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Messages - ChrisGardinerPhotography

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1
there are some really high quality renders out that there make me do double, and triple takes. so i understand the difficulties to be honest.

2
General Stock Discussion / Re: It's worth creating 3D models
« on: March 30, 2017, 13:39 »
i started making 3d models in blender in the last year. mostly just abstract images to be used as background stuff.
they're fairly easy to set up a scene, render it out while i do other work in a different program that I have to be doing anyways, and it helps to diversify your portfolio so I think it can be good.

on the other hand, rendering high quality, highly detailed or realistic models takes a lot of build time, and computer render time, so how well those pay off for that amount of work I can't say - because I haven't made anything on that level yet.  also, i am using a free open source program, but 3Ds you'd have the added cost of the software subscription to factor in too, showing me at almost $200 CAD / month so it seems less feasible.

3
General Stock Discussion / Re: I doubt paypal now
« on: March 15, 2017, 12:08 »
ya it is probably the exchange rate thing.

in microstock we tend (probably everywhere?) to get paid in USD but if you're outside of US then paypal will probably show you in your home currency, so in my case CAD, and i do notice a little bounce around depending what the exchange rate is doing.

if you want to make sure that is the case here, screen shot your USD number and not the other one if its in a different currency.

4
General Stock Discussion / Re: using a map
« on: December 14, 2016, 02:17 »

5
Pond5 / Re: am I missing something here?
« on: December 08, 2016, 13:03 »
figured out the problem, for some reason my account 'failed verification' for whatever reason. i never had any correspondence regarding that though, so they just spontaneously decided to shut me down i guess.  I figured i would share this here in case anyone else runs into a similar problem.


Quote
(05:34:58 PM) #####: Oh your account has been blocked due to failed verification. As part of our ongoing collection cleanup, we have updated the criteria necessary to maintain a portfolio on Pond5. This is in keeping with our efforts to curb infringement and piracy, while maintaining the best non-exclusive catalog online.

We need some additional information from you to completely verify your account.

Please submit the following as soon as possible:

- A link to your professional website and/or other web presence (e.g., LinkedIn profile)
- a screenshot of your video editing software with one of your recent Pond5 items visible in it
- a photo of your national ID card, drivers licence or an international passport. Please be sure that you have a government issued photo ID on your Identification- https://www.pond5.com/index.php?page=my_id_check page. Once your ID is uploaded please let us know.

Until your account can be fully verified, your files remain offline. After you provide us with the items listed above, your files will once again become available on our marketplace. Please understand we have only your best interests in mind with this policy.

6
Pond5 / Re: am I missing something here?
« on: December 08, 2016, 03:00 »
ok thanks ccbcc. i guess i am somehow a special case.
 
i've emailed support now, hopefully i hear from them soon.

7
Pond5 / Re: am I missing something here?
« on: December 08, 2016, 02:53 »
thanks for your reply.

after i posted here, i found this in their help centre.
https://help.pond5.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/251143123-All-my-files-are-gone-

apparently they sent emails out to everyone but i can't find mine, so i've just emailed support.
i was hoping someone else here in the MSG community would have had some idea about what has happened.


8
Pond5 / am I missing something here?
« on: December 08, 2016, 02:20 »
firstly, sorry if this has been spoken about already or if people are having similar issues I don't know about, but;

i signed into P5 for the first time in several months - where i did have some clips available, and a bunch that i needed to fill metadata for - what i was right about to start doing then i sign in today and literally the entire portfolio is showing as rejected. and rejected clips that have never been submitted even and clips that were previously accepted.

all of my clips have prices set above the new minimums they've laid out.

i don't know what else it can be. thanks to anyone with help to offer.

9
General Stock Discussion / Re: PayPal Currency Conversion Fees
« on: November 19, 2016, 14:37 »
ya i think we are stuck.
with my canadian bank, I can open a USD savings account, which i thought we be good - and then withdraw from paypal to that without currency conversion but as you said ; it doesn't work like that.

if your bank account is located in canada, paypal will only send it money in canadian funds. if you want to withdraw in USD you need to have a bank account in the US with the US format of routing numbers etc on the bottom of the cheque.

if you started getting paper cheques directly from somewhere like SS as your preferred payout method, you could probably skip the conversion fees, i was thinking about doing that when I realized the USD bank account wasn't going to do the trick.

otherwise, just shop online with paypal in USD at US online stores, and then you don't lose to currency conversion but you have to pay import duties instead..

