just bought the DJI Maverick Mini, so I have that part covered. What I'm thinking about now is I would enjoy getting some aerial photos of people in the city, over crowds. My understanding is flying drone over people is generally frowned upon, and depending on the location it could be illegal. So if I can't use the drone, I'm wondering about what my other options are. I just ordered a 3 meter selfie stick for my GoPro. I was thinking I could just extend it at a 45 degree angle over city crowds. Obviously no where near as high as a drone would be, but better than nothing.

Any other creative ways to get aerial photos without a drone?

Currently I own the iPhone 11 Pro. For the previous few iPhones I've owned, I've always used Lightroom Mobile App to take important photos, because it has the RAW feature. Today I had hunch that RAW has met its match in computational photography. So today while I was at the mechanics I took some photos of their workshop with both the iPhone default camera app and Adobe's Lightroom Mobile App. In the RAW file from Lightroom Mobile I can see the details in the highlights are not kept well. Whereas in the iPhone's default camera app, the details in the highlights are well preserved. I did a quick google search but I didn't see anyone doing a review of iPhone camera app Vs Adobe Lightroom's RAW capable software.

I'm mostly wondering if I can stop using LR Mobile's app all together? It is a hassle to use, versus the default iPhone camera. Especially if the iPhone default camera app delivers superior photos because of computational photography.

Thoughts?

Edit: I took a better look at some of the other photos from today from both the default iPhone camera app, and LR Mobile RAW photos. Hands down the iPhone photos are better. Computational photography is clearly winning out.

PSA. If you have a 2015-2017 mac laptop, you might want to call Apple to see if it is on their list of potential exploding batteries. I called them this morning and I was unlucky enough to be one of those customers. They said it takes the service center a week to fix it. You will be denied boarding planes if you have one of these laptops with you.

Edit: Apple called me back to say they double checked after my call and my laptop is not one of those affected.

Here's a very lengthy article on the stock photo industry.
https://medium.com/storiusmag/fixing-photography-593e97aa2417

So long that it was hard to read. There were some parts that were quite interesting, a lot that I found quite boring and so I skimmed over those parts. But for sure he makes a good argument about some of the problems that micro stock has evolved into. Namely there is too much crap content that has suppressed prices. Low prices make it difficult for pro photographers to want to contribute, the low prices don't justify their time. Thus just ensuring more crap content that fits the low prices on offer.

I don't think he mentioned this or that I skipped over that part, is that, there is so much amazing content already on micro stock sites, it's very difficult to raise prices for new amazing photos. Because few people want to pay more if they don't need to. In my personal life I often look for the cheapest prices for items I purchase.

On iStock search

excitement - 601,966 results
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/excitment?license=rf&phrase=excitment&assettype=image&sort=best

excited - 766,167 results
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/excited?license=rf&phrase=excited&assettype=image&sort=best

Just wondering why the search results are different? When you upload via the ESP, excited is not even an option in their CV, excitement is the only available option. I 'assume' their CV understands excitement and excited are exactly the same thing, so I would have also assumed their search results for the two words would have been identical, but they are not.

Normally this isn't something I care about or would spend anytime thinking about, but recently I've been quite curious about how their algorithm work. A while back I read a comment from them saying titles and descriptions are just for SEO and don't mean anything on the site, but from random searches I've done on their site, I am forming a hunch that isn't entirely accurate. I 'think' their algorithm does take titles and descriptions into account for search results, to what degree I'm not sure. But I don't think they ignore it entirely for search. 

I've decided "maybe" I want a compact camera that sort of fits in my pocket. Right now I'm looking at the Sony RX100 VII https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VPQV7BY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

I'm not concerned about costs. I just want high quality and fit in my pocket and I definitely like the 200 zoom.

Thoughts on this or another camera? This camera would become a travel camera. I'm allergic to carrying around my big DSLR with the huge lens.

Edit:I just saw that this camera does not have GPS. Given how often I travel and the wide distance that I often cover, I have a hard time keep track of locations. With the iPhone all photos have GPS built in. So far it seems the lack of GPS might be a deal breaker.

How exactly do I compare a smart phone sensor to a handheld regular camera of any sort? I've seen the DXO scores, but from memory the smartphones are only compared to smartphones, and regular cameras only to regular cameras. I use to assume the numbers they give are interchangeable from phone to regular camera, but then doubt set in and I wasn't sure anymore.

Yes I realize the regular camera like a top line Sony is likely much better than the top of the line smart phone. I'd just like to know by how much better in image quality. I have an iPhone X and I usually shoot in RAW on that phone. I have several Nikon DSLR cameras and they are heavy and I don't like to carry them when I'm traveling. I've thought about mirrorless a bunch of times. Though if the iPhone X on RAW is seemingly good enough and it is already on me, I don't care to carry another camera, unless there is a strong reason to. I did recently buy a GoPro Hero 7 and I've learned to clip it on my backpack strap and put it on time lapse photo at 30 seconds interval. And so far I love it. I get so many cool random photos when I go hiking. I liked the GoPro so much that I recently just bought a gimbal for it and I also strap that to my backpack strap, because the hundreds of unlevel photos is a pain to fix one by one. Anyway, point being, I would carry a mirrorless camera if I thought the image quality was a lot better the RAW on iPhone.

For several hours today I thought I had lost my GoPro from my month long trip in Alaska. Then I found it in one of my jacket pockets, and I was quite relieved. I recovered 22GB of JPGs on the GoPro.

So now I'm thinking ahead to future outdoor trips where I don't have a laptop with me. How exactly do I make copies of the Micro SD card on the go?

I saw this on amazon, but it is quite expensive. Though I would have paid that much earlier today to un-lose my GoPro and 22GBs of photos.
https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Wireless-External-Portable-Drive/dp/B07C8LGFD9/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=My+Passport+Wireless+ssd&qid=1562179538&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Just wondering if you guys had other thoughts. My laptop does often come with me when I travel, but sometimes I'm in the wilderness for a long enough time that a laptop's weight is not practical to lug around, and sometimes would be considered a burden.

Do you think this videographer had model releases for all every single person in this video? There must be around 20 people in this video.

https://www.istockphoto.com/video/alpine-climber-is-watching-the-team-climbing-in-the-peak-of-mountain-in-winter-gm933368080-255697716

I suppose it is possible the creator got a model release for every person in the video. Though is it also possible he didn't need a model release for any of those people because you can't see anyone face.

I'm mostly asking because I could get a shot like this next week.

I only sell photos. I was wondering what it was like selling videos? That is for those who sell both photos and videos, in general terms, how do photos compared to videos when considering the amount of effort/time/money spent producing each format versus some general expected return over time? I haven't tried selling stock footage because I haven't want to spend the time learning a new skill. And I don't know if it is worth it. As in opportunity cost, that is I could be taking more photos instead of learning to shoot stock footage. I use to make stock illustrations, the money use to be good once, and it was the majority of my stock income, then prices collapsed and I haven't uploaded any new stock illustrations in several years (whereas I still upload stock photos). The expected dollar return was too low for how time consuming stock illustrations were.