Martin Carlsson

If wanting full-frame I would just go backwards within the Canon 5D original to Mark IV lineup until within budget... The original 5D is missed, a truly great camera to this day - I still edit or re-edit raw images from it and it has big beautiful pictures with an organic look/feel to it. However, I'm biased, been a Canon 1D and 5D line-up loyal for a long long time, with a few sprinkles of APS-C ones as side-kick "convenience camera" or backup, currently on the 5D Mark IV which is an absolutely fantastic workhorse camera, capable of everything and muscle memory from having been within the same "line" is beneficial, efficient and makes you able to focus on other things then a complicated/alien camera. All IMHO of course.

I agree with the others here that you're slightly confusing as you state "First Batch Submission" in the title for the thread + there are 0 images in your portfolio + joined late last year = that would very strongly indicate that this would be your first assessment submission - but you're saying this is all wrong and you've been contributing, with success for a while and know how it works - I'll take your word for it. So if this is a regular submission - if in Alamy Image Manager you click in on the the submission it probably stated "One or or more..." on most images, but isn't there at least one that has a specified reason? If no and you really don't know which one it is that wasn't up to scratch just simply e-mail Alamy member services - they are fast and super-helpful. Good luck.

Re. "f/4 and beyond". Don't know exactly why, but on a full frame I tend to find the too shallow depth of field just too gimmicky in many cases. Sure it can look great sometimes and has it's place, but personally I think I care less about effect and more about the image as a whole. Also, depending on the situation you might want to have a bit of critical sharpness "cushion" around whatever you intend to lay the focus on, the less controlled environment the more you may need. f/1.2-f/2.8 can be very very shallow and if not places exactly right, especially on high resolution cameras, the image is wasted. I think many, when they are new to the "art", want to distance themselves as much as possible from what they consider to be "amateurish" and try to look as "professional" so tend to overdo/overthink the technical bit instead of the image and perhaps it's message. Re. "neglible trade-off". I was referring to quality/sharpness. Going back in time 5-7 years and zooms couldn't quite match primes in terms of achievable perceived sharpness. In my opinion, and others, that has been pretty much eliminated through lens development, in camera processing and in computer processing. So to ME it doesn't make much sense to set myself up for a lot of lens-swapping, call it lazy, I call it more efficient. This whole thing is assuming that one doesn't NEED the extra stops/lights that a f/1.2-2.8 lens offers. I don't need it, even when I had it available to me I very rarely used it, BUT we're all different, with different needs and taste. Good luck!

After many years of swapping around both brands, primes vs zooms, max aperture speeds etc. I settled on an all stabilised Canon L lens line-up of 16-35L f/4 IS, 24-70L f/4 IS (with useful macro function) and the 70-200L f/4 IS. Currently used with a Canon 5D Mark IV. All these lenses are fantastically real life sharp, especially the 16-35 is an amazing lens, super-sharp corner to corner - replaced my much loved, but soft-cornered 16-35L f/2.8 II. Today, with modern lenses there is negligible trade-off going with a zoom instead of a prime, so why not choose convenience? I also used LR to analyse images to see how much use I did of my f/1.4 primes, my f/2.8 zooms etc. and came to the conclusion that I preferred the look of and spent the majority of "time" in f/4 and above territory. Also ISO performance on cameras have progressed to a point where it is almost, for me, a non-issue/consideration. Now, of course, Canon has released and mapped out an amazing looking and amazingly expensive RF line-up...don't have any desire for mirrorless per se, but this new Canon RF mount and thus new lineup is looking sweet (unfortunately) giving me some serious GAS. Also, many look into filter systems and after having spent many $£ and years going through different brand I can whole-heartedly recommend the "Nisi V5 Pro" 100mm system. Very expensive, but worth the premium IMHO - tough and durable, the integrated CPL (Circular Polariser) solution and no cast - an absolute gem of a system and tremendous quality throughout.

Sorry for the off-topic! I refer to them as my hairy children, very proud of them all. Female Chihuahua dog - Chloe. Best dog ever, with a preference for the wife. Female Bengal cat - Athena. Amazingly beautiful and a coat that is unbelievably soft, unreal. Born in our bathroom, lost her mummy and our beloved Caiua at 4-5 weeks due to veterinary incompetence/negligence. Best friend with/to my son. Young male Bengal cat - Titan. A complete "boy", with no limits and thoughts of injury to himself or property. A total daddy's boy. Bred for size (my sister is a breeder www.minileo.com) so should hit about 12kg. 2x female Degu (Octodon Degus) - Puff and Peach. Absolutely lovely little creatures with huge personalities. Clever little buggers and one of the very few animals that use tools (a rake or stick, for example, to retrieve hard to get food). Quite developed language and there are dictionaries so one can understand them (happy, hungry, groom me, acknowledgement, excited etc.). Should be my daughter's responsibility, but I'm a sucker for them and we hang out quite a bit. Potentially bird(s) - son keeps going on about a budgie, but by law, they have to be at least a pair. Resisted so far - think the current setup is plenty.

I know - trust me, she (the wife) would love some, but as a photographer's wife, two kids and 5 pets it's just not happening. However, she's quite content with the fact that the budget for fancy footwear is quite extensive as they have paid for themselves many times over and of course looks good on her too! No complaints from me. Maybe one day a pair of Louboutins will make there way into her shoe closet

A "classic" that still, after 12 years, keeps selling regularly several times a year every year. This time as a time-limited worldwide RF sale for pretty bang on my average net price. Usage: Commercial electronic, Websites, apps, social media and blogs (excludes advertising). Worldwide for 5 years. Media: Website, app and social media.

Intriguing image! Is it "real" or a composite?

Been through quite a few HDR programs over the years and Aurora HDR 2019 is IMHO "great". Not at all a fan of the over-processed look - just want to be able to achieve natural looking images, sometimes extracting a bit more detail and of course not at the expense of quality (noise and halos). Aurora lets me do just that, with a lot of control, yet remains simple and fast by using most of the time my own saved presets, but on occasion the built-in ones or the ones made by the community. Great piece of software.

Thank you @Docfor sharing the info and for Alamy for providing it. One of the many things that make Alamy stand out from the crowd, in a very positive way.

Nice to see a relatively recent image selling - taken this summer and now 5-6 months later in the middle of winter licensed for editorial use in Slovenia.

I think you're mis-understanding the general sentiment, which IMHO is finding ways too soften the blow of the proposed reduction for the most committed of Alamy contributors. The exact implementation of "exclusivity", or if it is even a genuine offer from Alamy, is a bit unclear. Anyhow, an open discussion in the hope that Alamy picks up on the good suggestions that also works for them as a business and the way forward that they feel the need to embark on. You're right i the sense that there is no way around a reduction somewhere if money is needed ASAP and other ways of facilitating that is off the table (loans, taking on-board investors etc.).

Where are you re-homing them images?

By keeping stats on your numbers over time using sales data and Alamy Measures. I do it by month by month - views, zooms, number of sales, total net sales values, portfolio size changes (how many I upload) etc. I do this pretty much everywhere where I license images and video - tells a lot, statistics is a powerful thing and works great as guide to ensure you spend your time right/wisely.

How's your conversion rate? Sales / zooms or sales / views.