I only wanted to take a few photo's

[Phillip]

Being very new to the stock photography business, I have been looking around for opportunities and also with the aim of helping to promote my area.  Recently there have been a number of activities, such as a  street festival, car show and shine, rodeo and ski boat race and brumbies

 

I learnt in order to have images accepted by stock sites, for ticketed events, the photographer needed to have a media pass, or accreditation, which some venues will supply for motorsports, and horse racing. With the Rodeo, I tried but kept getting referred in circles. I still took a heap of great action shots that will look great on my wall.

 

The Southern 80, is billed as being the longest water ski race in the world, so I approached the committee and asked for permission to take photographs to submit to stock. They gave me a media pass as I was also filling in for a photographer who was unwell. I took in excess of 6,000 images and it took me one full day just to edit 3,000 without adding keywords etc. Hopefully, I will be able to sell some to the boat owners and skiers.

 

I should add, I could not find any images of this Water Ski race on any stock site.

 

I approached Alamy and some of the images will be uploaded on this site as editorial. 

 

Rebecca suggested the Sony A6000 and I bought one, then another. For the weekend I also bought two spare batteries, which was just as well, as managed to flatten 3 of them.

 

The lens I used the most was the f4 18-105, and these modern cameras amaze me. 40 images in instant and able to track and focus, some of the boats were capable of speeds in excess of 100 mph.

 

Saturday I stuffed up with the focusing and perhaps half the images are not in focus, I thought it was my eyesight.

 

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Phillip

[Bryan]

A  few thoughts. A tricky subject for you to cover. Have you thoroughly tested the lens/camera with static subjects? In the past when I often took shots of fast moving objects I would pre-focus on a spot where I knew the subject would appear and lock the focus. Then there is the shutter speed, that necessary to capture a sharp image will vary depending upon the angle of approach of the subject, head on you will get away with a slower speed than side on. If shooting side on did you pan the shots ? So many things that could go wrong ! 

[Phillip]

8 hours ago, Bryan said:

A  few thoughts. A tricky subject for you to cover. Have you thoroughly tested the lens/camera with static subjects? In the past when I often took shots of fast moving objects I would pre-focus on a spot where I knew the subject would appear and lock the focus. Then there is the shutter speed, that necessary to capture a sharp image will vary depending upon the angle of approach of the subject, head on you will get away with a slower speed than side on. If shooting side on did you pan the shots ? So many things that could go wrong ! 

 

I still have to master auto-focusing. There was one button in the controls that I didn't have switched on. I had a second camera and that performed perfectly. You should be able to see some of the images soon in my portfolio.  On Sunday there were a few shots, out of 3,000 that were out of focus and that occurred when the boats ran wide on a corner and the camera focussed on nearby vegetation. 

 

I did pan my shots, and my hips are giving me hell today. The cameras were set to shutter priority with shutter speeds mostly 1/1000, and Iso and F-stop were auto. It was overcast with occasional sunshine.

 

Some were so fast I only caught a few frames, and others I missed when taking time out to eat or drink. 

 

As soon as an image is available on my page I will add one of them

Edited March 28, 2023 by Phillip

[Phillip]

[Allan Bell]

7 hours ago, Phillip said:

Some were so fast I only caught a few frames, and others I missed when taking time out to eat or drink. 

 

As an event photographer you have to learn to go hungry sometimes but always have a bottle of water with you.

 

Allan

 

Er! No I do not do events.

 

ITMA

 

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Allan Bell

[Phillip]

25 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

As an event photographer you have to learn to go hungry sometimes but always have a bottle of water with you.

 

Allan

 

Er! No I do not do events.

 

ITMA

 

 

 

It all comes down to experience, and knowing what to expect. This was over two days and I had spent a number of days scoping out the best spot to be. It was almost wall-to-wall campers in public areas along the river bank.

 

Some boats I could hear coming a mile away, giving me time to get ready and others snuck up. The image above was the winner, and it covered 80 kms in 32 minutes.