10
General - Top Sites / Re: image theft wallpart.com
« on: October 19, 2016, 16:30 »
that site is ridiculous, first image on the list when I search my name "Chris Gardiner" is a computer screen shot of a before/after photoshop edit from my blog.
they definitely scrape google for the images and have built the site to make the 'previews on the wall' automatically. there is no way someone would decide to take that image.

i don't think anyone anywhere is going to be buying anything from them either, so i'm not too concerned.  they had some of my SS watermarked images, and most of which had "photo credit chris gardiner shutterstockcom" and even the original number intact in file name. one image of mine un watermarked but i think its the preview image from a footage clip on SS as well.

if they were smart, they'd at least run some ads on their site and get a few pennies for impressions from all the photographers checking to see if their stuff is on it.. haha.

11
General Stock Discussion / Re: Be careful to an illegal free stock
« on: September 23, 2016, 12:29 »
found one of mine, on the first page of the first keyword search i thought to do.
thanks for sharing link.
hoping i don't find too many more.

12
General - Stock Video / Re: Youtube promotion
« on: August 26, 2016, 10:34 »
i've made a short demo reel on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTeppgGnGZw

it has not gotten many views though.

Maybe use a more luring title like "Get stock video footage clips for free!" and I'm sure that will get you some traffic. haha.

In theory it seems like the idea could be helpful, share some of your best clips on youtube, with a watermark, and a referral link to the version for sale somewhere like shutterstock, and at the very least, if they don't buy it, you run ads beside it

13
General Photography Discussion / Re: Shooting from a moving car
« on: August 16, 2016, 13:57 »
you'll definitely want to use the highest ISO your camera can handle / noise level you can reasonably fix.
the longer your focal length, the more pronounced your motion blur will be. and since you said your object is far, and likely wanting to be shooting long will get you way too much blur.

i don't know what a speed limit is there, but lets say its 60mph, = 3.802e+6 inches per hour, so 3,802,000 inches, / 60 minutes per hour = 63,366 / 60 seconds per minute = 1,056 inches per second, and then lets say you manage to get a 1/250s exposure, so divide one more time by 250, your camera's sensor is spanning 4.224 inches in a 1/250s exposure. which is huge.  you're still going to be very hard pressed to get a sharp image this way.

is it for stock? and what size do you need the image? may be better to shoot it as video and try to reconstruct it as a still;
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~dph/papers/deblur.pdf

now thats a research paper and not any sort of software, so I don't know if there is any software out there that does this for you.. so its about as much of a longshot as trying to shoot that as a still i'd say.

I've never used my glidecam for still photos like this, but if i did, i'd probably want to trigger it wirelessly, so your camera should have the wifi connectivity / mobile app, and then you'd need to hold and steady it with two hands, and someone else to trigger it, and its still only a chance of it working. it may negate your up and down motion from something like a bumpy road but you're still traveling at interstate speeds which you can only cancel out by propelling your camera from the front of the car to the back of the car at the exact moment you shoot the photo with an entirely unbroken window to shoot out of. haha. sounds like a photo for a superhero the more i think about it, which should make you happier when you actually get it!

good luck.

14
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS Clawback
« on: August 15, 2016, 17:54 »
when i got this email, all i could think of was "Office space"
You know when the 'efficiency experts' find out Milton has been collecting a pay check for the last few years even though he was laid off.. "we fixed the glitch."


Bob Slydell: Milton Waddams.
Dom Portwood: Who's he?
Bob Porter: You know, squirrely looking guy, mumbles a lot.
Dom Portwood: Oh, yeah.
Bob Slydell: Yeah, we can't actually find a record of him being a current employee here.
Bob Porter: I looked into it more deeply and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago and no one ever told him about it; but through some kind of glitch in the payroll department, he still gets a paycheck.
Bob Slydell: So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.
Bill Lumbergh: Great.
Dom Portwood: So, uh, Milton has been let go?
Bob Slydell: Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.

15
i use it. I like it a lot better than trying to remember to check x number of agencies to see what has sold and when.
this way i just open the microstockr app on my phone once a day and see who's selling what.

to my understanding, based on what i read on their website - the login credentials are never sent to the microstockr server. so if you ever 'save your login information' on your phone, or computer browser, its basically doing the same thing.

i was worried when I first tried the app - the same way you are - but i've never had my money disappear so thats good. and none of my images have had their titles changed to "cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. cactus. " and none of my images have been deleted from my portfolios, so I think its all good!  if they know how much I sell well whatever. lol.

