Driftless Ramblings

Microstock Earnings October 2008

astoner — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:17:50 +0000

OUCH! Last month I thought I did okay while not getting much work done on adding photos. Well this month I’ve done more to get pictures uploaded, but did quite a bit worse.

I think the next thing I need to work on is actually doing a shoot specifically for stock. Right now I’m taking opportune shots but not doing the work to do a shoot that ‘tells a story’ or is specific ‘concept’. Today I think I got some good fall decoration shots, but it’s really too late in the year for them to be of much value this year. Should I wait until next summer to upload them?

I did hit one of my goals of getting 100 images in my ShutterStock portfolio. I was hoping to get it done on IStockphoto as well but they’ve been so slow at reviewing I haven’t made it. And it has seemed that most of my images have been getting rejected anyway by IS.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	154	1	$1.65
IStockPhoto	93	4	$5.55
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	106	18	$4.50
Stockxpert	152	0	$0.00
Dreamstime	38	0	$0.00
123RF	164	0	$0.00
Totals	Avg.104	23	$11.70

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

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Photo

astoner — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:20:39 +0000

List of sites that my photographs are available from:

Fine art prints available from :

Imagekind

Stock photography prints available from:

Best Selling Stock Photographer Yuri Arcurs

astoner — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:49:27 +0000

One of the things I like about the microstock world is the openness and helpfulness of everyone. Now I just saw this, a video post from Yuri Arcurs about how he shoots. It appears that this is the first of what is going to be a series of posts. If you don’t know who Yuri is, you will, if you’re at all involved in microstock photography.

Allen

Microstock Earnings September 2008

astoner — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:46:31 +0000

Didn’t do as poorly as what I had thought this month. Only loaded a couple images into ShutterStock and IStockphoto. My computer is currently getting rebuilt so that hasn’t been very helpful either. Hopefully I didn’t lose many pictures.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	148	5	$8.85	Sold another EL accounting for $6.60 of the total
IStockPhoto	86	5	$7.48
Crestock	21	0	$0.00	Still nothing, Didn’t even try to get my portfolio sized increased in Sept
ShutterStock	85	13	$3.25	Added the 10 new photos at the beginning of the month but nothing since
Stockxpert	107	4	$0.60
Dreamstime	34	1	$1.78
123RF	121	1	$1.29
Totals	Avg.86	29	$23.25

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

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away
Captured Little Moments

Allen

JPG vs RAW vs DNG

astoner — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:19:52 +0000

I just finished an interesting article describing the differences in shooting between JPG and RAW files which gives the pros and cons of each type. I actually decided soon after I got a camera that could shoot in RAW, that it was the way I wanted to do most of my shooting. I like the fact that all the data is stored and so much manipulation can be done after the fact if the data is there. With JPG so much information is lost as well as introducing artifacting I just don’t use it until the final step of editting.

I use Photoshop Elements currently as my editing tool which does everything I need right now. Although I would like to move up to a higher end product at some point. Elements does have the ablity to export lots of files to various file formats, like LightRoom, which is nice. I can do all my editing then just go to organizer and select all the finished photos and export them to JPG files. The ability of LightRoom to apply standard edits to groups of files would be real nice. I don’t do big enough batches right now to warrent something like that but as I increase my microstock shooting I can see the appeal.

The digital negative format is nice for longevity of the file format. I can understand the desire for something like this but don’t see a lot of photographers adobting it in a hurry. It’s just an extra step required in most post processes that people probably wont do. Now if/when Nikon or Canon, etc comes out and says they’re dropping support for a particular RAW format there may be a rush of people converting files to it. I know I’ll be looking into it if/when I see waning support for the Nikon D80 RAW format from Nikon and/or Adobe.

I don’t know if any cameras save straight to the DNG format yet or not. Not sure if camera makers would really want to do that, their proprietary RAW formats are one of the things that seperate them from on another. It still would be a nice option.

