Regional pics

[MemphisJim]

I have been a photographer all my life, using various cameras. Right now, I shoot with a Nikon D90 with either an 18-200 or 28-300 zoom lens. For my paid work of shooting properties for inspection clients, I use the 18-200 as it gets wide enough and usually goes deep enough for most shots the clients need. But for shooting around my wife's garden I usually have to use the 28-300 to get close enough to catch a butterfly on a flower, or birds at the feeder. Getting into stock shooting, still and video I am also using a D7000, which is a full frame camera. Truly I have not discovered the difference between crop frame and full frame, so if someone would be kind enough to show me what to look for, I would much appreciate it. I still wonder what kind of picture sells better than another, and why. 

[Steve F]

Hi Jim,

Welcome! Crop sensor - I'm sure you've seen that the sensors are physically a different size. All it affects is the focal length (or angle of view) of a lens. So an APS-C (not full frame) 'crop' sensor may have e.g.  a 1.5x multiplier compared to a full frame sensor. If you then attached a 50mm f/1.4 lens to a APS-C camera, the focal length is multiplied by 1.5x and effectively acts like a 75mm lens on a full frame DSLR. So there's no difference other than the angle of view.

 

Otherwise said, if you had a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera and an approx. 75mm lens on a full frame camera, the picture would look about the same. We're only talking about angle of view or focal length. So this will make absolutely no difference for selling the picture. If you use a zoom lens, you can achieve the same 'effect' anyway.

 

There are benefits to using a full frame camera such as better weather sealing in the camera and lens, better build quality, and often a higher MP sensor (although this is not always the case). I believe all the main camera manufacturer's are putting the bulk of their R&D efforts into full frame mirrorless now, and APS-C cameras are something of an afterthought. I would expect the picture quality to be better between a 24MP APS-C sensor and a 24MP full frame sensor, purely because the more megapixels you shoehorn onto a sensor, the closer they are together (same thing if it's the same Megapixels, but one sensor is physically smaller), and they start interefering with each other more and you get more 'noise'. So full frame sensors have better low light ISO performance, a broader dynamic range and a shallower depth of field than crop sensors.

 

A crop sensor camera will be cheaper and more lightweight - depending also on whether it's mirrorless or not.

 

There's not necessarily an advantage to having a really high MP camera either. You need more storage for the pictures, the picture files are larger so harder to manipulate in editing programmes etc.

Steve

 

p.s. If I've misread your post above and you're not asking about pictures selling for APS-C versus full frame cameras, then as James says below. Bear in mind that most people likely do not indicate their best sellers in the 'Images sold' threads.

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Steve F
p.s.

[Mr Standfast]

Hello Jim,

There are several threads which might help you. "Have you found any Alamy Images" and "Images sold in..." indicate what people have sold.

 

If you click on the blue numbers under a forum contributors name you'll see what we think will sell.

 

Good luck. 

James

[Vincent Lowe]

Hi Jim.  Your image of the line of balls (2GGPH83) has the wrong caption and keywords.  You probably forgot to deselect the previous image of the fireworks.  We've all done it..🙂

[Dave Richards]

On 13/09/2021 at 00:07, MemphisJim said:

I have been a photographer all my life, using various cameras. Right now, I shoot with a Nikon D90 with either an 18-200 or 28-300 zoom lens. For my paid work of shooting properties for inspection clients, I use the 18-200 as it gets wide enough and usually goes deep enough for most shots the clients need. But for shooting around my wife's garden I usually have to use the 28-300 to get close enough to catch a butterfly on a flower, or birds at the feeder. Getting into stock shooting, still and video I am also using a D7000, which is a full frame camera. Truly I have not discovered the difference between crop frame and full frame, so if someone would be kind enough to show me what to look for, I would much appreciate it. I still wonder what kind of picture sells better than another, and why. 

Hi Jim and welcome to Alamy.

Are you sure you meant to type D7000, or should it have been D700. The D7000 isn't a full frame camera.

[Jill Morgan]

Welcome Jim.

 

I use a Canon 90D, which is a higher end crop sensor camera.  It is 32MP and that is probably as much as a crop sensor can handle.  Gives me great shots and allows me to crop tight and still have the image large enough for Alamy. Full frame is out of my budget, especially with the ridiculous fees that we get nowadays.  All my images on Alamy were taken with crop sensor cameras.

 

As others have mentioned, check the images sold thread to get an idea of what sells.  Lately I have sold images of a hotel, inside the subway station, and shots from the street in Toronto.  Wildlife is a tougher sell as it is available for almost free on all the microstock sites.  And there are usually thousands of every subject.

 

Jill