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Topics - PaulieWalnuts
101
« on: October 09, 2008, 22:59 »
I have a Nikon D80 and recently picked up a D300. Should I keep the D80 or sell it? I'm really only shooting stock and not doing portraits, weddings, etc.
102
« on: October 01, 2008, 17:43 »
I was thinking about sending Alamy some sports images but it seems like most news sites use places like Associated Press and Reuters and not Alamy, Getty, or other stock sites.
Anybody know what the arrangement is with how Associated Press and Reuters supplies and sells their images?
103
« on: August 23, 2008, 15:03 »
I'm building two separate portfolios for RF/micro and RM/macro and haven't quite sorted out what should go where.
I was planning on dedicating people images to RM/macro but my RF/micro stuff is growing nicely. I'm worried that they'll sit doing nothing on Photoshelter (low sales) or Alamy (gazillion images and contributors) when they could be selling on RF-micro.
What's been your experience? Do people shots make total money on micro or macro?
104
« on: August 06, 2008, 22:51 »
Occasionally I capture what might be newsworthy images. By the time any site would review/accept them it would be old news.
Anybody ever dealt directly with newspapers to license images? What person do you normally contact and do you use an agreement for the licensing?
105
« on: June 07, 2008, 15:44 »
While I'm on news websites there always seems to be areas where they encourage viewers to submit photos. Magazines have "send us your best photos" contests where the winner gets a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
I noticed one thing they all seem to have in common. Whatever you submit becomes their property.
One online newspaper looks like they have an online store for selling prints of the images that are submitted. I don't see anywhere showing the submitter gets anything.
So if they collect thousands or tens of thousands of images, what do they do with them? Use them instead of buying stock?
106
« on: May 30, 2008, 05:44 »
One way I measure how well a site is performing is by its return per image. This is calculated by dividing the monthly revenue by number of images at each individual site (ex: A site where you have 1000 images and earn $2,000 has a $2 RPI that month). I'm curious to what others have. Here's mine for April.
IS $1.90
SS $0.41
DT $0.14
FT $0.13
123RF $0.12
StockXpert $0.04
BigStock $0.04
SV $0.02
LO $0.01
AB $0.00
FP $0.00
107
« on: May 28, 2008, 21:10 »
Looks like Photoshelter is tightening the requirements a bit with this news today. "Cross-listing live PhotoShelter Collection images with microstock sites is now prohibited." You need an account to read the rest http://psc.photoshelter.com/mem/learn/history#20080528
108
« on: May 02, 2008, 20:52 »
Anybody have or use this yet and can comment on sharpness?
109
« on: March 23, 2008, 19:17 »
I'm about to start submitting to Alamy and plan to have separate portfolios for RF/micros and RM/Alamy. Editorial stuff will go to Alamy but what about the rest?
And should portfolios have completely separate topics so there's no overlap? As an example, architecture goes to RM/Alamy and food goes to RF/micros?
Some of the stuff I'm trying to figure out what goes where is with food, airport interior, hotel interior, building interior achitecture, and patterns/backgrounds.
How do you decide what stuff should go to RF/micros or RM/Alamy?
110
« on: March 06, 2008, 22:42 »
I'm getting a difference in colors between PSE 5 and every other image viewer. PSE tends to render skys with a slight purple-ish cast and when I save and open the jpeg in Windows viewer the sky has a cyan cast.
I picked up a monitor calibrator and it improved the monitor coloring but didn't get rid of the problem.
After messing around with PSE settings, I changed the Color Settings to "No Color Management" and now the colors match perfectly. But, what exactly does disabling color management do? Will this somehow cause a different problem later? Any ideas what's wrong here?
Workflow is - open sRGB NEF/RAW with ACR and save as a 12 jpeg.
112
« on: February 14, 2008, 22:38 »
I'm planning on buying some strobes and have narrowed it down to these: AlienBees B800 kit - http://alienbees.com/beginner.htmlCalumet Genesis 400 kit - http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/CF0514K/I've heard great stuff about AlienBees but the new Calumets are supposedly rebadged Elinchroms. Anybody have experience with either/both and can comment on them?
