Archive for 2008
Written by astoner on 24 March 2008
Well I finally got my email Welcome Back to Shutterstock, meaning it was time for attempt number four to get approved to what is widely considered the most profitable microstock web site. The selection of the first five photos was relatively easy, I was just going to use ones that had been approved previously. Counting my most recent fourth attempt the images have been approved 3/3, 3/4, 3/3, 3/4 and 4/4 time. Three of them have been approved every time and the other two have done well.
Three of the last five have been accepted at other microstock sites, here’s my favorite, it even has a favorable review on IStockPhoto. Unfortunately none of them were approved by Shutterstock.com so it will be another month before I can attempt again. Hopefully that will give me a chance to get some more photos that may get accepted.
My biggest problem appears to be ‘Poor Lighting’, which on some I can understand and control, but some of the outdoors one I think might be a little difficult to control. Over the next month I’d like to concentrate on getting some more marketable microstock photos which should hopefully assist in me getting approved at ShutterStock, to say nothing of getting more downloads at other sites.
Here’s a nice FAQ about ShutterStock which gives quite a bit of useful information.
Allen
Tags: microstock, Photography
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Written by astoner on 20 March 2008
It doesn’t look like I’m going to get much use out of this window unit much anymore this year. With today being the first day of spring there probably aren’t too many more cold days left to see how well this will work. And unfortunately I don’t even have it done yet. It looks like it will have to be used next year.
I’m also not sure that the unit isn’t too wide by about a quarter of an inch for the window. I haven’t actually tried putting it out the window yet, but by my measurements I may wind up shaving down the one side to get it to fit.
Allen
Tags: renewable energy, Sustainable
Posted in renewable energy | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 11 March 2008
I got a chance to shot some still life photos with my new lens over the weekend. I don’t have them all keyworded yet for submission to the microstock sites, but I thought I would at least put a couple of them up here. When I first started the photo session I was pretty impressed with the new lens. It was really FAST even at maximum aperture I was getting shutter speeds less then 1/100th of a second. I thought it was a combination of the new lens and extra lights I was using. Needless to say I was quite bummed with I downloaded the figures to the computer and realized I’d just spent a couple hours taking pictures at ISO 800! UUUGGGHHHHH! I had forgotten that I had set it up to 800 to take pictures at a cub scout presentation. I kept a couple of the pictures that I had because I liked them compositionally but most I just deleted. So I set the ISO to 100 and started all over.
My main subject for this session was eggs from our flock of chickens. The picture to the left gives a give representation of the various egg colors. And yes the second one from the left is a light green and the fourth one is khaki. We don’t have any white eggs in the house usually so didn’t have one of them for comparison purposes. We might pick up some white eggs to paint for Easter as our colorful ones don’t paint up quite as vibrant, although they do get a nice rick color.
Another subject was some of our dogs treats. He wasn’t too thrilled about not being allowed to have them until I was done photographing them but he made out okay in the end. The one thing I like about the dog treat picture is I was able to do a good isolation and left plenty of copy space at the top of the image. As I’m comparing them the isolation on the dog treats is much nicer than the eggs. I actually used the Magic Extract tool in Photoshop Elements to remove the background which is why it blends in with the white background of the page perfectly. The egg shot doesn’t do that.
Really just need to keep practice and maybe get some more lights.
Allen
Note: Of course if the page background isn’t pure white it won’t blend in.
Tags: dog treats, eggs, microstock, Photography
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Written by astoner on 06 March 2008
I recently bought a new lens for my Nikon D80 which I’m hoping will aid in me getting more pictures accepted at the microstock websites I submit to. 
It’s the Nikon Normal AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D Autofocus Lens. I’ve only had it about a week and so far I love being able to get good shots in the lower with the the aperture of 1.8, my other lens has a minimum aperture in the 3.4 range.
I haven’t had the opportunity to use it for much other than a couple quick snapshots. I’m hoping to try it with my light tent soon to see if I can improve on my isolation shots for the microstock sites. Everything I’ve read about this lens says it is one that needs to be in every camera bag, unless it’s on the camera. The sneaker zoom will take some getting used to since I’m used to the zoom telephoto 18mm – 135mm kit lens I got with the camera.
Check back soon to see some of the photos taken with the lens.
Allen
Tags: lens, nikon, photo, photogrpahy
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
