DHill

Yes, it's pretty mind-bogglng that some places have had more rain in a few hours that notoriously wet areas of the UK (such as Manchester) get in a year! Sydney's tropical enough for me at this time of year. Good luck. Hope you and your property stay safe, and that what's happening in Townsville stays away from Cairns. David.

Gen: I was wondering how you were doing up there. I hope Cairns isn't being affected at much as Townsville! Martin: it woiuld be good to make the meet-up something of a regular event - maybe we can make sure the next one happens when you are available. Stephen: thanks for organising it - see you in the afternoon (maybe late afternoon?) of 17th. Ilya: I hope you can make it. Will be good to meet you, too!

That'll explain why your phone went straight to voicemail when I tried to call, Stephen :-) Fair day sounds fine! Depending on schedule and heat, I may focus on the later part of the day. And like you, I am open to other ideas. Somehow I haven't managed to get to Barangaroo yet - perhaps we could throw that idea in the basket, too?

Sorry, folks - I've been meaning to call Stephen but keep getting caught up with other stuff. I'll try again for tomorrow, but if any of you want to call or message me on the number I gave above, please feel free. It'll be great to catch up with all of you - Illya, Martin and Stephen - as well as anyone else in Sydney! David.

Switching off auto-complete will probably help, but there may be another thing happening, too. I find that if I inadvertently pause slightly between, say, the second and third characters of the word I'm entering, LR immediately hangs while it searches for all the kws that include the string I've already typed. It's just an annoying quirk of LR, I'm afraid - something they haven't rectified in a number of versions. Having said that, I'm gaining a renewed appreciation of LR's handling of key words: I'm switching to Capture One for image processing, which it does far better than LR, but the boot's on the other foot for kws - LR deals with them much better than Capture One.

Okey doke - I'll try to give you a call tomorrow, Stephen, but if I don't manage it, feel free to catch me on 0403 791 238. Anyone else in Sydney want to join us? @Foreign Export? I remember we nearly met up a couple of years ago ... William: I'm likely to be in Melbourne in September if that's close enough to you ...

Lucky I stumbled on this topic! I'm based in central-ish Sydney and would be happy to meet up (schedule allowing).

How about one of these? http://www.cameras.net.au/index.php?cPath=36 A little bit more sophisticated and designed for this specific purpose. A bit more expensive, though. David.

Well, Jame West is remaining as Chair. I'd expect that nothing too radical, such as a further reduction in our commission, would happen without his say-so. Here's hoping, anyway :-)

5 sales for $111 to me (i.e what Alamy calls net). No $100+ gross sales, unfortunately, thought I did have one at $99 gross. One track to beat 2016 Alamy income, but not to reach 2015 Alamy income. Hopefully though it shows we're bouncing back off the bottom! Onwards and upwards?? :-) David.

The D7100 should indeed make a big difference. If you're serious about photography, it'll be a good investment whether you take stock any further or not (as will any number of DSLR and mirrorless cameras of a similar generation). It's often a steep learning curve though from amateur photographer to being successful with stock - I'd suggest getting the new camera, and spending time learning to get the best from it (lenses are important, too, for image quality, though most of the time a cheap kit lens will be OK as long as you get to know its weak spots - often the widest aperture - and avoid them). And I'd also suggest taking the time to learn how stock works - knowing what sells is very important; stock can get very frustrating without this knowledge. In short, here are just two things to remember about stock: - the technical quality required is much higher than for most amateur purposes such as sharing photos on the internet and making small to medium size prints - pretty pictures often don't sell well (due to low demand and high levels of competition) - the key is to supply the pictures that buyers want to buy. I wish you the best of luck!

Yep, appreciate they're the same image processed with different RAW converters. There are numerous comparisons on the web with opinions on which does best with Fuji RAF files; this one is just an example: http://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2017/1/one-fuji-x-pro-2-image-7-different-raw-converters Incidentally, the auther acknowledges that his sample image shows 'mushiness' - look for instance at the left side of the buiding in the 100% crops, and the railings. This is the kind of thing I sometimes get with the OIS zooms, and to me is unacceptable - I wouldn't send it to Alamy. If however, you find this just fine for your purposes, you'll probably be fine with the X-T2 or any of the other current-generation Fujis as your main camera. Most of the Fuji primes give much better image quality, as do the zooms much of the time. Disclaimer: I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to image quality :-) David.

Don's example looks rather similar to what I've seen a few times - I can take two shots in quick succession, one will be like the example (which, incidentally, I wouldn't submit to Alamy even with the Irident processing) and the other will be just fine. But I've only noticed this with OIS lenses, so it may well be relate to the issues I mentioned above. Other than that, I haven't had many significant problems with the 'watercolour' effect on foliage. Just another of those mysteries you have to deal with when using Fujifilm! I can understand people sticking with full-frame Nikons, if they have no need for anything more compact.

Interesting about OIS Mode 2 (shooting only). I'd have thought Mode 1 (continuous) would work better, because it's already activated when you press the shutter button - presumably it saves having to wait for the moving lens elements to move into the right place. Anyway, I'll try it and see what happens. Thanks!

This is a funny one. I currently use an X-T2 alongside a Nikon D800, the idea being that the X-T2 is the nicely portable, go-anywhere stock camera, and the D800 (overkill for Alamy stock) with primes is the high-quality potential fine art camera. I have very mixed feelings about the X-T2. The portability is great (fits in a laptop bag/briefcase well), meaning I take photos in situations I wouldn't otherwise. Everything people say about this camera being a joy to use is true. However, image quality is very mixed (and I guess you're going to get lots of different opinions on this). Colours are quirky - great in good light, but often dirty-looking under cloud or in low light. Skin tones are a good example - great if the light is good, unnatural and ugly in overcast conditions or shade. Even using the x-rite colour checker doesn't compensate for this - I need to experiment further but whereas with the D800, colours just come together with the colour checker, with the X-T2, it just doesn't happen (some reds come out really off, for example). And those lenses you mention, Martin, are quirky! Or maybe I've just had bad luck with my copies. My 18-55 randomly defocuses the edges - one photo can be beautifully sharp at the edges, the next, blurry at the edges but still sharp in the middle. Fuji Australia say it's 'within parameters'. The 10-24 was only ever good at the edges from 14mm upwards, seems to have trouble focusing (lots of shots are blurry despite the focus confirmation saying otherwise) and sometimes has the same odd edge effect as the 18-55. I suspect the OIS, which both of these lenses have, so I need to experiment with having it switched off all the time. When they're good, they're very sharp edge to edge, but when they're randomly in a bad mood, images are ruined. On the other hand, I've had no problem with primes - and it's wonderful to be able to carry several of them in a small bag! Now, let the contrary opinions commence!!