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Everything posted by wiskerke
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Stranger in a Strange Land
wiskerke replied to Ed Rooney's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Wow! Re-trace it and photograph it? wim -
Finding Alamy images after contract ends
wiskerke replied to Thyrsis's question in Community support: ask the forum
The whole story is here. wim -
Finding Alamy images after contract ends
wiskerke replied to Thyrsis's question in Community support: ask the forum
Google images also works with uploaded images. As do Yandex; Bing and Tineye. Baidu is useless most of the time, if it finds anything at all, it's included in one of the others. If any of these balk at the size of the uploaded image, just use a smaller size. 1920px is a good size. I just drag my image and drop it in the search boxes btw (with Windows). wim -
Images Sold - July 2021
wiskerke replied to gvallee's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Tourists at Mono Lake for a pretty low $. Editorial website and app multiple use, in perpetuity. This is with a pole, I'm not standing on the Tufa in case you wondered. wim -
I have several monopods and a plethora of heads that can go on them. Including the Manfrotto monopod tilt head that I have used like once. My advice would be: buy the cheapest used monopod in the neighborhood (Craigslist / Ebay/ yard sale) and see what works for you. Many times I don't even unlock the ball head, because tilting the monopod is enough. Your lens comes with a tripod foot which allows a full rotation. That is probably enough in 80% of your shots. I would just put a simple ball head (that you probably already have) on it, just to see what extra that does. In my case I now vary between a RRS BH25; 30 or 40 or the equivalent Leofoto copies. The smallest on the lightest mono or tripod and the biggest on the heaviest. The carbon monopods I use: Light: 160cm/63" - 320g but 225g / 8oz stripped: Koolehaoda Carbon (mine are black). Closed length 46cm / 18" Your Sirui is shorter closed, but heavier and 4" shorter when extended. Medium: 170cm /67" - 550g, but 409g stripped: Redged RMC 434 Carbon (not available anymore) very high weight/load ratio. Heaviest: 180cm/71" - 553g - with flip locks and great for close combat. Flip locks make a horrible clicking noise when you're in a concert hall. Even with diy rubber damping pads. And they pinch your fingers now and then. But they can be quick in some situations. My oldest carbon monopod. Why just ball heads? They are quick when aiming. But a gimbal is quicker and not all that big and expensive. (Ebay from $100-typical 150) However people usually use those on a tripod. If size is a problem (carry-on?) have a look at the compact mono Wimberley MH-100 - around $225. Nifty, but the weight will be off balance. Here's an interesting video. A video head is designed to go slow. Not good for wildlife. A longer monopod comes in handy sometimes because there may be no space for the pod where your feet are: bleachers; stepladders; rocks. Disclaimer: I don't do birds or other wildlife. My focal lengths go to 600mm without converters. With a converter I use two tripods. wim
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Speaking of Rainbows
wiskerke replied to Roadrunner's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
A real one over Hollywood: wim edit: just checked: $142 gross in total for 3 licenses. Not too bad. -
Crown Sourcing: Camera Carry Bags on Bicycle?
wiskerke replied to meanderingemu's question in Community support: ask the forum
This is the mast I think. The photographer is quite tall as you can tell from his bike. But I have no idea how he's transporting his mast. The fotomast site shows a carrying bag. wim -
Crown Sourcing: Camera Carry Bags on Bicycle?
wiskerke replied to meanderingemu's question in Community support: ask the forum
That is cheap. And it looks good. I have added a couple to my watchlist, especially the foldable ones look clever. Thank you! wim -
Crown Sourcing: Camera Carry Bags on Bicycle?
wiskerke replied to meanderingemu's question in Community support: ask the forum
It depends a bit on what sort of bike you're on. Bromptons have a mounting block attached to the frame in stead of the handlebars, but as in that video, it's mostly used for bigger bags. Very stable and no impact on steering at all. My old long distance bike had a little rack attached to the fork as a way to keep the bag away from cables and the frame. (Pic - not mine). More stable, but the gear was not accessible. The crates here usually rest on bigger racks that attach to the front axle. Like on the old transport bikes but not as big. (Races here, so yes you get used to it. 😁) If lack of accessibility is no problem, you could just put a basket or crate on your rear carrier rack and plunk a regular camera bag in. Ortlieb has a great solution for that too: the Trunk-bag. There's also a 12 liter version, the RC (oops: not available right now). Some photographers use it to put their Domke; Billingham or other classic bag in. I'm not too keen on the bag in a bag solution myself. And I prefer my bag to be waterproof as well. However that will almost always mean the use of a (built-in) cover. wim (who has ridden his bike to and in a lot of European countries from Lapland to Crete, but that was many years ago.) -
Images Sold - July 2021
wiskerke replied to gvallee's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Yep not much meaning mid $. Distributors. Finland seems almost as poor as Sweden. 2 Finnish ones for me: and wim -
Crown Sourcing: Camera Carry Bags on Bicycle?