[Phillip]

On 28/03/2023 at 11:28, Bryan said:

A  few thoughts. A tricky subject for you to cover. Have you thoroughly tested the lens/camera with static subjects? In the past when I often took shots of fast moving objects I would pre-focus on a spot where I knew the subject would appear and lock the focus. Then there is the shutter speed, that necessary to capture a sharp image will vary depending upon the angle of approach of the subject, head on you will get away with a slower speed than side on. If shooting side on did you pan the shots ? So many things that could go wrong ! 

 

Bryan, I am a bit of a daredevil I tend to jump in feet first and if it works it does.  I now have something like 200 images in the Gallery for the Southern 80. I think I still have another 100 to keyword, and perhaps another 100 that I have just finished converting to Jpeg, and have yet to submit for QC. 

[Marianne]

@Phillip

 

Search for "Rank", "Zooms",  and especially "CTR"  in this forum and read up. You might not want to have 300 photos of the same event as it could hurt your CTR, which is important here. I took a brief look at your uploads so far and a lot are very similar. Try to be more choosy and just pick the best 1-3 of each boat, or fewer. If you've got the only images of this event and someone searches for it and you've got all 100 on page one, your CTR will tank. 

 

Of course, even if you cut back to 100, you'll have the entire first page to yourself, so it might not matter. But 300+ images from one event is way more than you probably need to upload. 

 

Event shooters here may want to chime in. I've only done a handful that I've uploaded here (vs. on assignment). My biggest upload was 40 images from one 4-day event. Then again, I'm pretty spare with my uploading. Others may give you different advice. But it is important to understand how CTR (click through rate) and ranking work here. Volume is important, but variety is more important. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Marianne

[Phillip]

1 hour ago, Marianne said:

@Phillip

 

Search for "Rank", "Zooms",  and especially "CTR"  in this forum and read up. You might not want to have 300 photos of the same event as it could hurt your CTR, which is important here. I took a brief look at your uploads so far and a lot are very similar. Try to be more choosy and just pick the best 1-3 of each boat, or fewer. If you've got the only images of this event and someone searches for it and you've got all 100 on page one, your CTR will tank. 

 

Of course, even if you cut back to 100, you'll have the entire first page to yourself, so it might not matter. But 300+ images from one event is way more than you probably need to upload. 

 

Event shooters here may want to chime in. I've only done a handful that I've uploaded here (vs. on assignment). My biggest upload was 40 images from one 4-day event. Then again, I'm pretty spare with my uploading. Others may give you different advice. But it is important to understand how CTR (click through rate) and ranking work here. Volume is important, but variety is more important. 

 

Thanks for the heads up, I have gone through and pruned out a fair few. As far as I could find out there is not a single photo of this event on any stock photo website. I managed to get accreditation to take the images.

 

You are right about similar images and I noticed that myself, I have cropped a few to make them stand out more, but haven't up loaded them yet.

[Jill Morgan]

1 hour ago, Marianne said:

@Phillip

 

Search for "Rank", "Zooms",  and especially "CTR"  in this forum and read up. You might not want to have 300 photos of the same event as it could hurt your CTR, which is important here. I took a brief look at your uploads so far and a lot are very similar. Try to be more choosy and just pick the best 1-3 of each boat, or fewer. If you've got the only images of this event and someone searches for it and you've got all 100 on page one, your CTR will tank. 

 

Of course, even if you cut back to 100, you'll have the entire first page to yourself, so it might not matter. But 300+ images from one event is way more than you probably need to upload. 

 

Event shooters here may want to chime in. I've only done a handful that I've uploaded here (vs. on assignment). My biggest upload was 40 images from one 4-day event. Then again, I'm pretty spare with my uploading. Others may give you different advice. But it is important to understand how CTR (click through rate) and ranking work here. Volume is important, but variety is more important. 

 

This is so important.  When I visited the Canadian Raptor Conservancy twice last year, I took a total of 7,000 (yes 7,000) and I think I have uploaded 14 with maybe another 10 or so to come.

 

Pick your best shots.

 

Jill

Edited March 31, 2023 by Jill Morgan
Corrected umber of images uploaded. It was less than I thought.

[Marianne]

5 hours ago, Phillip said:

 

Thanks for the heads up, I have gone through and pruned out a fair few. As far as I could find out there is not a single photo of this event on any stock photo website. I managed to get accreditation to take the images.