114
« on: February 12, 2008, 13:08 »
Looks like LO is finally making some changes to their minimum payout. And even a $1 minimum payout for Valentine's Day??? http://www.stockphototalk.com/the_stock_photo_industry_/2008/02/lucky-oliver.htmlI really like LO but I wish they would pick up the momentum on attracting buyers. I have a third less images on IS and make more there in an average day there than I've made at LO in 6 months.
115
« on: January 30, 2008, 21:48 »
I'm building up my studio and need to add some lighting. I already have an setup for isolations but need something for object scenes (e.g. laptop on desk) and eventually for people.
I'm undecided on a strobe or continuous setup but am leaning toward an Alien Bees B800. And if it should be a softbox or umbrella. Or a combination of these.
What has worked well for you?
116
« on: January 22, 2008, 09:01 »
Came accross http://www.everystockphoto.com, another "free" stock image website. This one has a twist. It's partnering with Fotolia and shows their paid images in a column to the right. Might be an interesting approach. There are an increasing number of infringement incidents with Creative Commons and commerical usage. The Virgin/Flickr incident for example. I wonder what affect this will have on leading skittish buyers toward buying a properly licensed commerical image. Dan Heller has several great thought provoking entries on his blog about Creative Commons. http://danheller.blogspot.com/
117
« on: January 09, 2008, 18:22 »
Looks like Istock and maybe LuckyOliver are the only places where jumping to a 12MP or 16MP might make sense.
For those with 12/16MP DSLRs what percentage of sales are over 10MP? Do the sales justify the jump to a DSLR more than 10MP?
118
« on: January 09, 2008, 18:09 »
Seems like they now only want one image for each subject. So if your batch has an image of a laptop, and an image that has a laptop and a phone, they'll reject one saying they're too similar.
They tightening up a bit? New reviewer?
119
« on: December 22, 2007, 10:55 »
Do buyers take contributor's profiles into consideration when buying an image?
As an example, will they skip over a newbie profile ("I just started taking pictures with my point & shoot") to try and find a more experienced photograher ("20 years in the business, studio, multiple Canon pro DSLRs"). Or is it the individual image that matters most?
120
« on: December 20, 2007, 13:50 »
121
« on: December 19, 2007, 13:06 »
I'm having some problems with posterization (example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterization). It's nowhere as bad/obvious as the Wikipedia example but can be seen faintly in shadows when viewed at 100%. It's really obvious at 200%. I've switched to shooting RAW with my Nikon D80 and convert the NEF to a PSD with ACR and then the final is saved as a 8-bit JPG. I try to nail exposure while shooting and make minimal adjustments in ACR and PSE. This has helped but it's still a time consuming pain to paint/smudge the posterized shadow blobs. If I don't like the quality of the end result I don't even bother submitting it anywhere. I spent three hours shooting last Saturday and scrapped most of them because they would take too long to fix. I'm guessing it's something in my workflow that is causing this. If it's equipment, then I may upgrade (D300?) or even switch (40D?). Anybody else running into this and have suggestions? Paul
122
« on: December 11, 2007, 08:58 »
I bought a new camera and put my trusty old Nikon D50 up on Ebay. Somebody won it and then shortly afterward the entire auction just disappeared.
I got an email that said "The results of the following listing(s) have been cancelled due to bidding activity that took place without the account owner's authorization:"
So apparantly the winning bidder claimed they didn't place the bid. Like someone hijacked their account. I wonder if this is real or they changed their mind and wanted to get out of buying the camera. I've had a few other problems with BS buyers and have had to relist.
This really pissed me off. Anybody ever have this happen?
Paul
123
« on: December 03, 2007, 08:32 »
I'm starting to get a wandering eye for camera brands. The grass always looks greener...
What brand DSLR do you use primarily for shooting stock? If you use multiple brands equally then choose "Use Multiple Brands".
For the brands that you own or use, comments are welcome on brand likes/dislikes. If you use multiple brands, which do you like better for stock and why? Please don't give opinions about brands that you don't own or haven't extensively used.
124
« on: November 09, 2007, 21:53 »
Several sites have free sections. Does this help drive exposure and sales or just distract/deter buyers from buying? Discuss.
125
« on: November 09, 2007, 21:51 »
About a month and a half ago I uploaded 30 images to StockXpert. I have a lot of views and zero downloads. Seems kind of strange that I'm getting downloads everywhere (IS, BigStock, 123RF, SS, DT, FT, LO and even Snapvillage) and nothing at StockXpert. Is this normal?
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