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Messages - samards

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51
Pond5 / Re: Pond5: What should we improve?
« on: February 10, 2015, 07:52 »
What I like is that I see the name of curator that is reviewing the photos.

So, there is a guy Archana Sharma who reviewed my photos (I've sent 35 just to test how that works) and rejected 2/3 of them. All for a reason "too blurry and noisy".



There is no such curator working there - http://www.pond5.com/index.php?page=about_us

btw Archana is an Indian actress and model.

 :D


:D Ah, so, something strange happens there... Because, my first two batches are accepted almost 100%, and at that time curators had a real name and photo that was sent to me, so I liked the idea that I can see who makes you miserable...

But this Indian actress (and pond5 curator, in the free time) doesn't have a photo attached there! Hmmm

52
Pond5 / Re: Pond5: What should we improve?
« on: February 10, 2015, 07:41 »
Samards, maybe you'd like to show us some rejected files to see what we are talking about? :)


Ariene, good point ;) Here are the files, you can see them both there, although they are maybe too small there to see the sharpness. Guess which one was rejected? On both of them is selective focus used, so indeed there are areas out of focus :) Maybe the real reason should be too shallow depth of field? But then on both of them.

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?page=2&tracking_id=8Ub6bcZeCYD1YTwo0gNfmQ&country_code=NL&thumb_size=mosaic&submitter_id=2020325&search_type=gallery&search_language=en&safesearch=1&inline=183851189

53
Pond5 / Re: Pond5: What should we improve?
« on: February 10, 2015, 04:28 »
What I like is that I see the name of curator that is reviewing the photos.

So, there is a guy Archana Sharma who reviewed my photos (I've sent 35 just to test how that works) and rejected 2/3 of them. All for a reason "too blurry and noisy".

Interesting is that the one photo he accepted is in the same shooting session as the other that was too blurry and noisy - there is absolutely no any noise on both photos and both of them are tack sharp.

So, all of there photos are accepted everywhere else (SS, FT, ...) and selling good, and here, at pond5, 2/3 of them rejected?

So my question is - Is this site any good for photography or it is all about footage?

54
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock sales is sinking deeply...
« on: January 30, 2015, 04:16 »

And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.

... Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like....

It's just so * Boring...LOL

Could not agree more... Even though I'm doing stock only one year, I'm starting to realize what is it all about. Decent composition, soft light, ordinary subject, everyday activity, happy faces, no shallow DOF, no noise.

So... The most important thing is quantity of photos in your port. There is quite stable equation how much downloads you can have depending strictly on quantity. With a few exceptions...

55
TP link routers and wireless usb sticks are quite universal, I've bought one wifi usb stick (9$) instead of the regular one for my onkyo network receiver (60$) to connect it to my wifi network, it worked flawlessly since :)

56
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock sales is sinking deeply...
« on: January 26, 2015, 09:27 »
Bad month for me as well, December was much better, but that is misleading because of a few SOD-s. Now only subs, and gaps...

57
I can imagine what the people that spent hours and hours adding links in description feel...

But, I never did that (although I'm pretty new in this business) - it seemed to me too time consuming and with no clear information if that's of any help. Basically, only keywording process is already a big pain in iStock, pain even if you do it in DeepMeta, let alone if you need to add your links in description.

It is not only time consuming, it is bad. You are forced to choose between several already defined keywords, so I guess many people have just the same keywords that are already defined - there is no difference and no variations that could be specific for your picture, and that could be the key of finding it among the millions of others.

So, I guess that iStock finally started to recognize why is SS so much ahead and slowly moving to their model.


58
Photo Critique / Re: Can any of my photos make it as stock?
« on: January 19, 2015, 04:56 »
If you want to try with SS, most probably you would fail there, the photos are to artsy and that is not what sales there. Most probably your photos would be rejected with "light" as a reason.

But they might be good for Stocksy, they like your a bit dark mood in photos. There are different stock agencies so I think you should choose for the ones that your work fits the most.

59
Symbiostock - Suggestions / Re: Keywords
« on: January 07, 2015, 04:54 »
You might try a little tool that I developed for keywording (multiple selected files), dragging/droping them to filezilla or directly to an agency website: http://stockphototagger.sourceforge.net/

60
Canon / Re: What is the Advantage of IS on Canon Lenses?
« on: January 05, 2015, 07:04 »
I agree 1/200 on 200mm might be somewhat difficult :) I use 200mm mostly for sports with 1/800 or faster - so probably that's why I didn't notice... But I'm achieving 1/30 on 20mm without VR quite regularly...

61
General Stock Discussion / Re: 85mm or 70-200mm or both?
« on: December 31, 2014, 05:14 »
I have Nikon 70-200 F4  and must say it's great lens (if you do not shoot sports on low light where 1/1000 sec exp time is needed), much lighter and have the same IQ as F2.8 model.

Only... I shoot sports on low light... So I really need 2.8...

62
Canon / Re: What is the Advantage of IS on Canon Lenses?
« on: December 31, 2014, 05:00 »
If yoou shoot on 200mm IS could be of great help.

Actually there is a relation between focal distance and exposure time needed to make a staady shot, so if you shoot at 200mm, you need 1/200 exposure time. For croped sensor, it is even worse, as you need to include crop factor (1.5) and then it is 1/300.

If you have only 2 stops advantage with IS, that means that on 200mm you can shoot at 1/75  instead of 1/300, and get steady shot. 

But... Many claim that IS does not always work as expected, and many photograpers try to avoid shooting with IS. Me too. I 've seen that my non IS shots are sharper somehow. In many cases. Don't know why exactly, there are some articles on internet about that.