16
Image Sleuth / Re: creativecommons.org
« on: August 14, 2016, 21:41 »
have you ever uploaded the image to flickr, or maybe some other sites? 
I ask because there are certain checkboxes you can tick and then it will put an image into the creative commons domain. (i haven't used 500px in a long while, but they may have a similar way on allowing something you upload to be licensed under CC)

If you have made it available under a CC license, accidental or not, you can stop offering it under that license, but you cannot take it away from someone who downloaded and is using it under the terms of the license when they downloaded it.

if on the other hand, you sold it, and someone other than yourself has put it into the creative commons, then they would be at fault.  I'd try a google image search for yours, and then under "search tools", and under "usage rights" search for ones "labelled for reuse" you may be able to find the spot where it first entered the creative commons and who has done that to your image if it is someone other than yourself..

of course, this is not legal advice, I am not a legal professional. Only speaking from past experience, as I've used more than a handful of CC works in my non-stock related endeavours.

Good luck getting it sorted out!

17
CanStockPhoto.com / Re: Well, I'm out.
« on: August 03, 2016, 22:36 »
i think they specify that when you sign on that if you don't meet your minimum payout before you choose to close your account then you don't get that money. a lot of places will do that.

18
i just started with 123 (one month, 2000 files) , really easy upload but no sales yet so whether or not its worth it I don't know.
I've been with can stock for a while and they make regular sales, and also have an easy upload process.

basically anywhere that doesn't make me choose categories is what I consider easy since then my files are ready to go after upload. neither of those two do. there may be more but I don't know about them.

19
this site will give you shooting info for most wide angle lenses and cameras that are common for spherical panos;
http://www.vrwave.com/panoramic-lens-database/canon/

as for the amount of shots - 30 shots sounds to me like it would be about the minimum you'll need with a 16mm lens on a MFT camera. if you want to shoot less images you need a wider angle lens.

as for getting spheres off your android, mine are here;

device storage > pictures > panoramas >

if you shoot them with google street view, or google camera, they should be the same place.
 

20
Newbie Discussion / Re: Selling food photo question.
« on: May 25, 2016, 00:23 »
are you shooting for a restaurant like alinea, or something with a well known chef making distinctive dishes? then you should ask, they'll recognize their work wherever the pics are used.

if you're shooting something for a pub or a regular restaurant like fish and chips, chicken wings, shepherd pie, club sandwiches, etc, things that everyone serve, you're probably okay.

i was a restaurant chef before I started photographing full time. best thing to do is just be up front with them from the get go. the chef is an artist just like you are, they'll be happy to hear someone appreciates the visual presentation of their work in most cases.

21
mine is much more sporadic than yours with a slight trend towards growth rather than decline.

i always keep a batch ready to submit while there is a batch in review so there is a constant flow of new stuff into my port even when I am too busy to be shooting new stuff at certain times of the year.

22
123RF / Re: how long is the wait?
« on: May 17, 2016, 12:49 »
thanks for sharing your experiences.  very helpful.
The first batch of 200 went through in about a week (after I contact their support) but was hoping I don't have to do that every time. lol.

23
123RF / how long is the wait?
« on: May 16, 2016, 18:04 »
I decided to give 123RF a try. never started a portfolio there for whatever reason..

just curious if anyone knows how long the wait is right now? i've uploaded a batch of 800 images but can't tell if they've entered the queue yet or not, its not the most intuitive process IMO.  They all (95%) have keywords and captions intact in the JPEGs. Do I need to do anything else to them to get them in front of a reviewer? They seem to be sitting in 'incomplete' section for at least two weeks now.
 

24
CanStockPhoto.com / Re: no salses at canstockphoto
« on: May 14, 2016, 16:38 »
it was a slow start to the year for me there, but the sales have picked up in recent weeks.
in my eyes, they're doing just fine. easy uploads is one of my favourite qualities in a stock site.

Also, take a look at their license, they protect our work better than SS's newest change to the standard license.

25
Shutterstock.com / Re: Captions/Editorial flagging problem
« on: April 12, 2016, 13:59 »
I've been having similar troubles sometimes.
are you sending from your mobile app? i think sometimes the mobile app doesn't update with the newest changes to metadata before you hit submit and its bugging the heck out of me.
also happens when I've sent illustrations - saying I didn't designate as illustration - which like editorial - is another dropbox..
otherwise my only other potential explanation is a reviewer who hopefully gets fired soon.

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