Marianne

So sorry to hear. Wish I'd known sooner so I could have reached out when he was still able to know what was going on. I'm glad to hear that he is at peace but so sad that he won't be here on earth much longer. Will miss him.

I'm learning Spanish with Duo Lingo and on Fridays I'm in a 1 1/2 hour Zoom Spanish Conversation group. One woman in the group is a native Spanish speaker (from Puerto Rico). She will correct us if we use Google Translate to try to say something we are unsure of on our own. Even with my rudimentary Spanish, I can sometimes spot the Google translate goofs. Duo Lingo will sometimes explain the different idioms used in different Spanish speaking countries. It's tricky. Sometimes when I watch a British show with my husband I find myself "translating" for him even though we Americans and Brits supposedly speak the same language. I bet whatever it would cost to hire British and American and Australians who are fluent in French go through and correct the AI translations would be made up for in sales. It makes me realize why the time-consuming specialized vocabulary used by a certain competitor with macro and microstock offerings makes sense since specifying what is meant by, e.g. "tip" would mean that it is translated properly. Seeing pages of rubbish "tips" when you want to get photos of a pen tip would be annoying. Presumably you'd search for "nib" or if you want someone leaving a tip, "money on a table" which is why it's important for us to use a variety of keywords when we upload images. But having those keywords translated into words that make no sense and having a ton of misspelled or nonsense words is very disappointing to hear. I don't think I've ever had a sale to France but I've had sales to Germany and I'm guessing that having an office there is why those translations are correct. I also have sales to the UK and over the years have done my best to use British as well as American English in my keywords. I still forget things though or learn new ways of saying things from this forum.

LOL Bring back the smilies!

The only Sony zoom lens that I have is the G 24-105mm f/4 and it is nice and sharp. Until I got it a bit over a year ago, I was only using primes, many non-Sonys manually, the Nikons and Zuiko (Olympus) with an adapter. The 24-105 is a great focal length for travel, though it does make for a heavier mirrorless setup. It's a full frame lens so it gives me a pretty wide through portrait/medium telephoto setup - and with my files being so large, even a pseudo telephoto if I want to crop into a photo. I got a B+W closeup lens to put on the end of it to make for a pseudo macro lens too as I'm unlikely to take my 90mm macro lens traveling and again, since macro isn't usually a big need when traveling, being able to get a little closer is enough. I mistyped above - it's the G, not the G Master which is f/2.8 and costs about $700 more. I paid $1,170 for it which was plenty. I won a grant in 2022 and was required to spend all the money that year, so that covered the cost of the lens as well as an Eizo monitor and some other equipment. Otherwise it would probably have taken a couple of years to earn back the cost. But of all my tech purchases that year, it's the one I've gotten the most out of.

A quiet spot for reflection in Newport, Rhode Island Why it got its name: Late afternoon sun lights up a rock face in Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, while surrounding rocks and landscape fall into shade. A sunstar bursts through the panels of Sachs Covered Bridge creating a pattern of sun and shade on the ground inside the bridge. The bridge is very near to Gettysburg National Battlefield and it is believed to be haunted by many who fought in the battle. Ghost-hunters covered part of the bridge with their equipment when my daughter and I were there.

Sony A7rii and A7riv with an assortment of lenses - an 8mm Rokinon fisheye, Sony G 90mm f/2.8 macro, G 24-105mm f/4, 35mm Sony and with an adapter Nikon 20mm & 50mm f/1.4 I also use my Olympus OMD-E1 with the Oly 28mm, 50mm and 70-150mm super lightweight zoom. I have Olympus Zuiko lenses from my film days that I use with adapters on both systems, a 28mm, 50mm and 200mm prime. The 200mm is super light on either camera and gives me 400mm reach on the Olys. Keep thinking about getting one of those Sony RX cameras as a walking around option but you probably want a camera with interchangeable lenses as your primary camera. if you plan to get serious about photography. If you can host the rejected images on a site such as dropbox and share the full size images here, we may be able to give you better advice about the files. Choosing the right camera depends on whether you shoot fast moving subjects like wildlife and sports, or travel images, landscapes, cities, portraits...do you shoot in extreme hot and cold? how much experience you have and your budget. If you are using the camera with a kit lens, perhaps you want to look at getting a good prime lens. That could help improve things although with a 20MP camera, passing QC should be a breeze.

