Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR II DX

  We recently returned from a really great vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana (pictures to follow).  Of course two weeks before we plan to leave my Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX which came with my Nikon D80 decides to quit working.  I checked into getting it repaired but I would not have gotten it back before we left for vacation.  I had been looking at the Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens to upgrade the kit lens and I finally broke down and bought it.

It is a great all purpose lens.  The wide angle of 18mm was nice for landscape photography and the zoom to 200mm was great for zooming right in on the wild life, like the mountain goats at the goat lick.  I’d love to have a longer telephoto lens for the next trip but it’s not really necessary with this lens.  It also works great for taking pictures of some of the kids sporting events. 

  I do plan to get the 18-135mm kit lens repaired and then I’ll have to decide which one I need to sell.  Hopefully at that point I’ll be able to justify keeping the 18-200mm lens.

Allen

Tags: 18-200mm, camera, lens, nikon, Photography, zoom
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Microstock RPI (Return Per Image)

  I’ve been following Comparing RPI and STR of stock photographers with some interest.  I think tracking an approximation of the RPI is interesting information, just not sure how useful it is.  I say approximation of the RPI because I don’t think many, if any, microstock photographers calculate it right (me included).  Unless there’s some software program out there to do it for you it’s just too time comsuming to do (as a programmer I should take this opportunity to write a program).

This isn’t too big of a stretch but lets assume I have a portfolio of the 2 images below.  As you can see the image of the horse is on three sites, IStockphoto, ShutterStock and Fotolia.  It’s the exact same image from my portfolio, just for sale via three different avenues.  The stop sign is available only on Shutterstock.

These two images account for $4.50 of my microstock earnings.  That is an RPI of $2.25 (note: I did pick my two best sellers).  Now if I add up all my portofolio sizes, Shutterstock: 2, IStockphoto: 1, and Fotolio: 1 it appears that my portfolio size is 4 giving an RPI of $1.125, significant lower than what I would say it actually is. 

I currently contribute to 7 different microstock sites and not every image is accepted at every site so keeping track of this the way I would like quickly becomes unwieldy.  Hence the reason it gets calculated the way it does.  Most RPI calculations also don’t take into account the rejected images.  The photographer thinks the image is good enough but it gets rejected from every site!  Is that image in the photographers portfolio?

I think portfolio age and upload/acceptance rate also play into the RPI.  If you let the images out there and quit contributing hopefully your RPI will increase as the images continue to sell.  Uploading images would have the opposite effect.  My Shutterstock portfolio is currently 39 images, if I achieve what I hope to achieve I’ll double that in the next month or so.  All those new images will start out with an RPI of $0.00, pulling down my overall average.

I do still think the RPI is an interesting number to calculate.  It along with the STR (sell through rate) is some measure of how your portofolio is doing.

Allen

Tags: microstock, Photography, rpi
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Microstock June 2008 Update

I did okay getting some more images added to my portfolios in the beginning of June, but with preparations for and a vacation at the end of June I didn’t get much done then.  Hopefully in July I’ll be getting some of the stock worthy shots from vacation uploaded.

I have been reading that the summer months are usually a little slower in microstock.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make up for that with additional uploads and have more there for when things pick back up in the fall.

I really want to hit getting images onto ShutterStock.  With only 39 images, which is less than my average portfolio size, it accounts for almost half my overall earnings.  I still want to give some of the other sites a chance but I just can’t seem to get many images accepted Crestock and Dreamstime.

Sites	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Balance	Comments
Fotolia	138	14	$8.25
IStockPhoto	52	6	$7.06
Crestock	11	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	39	71	$17.85	My first week accepted here back in May was better than the entire month of June.  I didn’t get nearly as many pictures on as I would have liked in June though.
Stockxpert	67	0	$0.00	Still trying to figure this site out.  Have gotten several images online, but not working with it effeciently
Dreamstime	14	0	$0.00
123RF	90	1	$0.36
Totals	Avg.58.7	92	$33.52

Here’s a couple other blogs I follow that report their earnings:

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Tags: earnings, microstock, Photography
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Microstock May 2008 Update

I haven’t really done a lot in getting my numbers of pictures increased this month. My big news this month is that I finally got accepted on ShutterStock and StockXpert. ShutterStock has been doing very well for me as you’ll see in the table below, I’ll take ShutterStock over Lucky Oliver any day. I’ve been accepted on StockXpert but haven’t gotten any pictures in my portfolio yet, not sure if I didn’t submit them correctly or if they just are really slow at getting them reviewed. Would have been nice if the initial five I submitted for approval would have gone right to portfolio, but that doesn’t appear to be the way that site works.

In the last couple days I did finally get some more shots together that I will upload, just need to do the post processing and keywording.

I should point out that these numbers are my career TOTALS not just the totals for May. When I get some more consistent downloads and earnings I’ll switch to monthly numbers.

Here’s a couple other blogs I follow, hopefully someday my earnings will rival some of theirs:

Microstock Diaries: Microstock Results for May 2008
Nil to Mil: May 2008 Microstock Earnings
Pixels Away: Microstock Photography Earnings Report for May 2008

Allen

Tags: earnings, microstock, Photography, portfolio
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