So, for wide angle linses, IS is actually not needed, if you shoot at 20mm for example you neeed only 1/30 without IS to make steady shot - and that is a reason why I bought non IS (or VR for Nikon users, like I am) wide angle lens.

For zoom lenses, if you do not shoot sports, IS should be prefered.

63
General - Top Sites / Re: Is DT still one of the Big 4?
« on: December 22, 2014, 11:40 »
For me is exactly the same as earnings rating states here - SS far ahead, 3 times better then IS, 5 times then FT and 10 time better than DT.

DT is indeed very slow last month. The other ones are not worth mentioning...

64
I'm also hesitating to put my photos there without any watermark, or that small funny one  - but on the other hand, I've taken a look at some famous photographers web sites - and realized - you can catch their photos even with right button click and 'copy image'... So, no need even to capture screen.

If the resolution on 500px on portfolio is really 500px (or 800px as I heard somewhere), then no big harm - that small photos are free anyway, or am I wrong?


65
Mantis, from your post I can not quite understand who died in that diving accident?

66
Dreamstime.com / Re: Metadata not read
« on: December 10, 2014, 07:40 »
If LR tags are accepted everywhere then the best idea is looking in exiftool what tags are filled in...

But my problem is that sometimes , for some jpegs, in DT and 123RF, the keywords are not recognized as well, not only title or description... So far , with SS and FT, I did not have any problems. So that might indicate that the problem is in DT and 123RF tool that captures tags. Again, that happens only with some of my jpegs...





67
Shutterstock.com / Re: Payment
« on: December 09, 2014, 09:09 »
Just got mine! (the first one :)

68
Dreamstime.com / Re: Metadata not read
« on: December 09, 2014, 07:39 »
Their system reads IPTC and XMP tags written in your jpg file. But there are many tags that can be written in JPG file for the same thing - for example tags Caption-Abstract and Description.

What I'm pretty sure is that SS reads ObjectName and stores that in Description field, and iStock uses tag Description for the same purpose. So there is a difference between different stock companies in way of using tags.

When I look at what Lightroom does - it sets all of this tags to the same value - and that's why both iStock and SS can read them.

In my software I'm also setting all of them (and I also can configure which tags to set for every field (Description, Title and Keywords). But, the problem is that although I set everything in the same way, some of my jpegs are not read correctly with DT engine.  And the other ones are read completely correct.

69
Dreamstime.com / Re: Metadata not read
« on: December 08, 2014, 05:14 »
That happens with my images as well - in DT sometimes the keywords are not recognized - but that does not happen with SS... Also, with 123RF the same story.

The thing is that I use the same software for all photos (which I developed, by the way, here is the link if somebody wants to try http://stockphototagger.sourceforge.net/), so I can conclude that the glitch is in their software. But it is not the big issue for me , as I can easily fill in the missing keywords from the software, it takes me a few minutes.

It also might be that I should use some other keys - for example:
- for title I use tags: ObjectName and Title
- for description: Caption-Abstract and Description
- and for Keywords just Keywords

Maybe I should add some more tags?

70
Photo Critique / Re: Style, where to focus
« on: December 03, 2014, 09:56 »
Thank you very much for your advices, I'm very surprise how realistic and honest you are, I appreciated that. Your advices are precious to me and make me think a lot about the direction to take. It's hard because I love doing photography but also I need more money, so sell more images may be one solution.

I think also for Offset my kind of editing is too much, as I see they prefer not only storytelling pictures but a cleaner style, so is why I'm re editing others pictures to present to them.

My only fear is that I will give them a new link to a portfolio created just for Offset but what if they visit my others web pages? then, they will see again my style so worked..

You are approaching some philosophical questions :) On one side - there is photography that you like , on other is the money and kind of photography that you don't like that much. If you go for money I'm not sure that you will enjoy that much, even though the money brings some joy... But be aware not to sell your soul to the devil...

Anyway, like etudiante said - you are trying to control something that's not controllable. Just make it the way you think is the best now and see what happens. Don't think too much, make that Offset portfolio and then something will tell you how to proceed

71
General Stock Discussion / Re: can i use the same model release
« on: November 27, 2014, 06:58 »
I'm also stripping out exif data except copyright info, exif data is not needed and I even read somewhere that should be removed from the photo (Only for editorial should be left, but there you don't need MR).

The thing is - MR is for your own protection firstly. So I don't thing that anyone would check exif data and compare.

72
Photo Critique / Re: Style, where to focus
« on: November 21, 2014, 10:44 »
Your photos are really beautiful, but for SS I guess that vintage look will be no go... There are a few rules if you want to be there, so for acceptance try to follow these rules:
* No shallow Depth Of Field!
* Punchy, colorful photos (no vintage look)
* Various subjects (landscape, architecture, portrait, concept, still life, etc)

I'm sure you have a lots to photos from your collection to fit this criteria. Once you're accepted, you can experiment. Do not be afraid of many rejections, though :)

73
Still with Nikon D7000. And considering new D750. Probably combination of those two cameras would do the job for me, crop sensor is still good for sport photography, where my 200mm lens becomes 300 actually. Full frame for everything else...

74
- remove 10 types of different keyword categories - just make order of keywords important (if that is needed at all)
- make drag-drop functionality - like on SS or DT - it is much easier to see and drag photos to drop area.
- make FTP upload working for everybody
- take a look at 123RF - there's the easiest upload process

75
From my figures it should be around 50000 :)

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