Marianne

Never heard of either. I have a Rokinon 8mm fisheye for my Sony that I love - LR also lets you "fix" the image so you get a superwide image with perfect verticals - like two for one. They make it for Nikon, Canon as well. Got it used at KEH 4 years ago. On sale today all over the place (competing with Prime Day) for 33% off. Only $199. I think I paid more than that for a used one. I recommend it. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/769466-REG/Rokinon_FE8M_N_8mm_Ultra_Wide_Angle.html Very solid build. Since it's a fisheye it's rounded so you can't use a filter on it. I'd check it out today with the sales - not sure if you can get a deal in Brazil today but you might try Amazon there.

Sorry Edo! Mea culpa! (I deleted it so that should help)

Deleted

I keep having an issue in LR where sometimes when I hit the masking tool it shows me the masks I've done already and lets me add a new one and sometimes I need to go into the menu along the top and hit create new mask to have the mask drop down open up. For the life of me I can't figure out why it works from the tools on the right sometimes and other times it won't open. I do love, however, that I can adjust a sky or the rest of the image in one photo and then add those changes to other similar ones and LR will update them and I can then go in and adjust as needed. The Select Sky/Inverse is my new favorite. I can add a little sharpening, contrast, etc as needed and leave the sky alone. But I hate the way the tools seem to sometimes disappear and I feel like I've lost my mind trying to do something I've done a million times before.

I ordered the entry level Eizo. It'll be here Thursday so I can hopefully report on it next week. From my exhaustive (and exhausting) research, I think it will be worth the difference. I just ordered my first iPad (an Air) with a Prime Day special deal, figuring it will be good to use for day to day stuff like social media, web browsing, & email to give my MBP a break. I'm now researching Windows Laptops and monitors for my hubby. His 7-year old 1TB SSD Acer has over 800GB still free but the 6GB RAM/i5 Intel Processor combo just seems to be too slow when he's connected to his work computer remotely. We clearly need very different specs on our computers. With Dell and others offering $300-700 off various models to compete with Prime Day deals, and $100 or more off monitors, it seems like a good time to buy, even with supply side tech markups. And he's in the middle of a big work project and losing patience with his slow machine. @Allan Bell, it does get overwhelming - even if you know you want a Mac, there are so many configuration choices - I finally decided that I needed to stop researching monitors and just go with my gut after mulling it over for a couple of weeks. And the iPad seemed like a good way to extend the life of my laptop, while also giving me the creative power of the Apple pencil. As long as my MBP holds out for another couple of years, I've made the right choice and I won't have to spend another penny on tech or camera equipment for quite a while. Having gotten a $5,000 grant in January also gives me the freedom to go for the higher end monitor without feeling guilty. I bought a new camera last year in anticipation of receiving the grant, and also upgraded my backup drives, so my tech/camera budget is depleted. Excited for the new toys!

I think Allan was opting for a new MacBook and monitor instead of an iMac - @Allan Bell did you get the Eizo or the BenQ? How do you like it? I'm thinking now I may splurge on the entry level Eizo monitor - that Australian site our resident tech guru recommended was really helpful. Still debating between Eizo and BenQ given the big price difference here in the US between but if it lasts 7-10 years, I guess the $400 difference is acceptable, though I wish I could see the two side by side. It sounds like it's more user-friendly than the BenQ and at this stage of my life, I don't want tech that stresses me out. The Australian site also explained how to calibrate much better than I've seen elsewhere. The newest higher-end Eizo's calibrate themselves automatically which sounds fabulous, but they aren't available until late August (maybe even later) and they would really gobble up my budget.

Love my Kindle paperwhite - I have a Kindle Fire bought many years ago and discovered I couldn't read it at the beach or anywhere outside - the Kindle paperwhite is good in any kind of light and I can make the letters large enough to read without glasses. I love that I can start a new book if I finish one when I'm out at the doctor's office or wherever and the library has tons of kindle (and audio) books I can download for free - though I also will buy some from the Kindle store if they are unavailable from the library. A bonus, If you live anywhere in NY State you can get a NY Public library card and download from their extensive catalog - you used to have to live in NYC but not anymore - a lot more choices than our small suburban town library. We were away at our beach house this weekend and we have no electricity there at the moment (have been dealing with supply chain issues in getting parts for the electric meter) so I picked up the least expensive paperbacks I could find for hubby and myself while on a Target run to get a battery powered lantern - they are about $10-14 now. I also bought the first vinyl album I've gotten since probably the late 70's -early 80's - Adele's newest on sale for $18.99 (usually $31!) a far cry from the $5 I recall spending. Most of the choices were new releases of the Beatles, Creedence and others in hub's and my joint collection all bought years and years before we even met. I much prefer to listen to music without something stuck in or over my ears.