Allen

Neat innovation in wind turbine design

astoner — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:52:09 +0000

I just came across a post on this swedish designed wind turbine. Why is it that we always think wind turbines have to look like air plane propellers? I like the look of this turbine. I’ll have to look around for a translator so I can read the manufactors page, http://www.homeenergy.se. I’d be particular interested in the minimum wind speed rating. Our areas is just borderline for most of the typical style units which kick in around 12 mph. If I’m deciphering the swedish properly I’m think this unit is probably similar at 2 meters / second so that makes it of questionable value.

Ease of installation would also be another consideration. Some of the units I’ve looked at only require a single pole which greatly increase the astectics of a wind turbine. With the possibilities of an increase of 20% - 60% on the cost of electricity some form a electrical generation is looking very appealing.

I hope to see thisbeing available locally in the United State before too long. It is amazing how much further ahead acceptance of a lot of these ideas are in Europe than in the US. Of course they’ve had much higher energy costs for a lot longer the we have in the US.

On a related note, the Coulson Energy Blog is up and running now and his first experiment is very interesting to me. I may well have to work on a similar system for heating some water to add some warmth to a worm bin over the winter. I’ll be sure to post periodic updates on the project if I do.

Allen

Purchase Fine Art Prints from ImageKind.com

astoner — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:06:47 +0000

Buy, sell and create high end framed art at Imagekind.com.

I have recently begun to make some of my photography prints available for purchase on ImageKind.com. Most prints are available in sizes from 10 x 6.7 to 36 x 24. There is a selection of 6 different paper types for the prints as well as many custom framing and mat options. You can order the image and have it ready to hang on the wall as soon as you option the package (well, you might need to add hangers to the back of it). The mats and frames are wonderful options to get a stunning piece of artwork right out of the box.

For the ulitmate piece of of artwork they offer printing on canvas that can also be custom framed. Or they offer a gallery wrap for the canvas is you are interested.

Cards are available for as low as $2.29 / card in packs of 24.

If you are interested in selling some of your own prints or just getting some of your own images made into high end prints they have several levels of accounts available.

Watch my portfolio for new additions coming soon.

Allen

Microstock August 2008 Update

astoner — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:10:35 +0000

This month wasn’t an improvement from last month. From everything I’ve heard though August is usually pretty bad. So all things considered I think I did pretty good, especially since I didn’t really put a whole lot into uploads and/or growing the portfolio. I was glad to see the big jump from IStockPhoto. I guess some sites might start doing a little better over time.

Sites	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	148	2	$3.30	Sold two copies of an old file.
IStockPhoto	73	8	$9.69
Crestock	21	0	$0.00	Didn’t even get my portfolio sized increased in August
ShutterStock	75	26	$6.50	Did an upload at the beginning of the month and the end of the month.
Stockxpert	107	5	$4.10
Dreamstime	34	1	$0.30
123RF	121	1	$0.47
Totals	Avg.82	43	$24.36

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

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away
Captured Little Moments

Allen

Finally some vacation pictures

astoner — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:00:51 +0000

I promised these quite some time again and I’m just now getting around to putting them. At the end of June we went to Glacier National Park in northwestern MT. The first night we spend at Huckleberry Tent and Breakfast located in northern Idaho. Now we can say we spent the night in a tent in the Rocky Mountains.

The boys are watching the fire, getting it ready for smores and Kelly is taking in some of our luggage.

We weren’t really roughing it tooooo much!

It was some beautiful country and I got some wonderful landscape shots that I’ll try to get up in the next couple days.

Allen

Excellent White Seamless Tutorial

astoner — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:24:50 +0000

I just came across an excellent tutorial on taking portraits on a white seamless background. It’s by Zack Arias and is a five step tutorial with pictures and great explanations of everything.

A lot of this is probably old hat to many pro photographers but for a novice the information is great. He explains how to build the set as well as how to light and shoot it.

I’ve been wondering how some of these techniques are achieved, especially the reflection of the legs. Now I know, thanks to Zack.

Allen

[EDIT]

Don’t know what I was thinking, I didn’t even put a link directly to the article on my post. Well here it is, White seamless tuturial.