A few of mine: C6W6F2 The Manhattan Bridge & NYC Skyline seen from the Brooklyn Bridge. I took this photo the day I visited Alamy's then new offices in Brooklyn I believe. F56E2K Nauset light on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA 2K00012 A tranquil scene with sailboats, Newport, RI BEWWM7 Open sign at the Marshall Point Lighthouse Museum, Port Clyde, Maine, USA FNN4YE Last but not least, my daughter and her favorite doll years ago at the airport on our way to...can you guess? Yep, Paris. I miss those days. In the blink of an eye my grandson will be as old as she was there. And I miss how easy and relatively safe it was to travel then. Actually hubby and I went out on our own one night, we brought my mom on the trip and she offered to was babysit, and we had to be evacuated from the Metro due to an actual bomb not just a threat - diffused thankfully. Scanned from a color negative taken 20 years ago this month - yikes!

And I bet they missed "kiddie patrol" My grandson hated sitting in the stroller when he was little - bet he would have loved these. One of the stock sites I contribute to has had AI keyword suggestions for ages. They sometimes suggest a word or two I forgot but even more often some suggestions give me a good laugh.

A little humor after being buried in paperwork: I've been playing around with some Legos this winter trying to improve my still life/indoor shooting skills. This was obviously shot in a lightbox, but I've tried some dramatic lighting too - harder than I imagined when my subjects are so tiny! I guess I'm enjoying my second childhood. I'm not alone, it's a growing hobby and a couple of other places have already licensed some of the images. I've filled several pages in my photo shoot idea notebook with ideas but when I want to order specific parts it can take weeks when I can only get it from Denmark; the US warehouse doesn't carry everything, but there are some second hand markets too.

Nice collection! I bought one of those Junior Model A's in pristine condition with the box along with a a bunch of other stuff on ebay when someone was doing an estate cleanout about 20 years ago. Have it in my office. I thought about buying a roll of 120 film at the time to try it out but never ended up using it - but I'd bought it for display. I've only got three old cameras all bought cheaply (<$20) . Wish I'd bought some more at the time. Ebay used to be such a bargain.

Great images - congrats to all the finalists! Still trying to figure out which one to vote for. I don't envy your choices Steve.

Congrats Steve! I've got nearly 150 to choose from including a museum in the shape of a ship, hovercraft, and submarines, but I went with saiboats/tallships to help narrow it down. Great subject! US Coast Guard cadets furl the sails of the tall ship Eagle after the Parade of Sail during OpSail2012, New London, Connecticut (I took this from another ship in the parade - in between being seasick - I love boats but they don't love me) A sailboat in Rockland Harbor, Maine Sunset seen through the rigging of the Californian at the Maritime Museum, on the Embarcadero, San Diego, California

Great images congrats to all the finalists! @Tony ALS Sorry for your recent loss.

I was looking at those gorgeous lake photos from February's and thinking I should see if any of mine when I actually uploaded made the cut - nothing from the first one I checked but 6 of mine made the cut in this weather lightbox and one actually sold a couple months later (though for pennies - next time it could be more). Belated congrats to everyone else whose images were shared!

Amazing how it looks like the ocean! Living on the east coast all my life (except for a year in California), I was amazed each time I flew over Lake MIchigan as my plane descended into Chicago, unfortunately each time it was on a layover and I never got to see the Lake in person but it has been on my bucket list for years. Great images! So many beautiful ones. I marked some of mine but forgot to upload them but given the competition it probably didn't matter. Congrats to all my friends here and everyone else whose images made the cut. Fabulous imagery and joy to look at!