Ice cream sundae alfresco:

Above: A New England summer treat - lobster with drawn butter and corn on the cob eaten alfresco. Below: Alfresco dining at Le Bouchon Brasserie, Cold Spring, NY in the Hudson Valley Definitely a hole in my portfolio I need to fill.

The site that John referenced says that particular group dresses as "Moorish" pirates [their emphasis] so it's pretty unmistakable that it's not really about hiding their identities (I can think of a particularly nasty group here in the US that did so with white masks and cloaks). If the group Bryan photographed now paints their faces with designs rather than all black, it would seem they are trying to salvage a tradition while trying to be more sensitive to the negative connotations associated with their original "costumes" (however "unwoke" their explanation). In any event, as editorial photographers, we are turning our lens on the world as it is, not as we wish it was. It seems that we are still dragging some of the 19th century along with us here in the 21st. Discussing our thoughts about it rationally and pointing it out when we see something troubling helps get us all closer to those 21st century ideals we'd like to see for all of our countries. Now if only I'd taken photographs on Saturday when we stopped in New Haven to get Mexican food from one of the many food trucks along the highway. Families were picnicking along the shore. I thought, with stock photo pricing being what it was, why bother - I should have known Edo would choose alfresco dining - congrats on your win Edo!

I see the same thing - 53 views all total 100 or 125 views, all are LU - and even weirder, when I try to replicate a bunch of very similar/nearly identical searches, none of my photos show up on the first page. Additionally, for some searches, my only photos that showed up are from batches where others have sold. The ones showing up are not my best. When I have some time, I think I'm going to go through and cull my portfolio - although I'm hesitant because you never know what an editor will chose, I've had images I almost didn't send to magazine editors (assignments) end up on magazine covers or on half page at the top of an article, where my first choices weren't even used. Hard to edit your own work, at least for me.

Jaguars and Land Rovers (even the base model) are very expensive here. But Morse and Vera have gotten their money's worth indeed! Of course most cars these days cost what our parents probably paid for their first house (parents born in the 1920's & 30's, that is).

I'm always amazed when I watch British crime dramas (a particular favorite of mine) that your police drive such high end cars. It makes sense in a chase but here most police cars are far from fancy.

All but one of my 41 searches today are LU. Agreed - can't be right. So Measures isn't completely fixed. Wish I could get rid of more false hits but I did fix/eliminate some keywords. When I look at the pix I uploaded back in 2008, my keywording was atrocious - I threw in everything but the kitchen sink - these days I'm much sparer. I also need to eliminate EU since Scotland is no longer part of it but all those pix (from a pre-stock, pre-pro photography trip) have oodles of keywords and lots of repeats thanks to the transfer from the old system. I'd love to visit during the Fringe Festival again - what a great city and a fun time to be there!

Sorry - nope but I have had clients unable to use the download system so I had to send them the file and invoice them directly - I even had sales that were reversed when someone paid for a download and wasn't able to download it and didn't contact me - it may all have had to do with my settings though so you might want to contact Photoshelter and ask them directly - they are really good about responding - you can't call them directly anymore (you're in the UK anyway) but you can email them for an answer or set up a time to Zoom with them - they respond usually same day - they're in NYC so eastern daylight time which you probably know. Good luck - let us know how it works out

I assume bubblegum has gone up in price since I was a kid, so no suggestions (a piece of Bazooka was 2 cents at the Five & Dime back in the 1960's). Oh wait, how about two wishes in a nearby fountain or wishing well? Wish for better sales?

My first red arrow - unless it's Alamy getting mad at me for speaking my mind (only kidding) - I'm pretty surprised. Not sure why anyone would disagree with what I said enough to make them angry. If I said something controversial I wouldn't be surprised but I'd like them to explain why the down vote? I welcome a good discussion. Thanks to those who've given me a green arrow in response there.

I did more searches and found that my cut out illustrations isolated on white specifically so they can be used in composites are in the "uncut" collection - which makes sense since they are pretty quirky, but they are not yet in the "foundation" collection where they also belong. I have to stop obsessing over this and work on processing fine art which gives me a better return on my time.

