Bill Kuta

Yep, everything on Alamy has been very slow here for a few days. We have a high-speed connection.

When I was very young, my family had a 1939 Ford woodie. I can remember that eventually mushroomy fungus grew on the wood panels.

Verticals are one-third of my Alamy images (according to "Portrait" selection in the search), which is way more than I would have estimated from looking at recent uploads. Verticals accounted for 17% of sales over the last five years.

I'm up about 25%, but mine's only around $100. My sales tend to be US and Worldwide. I agree that Alamy's accounting regarding DACS should be more transparent to us.

I received mine on Oct 6. But that's through the US ACH system.

During the 1918 flu, an Anti-Mask League formed in San Francisco. At least we don't need no-spitting rules anymore.

I figured if they retained both, it would be like offering f1.8 and 1.4 85mm, which is classic.

B&H has the a6000 body only now for $448. I have the a6000 and a6300. I don't see that any of the subsequent models were that big of an improvement, unless you wanted the in-body stabilization of the a6500. Heck, I'm still using my NEX-6 with kit 16-50mm--my recent non-archive shots were all taken with it. Just too handy a size.

I've been wondering why Sigma stopped making the aps-c 60mm ART lens, which has been one of the sharpest e-mount lenses on photozone. I have it and it is very sharp, currently doing service digitizing old 6cm slides. It wouldn't necessarily have competed with the new 56mm--the 60mm cost less but was f2.8, neither is stabilized.

I checked on that website, and no problem with the email I use for Alamy.

Ever since we've had the new sign-in window this week, whenever I sign in, I get a pop-up message from Chrome that a data breach in a site or app has exposed my password, and that I should change it. Anybody else getting this?

For 35mm slides, I've been wiping with a lens cloth, then with a lens brush, then a blower. Shooting with an APS-C Canon SL1, extension tube, 50mm macro, spacer ring, and ES-1, shooting into a florescent studio light. For 120-size (6x6 cm) slides, I'm shooting with an APS-C Sony a3000 (great use for this odd model), extension tube, Sigma 60mm ART lens, and lightbox on a little copy stand. If the slide (all family shots from the 40's - 60's) is in a glass and metal mount, I remove it from the mount, wipe it with a PEC pad and 99% isopropyl, put it on the lightbox and cover (flatten) it with a piece of glass. Then I put it back in the mount. If it's in glass taped together with black tape, I don't disassemble that but wipe the glass and put it on the lightbox. Both setups allow me to do a zoom focus using the lcd. I'll be doing test shots for both scenarios regarding apertures. The setup for the 120 slides assures flatness.

I've shot about 3-400 slides, and am generally pleased with the results, but today I'm wondering what is the optimal aperture and why. A search of the forum topic we're in shows recommendations of 6.3 to 11. Googling on the internet doesn't show many specific recommendations, mostly f8 or 11. But one link was from someone shooting at f4.5 (full-frame) who claims that it makes the dust/scratches very out of focus. I'm skeptical of this. But I'm going to try some test shots with a variety of apertures. I realize the optimal aperture depends on whether you're shooting full-frame or APS-C. (I'm APS-C, and mostly shooting old family shots, but also some Alamy archival.) Edit: I guess I'm mostly questioning why we need a lot of depth of field. Slides are flat. Maybe we want the shallowest depth of field that still has edge-to-edge sharpness.

This month is historically average for me, but for the year I'm way down on revenue and now down on sales. My FAA net is threatening to overtake my Alamy gross for the year.

Good-looking slide scans, Ollie. On the several I looked at, I see that your Date Taken is the recent date when you scanned them, and captions don't indicate a date. I think it could maximize a buyer's interest in an archival image to know the original capture date, or a best approximation.