‘Photography’ Articles
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
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
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 »
Written by astoner on 05 March 2008
As I mentioned in an earlier post I’ve really enjoyed developing my photography skills since I got my Nikon D80 a little over a year ago. One of the things I have started to do is submit pictures to some microstock web sites. I’ve been doing it somewhat haphazardly for about a year now. I am beginning to get more serious about it though. I haven’t sold a lot of pictures yet, but I do enjoy seeing one of them get downloaded. There are quite a few blogs and websites about microstock photography some of the ones I’ve been following are:
And now I’m going to give out my numbers, if nothing more than to track my own progress as microstock photographer.
- Fotolia – 69 photos, 9 downloads, $4.95
- Lucky Oliver – 71 photos, 2 downloads, $1.20 (I’ve been here the longest just over a year)
- IStockPhoto – 17 photos, 2 downloads, $1.40 (haven’t been submitting to IStock until just the last month or so since I got approved) well worth the effort though.
- Crestock – photos 9, 0 downloads, $0.00 (I’m not sure why I even bother with this one.
- ShutterStock – 3 failed attempts to get accepted
- StockXPert – 1 failed attempt to get accepted
- Dreamstime – just submitted first photos in March 2008
I’m going to need to try to get a table or a better way to display these number put together. Most of the above links, go to my portfolio, I’d love to get some feedback on what people think of my portfolios.
Allen
Tags: microstock photography
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 27 February 2008
I tried to reach a full 500 free digital prints, but the best I could come up with was 450. I plan to update this list as I learn of more or these offers change. If there are any I’ve missed please let me know by adding a comment, I would really like to reach 500 free pictures. There may be shippings costs and other criteria involved in getting the free prints, but most are just opening an account and placing an order. Currently they are sorted in descending by the number of free prints they are offering, I counted the two offers for CVS as one so they’re listed with the 50 free prints.
Don’t just let all thoe digital pictures sit on the computer or in the camera, get some actual prints to put in a photo album to show off to people.
Allen
Tags: free prints, Photography
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