My total CTR is at 0.08, an all time low, and the CTR is my main pseudo is still 0, an absolute low. Views are down and I'm frustrated that an image of mine (mentioned above) that has sold before isn't in any category, yet as @meanderingemu mentions, if you do a simple two-word search in "all" it comes out on top. So a good image is lost as a result of all this fiddling with the search engine. Alamy's decision to give their core editorial images short shrift is very frustrating for so many reasons. I've stopped contributing new work to the 2 big name agencies out there that license editorial work because of the way they treat contributors, preferring to add them to Alamy, even if it means missing out on sales, but if my photos end up in limbo here, why bother? I actually shot some editorial photos over the weekend intending to upload them exclusively here. Now I don't even see a reason to process them. If they must do this re-branding with so many categories, why not name editorial images "Core?" - with marketing language to the effect that we've been known as the go-to place for hard to find images suitable for articles and books since we first came on the scene 20 years ago and play it up like the creative categories instead of abandoning these images so essential to Alamy's success? Given PA's editorial roots, abandoning this huge segment of the Alamy picture library is incomprehensible. I am well aware how not being in one of the highly touted new categories can hurt - when Alamy first dreamed up the "Creative" category years ago and my images landed there, I saw a big jump in sales and if some of my images made it into the new Ultimate collection, I'd probably be singing a different tune (though I'd still be annoyed about all my editorial images most of which are exclusive to Alamy, whether or not I've marked them as such). I shudder as I await a big drop in sales now. Surprisingly, some of my images are in Uncut which seems like a confusing name (as they are not all that random and sadly, not the least bit subversive). Worst of all, many, like my Iceland caldera, seem to have no home anymore. My best license to date here, $450, was for an image marked as "editorial only" that was licensed for advertising several years ago (presumably the client cleared permissions or took their chances). So limiting searches this way doesn't help anyone IMHO. Hopefully the new categories won't stop people from searching "all."

A $20 difference in price between the US & UK on the BenQ isn't surprising but the $200+ difference on the Eizo seems like a big difference. I didn't know if VAT was included or not - here in the US prices are quoted before sales tax - but then sales tax varies a lot from state to state.

I copied and pasted the link you provided to insure it was the exact same model monitor. Shortages in all things tech are raising prices here like crazy. Wish I'd taken the plunge and bought a monitor back in January. As you saw for yourself, prices here are substantially higher than in the UK for the Eizo - but the BenQ is about $20 less than in the UK - the link you gave showed it at £669 which is about $810 - right now it's $779 at B&H (and everywhere else such as Adorama, Amazon, etc - though it's out of stock so the price could change when they finally come in). Give the huge premium on the Eizo, I'm going to wait and see if I can nab a BenQ if they come in sometime this month and if the price doesn't jump too much. Started house hunting a bit online today - talk about sticker shock! We're still trying to figure out where we want to go, and waiting for contractors to arrive to do some required work on our house. We'll probably wait for housing prices to settle since we're buying as well as selling.

An earlier thread seemed to indicate it was for "limited use" and someone gave the example of Culture Trip. So, they - and I - could be wrong. More confusion.

My CTR is 0 - It doesn't feel fixed. Even in the pseudo where I had three sales that showed up in measures last week. Views seem to have jumped up a little but still quite low. I have a lot of searches that also show as LU - what does it mean? More mystery and confusion. Edit: Did more searching - it means "limited use" a scheme for certain customers (like culture trip) - well more than half my recent searches seem to include that term.

With the 100MB file size limit on Zenfolio, I guess you can't store layered PSD documents on Zenfolio either. Can you store tiffs? I store all my backups - from the original RAW files usually uploaded shortly after I shoot and cull, to PSD and tiff files as well as final jpegs. I have unlimited storage. It seems to me that Zenfolio is more aimed at wedding, portrait, sports and other event photographers who can upload and provide galleries for couples and guests to purchase images from - though I could see how it would work for fine art too. For portrait/event shoots, you have a built-in client base whereas for fine art, you need to market yourself. For me, Fine Art America provides excellent quality prints and they take care of all the printing, tax collection, 30-day money-back guaranty - and I can set my profit margin - so it's worked for me. Meanwhile, Photoshelter lets me share images & downloads with clients, gets my work out in the world, and lets me organize 100s of thousands of photos from huge PSD to RAW, tiff and jpeg, only making public the ones I choose. Being able to locate files by keyword or by folder makes it easy to find what I want (since it doesn't mirror my hard drive) and downloading a batch at a time is pretty quick. I'm happy with them and am way too committed after 14 years of uploads to change.

Good to know. Thanks.