wiskerke replied to meanderingemu's question in Community support: ask the forum
What sort of bike? Personally I prefer to have my gear in front of me. And accessible. On an old wives' bike you could have a basket with padding and just drop in your bag. Here in Holland almost all children and quite a lot of grown-ups ride with a crate in front. Same procedure. Here's an example on the bike of an Amsterdam photographer (not mine). He even has a sort of a lid. My personal favorite doesn't exist anymore, but the Ortlieb Ultimate Classic Six handlebar pack comes close. The lid is not the most flexible, but it's absolutely rainproof. For size see this one. Camera insert here. However one can make most camera bags into a handlebar bag. Have a look at this video. Or this link. Klickfix is another mounting system, similar and compatible to the Ortlieb. This video shows it on a Brompton with an Ortlieb Urban Six. I have always used it's predecessor with an AGU bag. A current bag would be this one. The new Ortlieb Handlebar Pack QR looks promising, however the mount stays attached to the bag instead of the bike. And it has no shoulder strap afaik. It's design comes out of the bikepacking scene. Alternatives: Vaude and Thule. I usually wrap a bungee cord around the handlebars and the bag twice to keep it from bouncing too much, while still making it not too rigid. (Which would transfer every little bump directly to the camera and lenses.) On very bumpy roads I may add a second one around the stem. And lots of padding inside. A quick insert can be made with closed cell foam and a glue gun in 15 minutes or so. However for an adaptable insert either the wallet or the sewing machine has to come out. I prefer the latter. For patterns, just look at camera bags or backpack inserts. And/Or take the dividers from your regular bag. wim -
There's only one way to find out: just try it. So I just filed a report for an Unauthorized Use. I have used the regular form, assuming that it is still the way to do it. It's about an image that was clearly lifted from the Alamy website and has it's watermarks clearly visible. It has been in use throughout this website since at least December 2018 and the last screenshot was send to me by a fellow Alamy contributor and former forum regular the day before yesterday. I haven't filed a report for a long while, because it seemed like a lot of work for very little benefit. Both for me and Alamy staff. (Whom I still owe at least some cake for their effort 😁) Ah did Joan Armatrading help? 10 images: Ha! 😂 wim
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Halfway through
wiskerke replied to Alex Ramsay's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
2016 was my best year as well. $$ wise it was like twice the amount of last year. wim -
I Only Got Paid $7.10 for a Photo On A News Site
wiskerke replied to Wrolf's question in Community support: ask the forum
Sweden seems to be a very poor country. wim -
Halfway through
wiskerke replied to Alex Ramsay's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Volume: 9.88 % increase Revenue: 9.28 % increase wim -
How was your June 2021 ?
wiskerke replied to AlbertSnapper's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
20 for 569. A poor month. wim -
You're from Bavaria I see. You're not called Mathias by any chance? Because he does birds and is from Bavaria also. Better find something that the others here don't have. A niche. There are 262,559,285 images here by more than 150,000 contributors and 675 agencies from 173 countries (also from the blog). Now how to find a niche? Searching on this forum for find niche brings up a lot of discussion, but not many subjects 😁. Still useful to have look though. There is a list of what Alamy needs on your dashboard. It's called What should I shoot? And we have this very useful tool: AoA = All of Alamy, is where you can see all searches that clients have been doing. The maximum is the rolling year, which is the current month + 11. You can just play with the different columns to see which subjects get the most/least searches and which get the most/least views. (Least views=not many images on Alamy yet. Zero views: a possible monopoly for you or a simple/stupid mistake on the buyer's side.) The other way of using it is to search for one of your own subjects and see how many searches there have been in the past year. No searches: maybe there's no interest or you're just using the wrong keyword. Don't think of pretty images. Taking very beautiful images is practice. After that think of subjects clients are looking for. Then apply what you're learning from making beautiful pictures. And start making really good pictures of things that clients need. wim
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Post a good thing that happened in your life today
wiskerke replied to Betty LaRue's topic in Let's talk about pics
While checking my name on Google Images for this answer here, to my astonishment I stumbled upon my obituary from last week. Wow, am I in the movie The Sixth Sense? Not really; it's for a very distant relative with the same name. So after all, (yes I did watch the orange team collapse. 😲) for me this has to go into the post-a-good-thing-that-happened-in-your-life-today topic. wim -
Try searching on some of the micros too. My name comes up there as well. The bad thing: their photos are mostly worse, but some come up before mine. Not just on Alamy, but also on Google Images. So it looks as if these images are mine. Two things can be done: removing our name from the keywords. (This will not work for Live News btw.) And I just figured out another way: Hey, Ismail Amdawadi; Artem Avetisyan; Pocholo Calapre; Antonio Jose Jimenez Cabeza; Adrea Donati; William Donald Fitzpatrick; Mark Green; Wieslaw Jarek; Anatoly Morozov; Sergi Reboredo; TMP - An Instant of Time; Xiaolei Wu; If you remove my name from your images, I will remove your name here! Hah that'll teach them! 😁 wim
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Images Sold - June 2021
wiskerke replied to Colblimp's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Ah yes, the same brilliant lighting, but that was all (or almost all) staged. Losekoot just brings his one or two speedlights and a couple of superclamps or sometimes light stands. (Nikon how-to video - click on CC (closed captions/subtitles) then go to Settings and set Subtitles/CC to Auto-translate. Just ignore the inevitable nonsense now and then because the original subtitles are auto-generated too. And everybody is indebted to Hopper of course. wim -
Other fees...
wiskerke replied to pierre rochon's topic in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Computer said no. 😂 wim