 

You are right about similar images and I noticed that myself, I have cropped a few to make them stand out more, but haven't up loaded them yet.

 

Glad I was helpful & that Jill agrees with me. It's hard when you shoot hundreds or thousands of images to choose just the best few, but that way the good ones aren't lost and overshadowed by the rest. Glad you went back through them. Stock photography is a learning experience and your willingness to listen to others with more experience will help you learn faster. 

 

Welcome to Alamy and great job so far. 

[Phillip]

2 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

Glad I was helpful & that Jill agrees with me. It's hard when you shoot hundreds or thousands of images to choose just the best few, but that way the good ones aren't lost and overshadowed by the rest. Glad you went back through them. Stock photography is a learning experience and your willingness to listen to others with more experience will help you learn faster. 

 

Welcome to Alamy and great job so far. 

 

My learning curve has been immense and I still have much to go.

 

Thanks for the compliment. I am blown away when I look at the photos that I have managed to take of some extremely fast boats. 

[Phillip]

8 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

This is so important.  When I visited the Canadian Raptor Conservancy twice last year, I took a total of 7,000 (yes 7,000) and I think I have uploaded 14 with maybe another 10 or so to come.

 

Pick your best shots.

 

Jill

 

I took around that number over the two days of the event, and I haven't even gotten to the videos yet. I have headed in a direction I didn't expect and my computer and IT skills are currently not up to the task.

 

Someone somewhere suggested the process of drip-feeding the shots over a period of time. I currently do not have my own website and hadn't planned on doing that. So in order for clients to see the images I need to do that in the future.  

 

One of the comments made to me was that they found it hard to find photographers willing to shoot water skiers, and an idea ( I am full of them) was if there was a ski racing team who was really interested in getting images, we could perhaps find a mutually beneficial arrangement. 

 

[spacecadet]

11 hours ago, Phillip said:

I have just finished converting to Jpeg

Just a thought- in good daylight OOC jpegs are pretty good. You could try shooting RAW+jpeg next time, if only just to get images ready more quickly.

[Mr Standfast]

I practice panning shots on the scooter riders down town. Other hand gestures are available!

 

 

[Allan Bell]

21 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

I practice panning shots on the scooter riders down town. Other hand gestures are available!

 

 

 

 

🤣🤣🤣

 

Allan

 

[Phillip]

6 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Just a thought- in good daylight OOC jpegs are pretty good. You could try shooting RAW+jpeg next time, if only just to get images ready more quickly.

 

Thanks for the tip, as it was my first time and it is playing around to find what works.

 

I definitely need more computing power and much larger memory.  I bought an external hard drive as I was running out of USB sticks. 

[Phillip]

Can anyone tell me how to make the images low-resolution?  

 

I searched the internet, and all the information was about making low res into high res.  I have had a number of people interested in buying images from me. So any advice would be welcome.

 

 

[spacecadet]

44 minutes ago, Phillip said:

Can anyone tell me how to make the images low-resolution?  

 

I searched the internet, and all the information was about making low res into high res.  I have had a number of people interested in buying images from me. So any advice would be welcome.

 

 

You can downsize in LR and PS. LR is quicker as you can batch process.

[Phillip]

On 31/03/2023 at 20:52, Mr Standfast said:

I practice panning shots on the scooter riders down town. Other hand gestures are available!

 

 

 

 

Those guys would be moving at a snails pace compared to the boats I was shooting. Had shutter speeds of 1/1000 to 1/1250 mostly around F4 Iso was set to auto

[Phillip]

On 01/04/2023 at 03:51, spacecadet said:

You can downsize in LR and PS. LR is quicker as you can batch process.

 

I have taken way too many images, and learning as I go. This job turned out bigger than I expected. 

[Phillip]

Finally got time to watch a few of the videos, I took normal and slow-mo as an experiment. The sound at the normal recording rate is awesome. When Photographing the sound becomes secondary and seeing the boat and skiers in action it is astounding how fast they are going. 

 

 

[vpics]

Personally, I would have used a 100-400mm lens to capture the event. 

 

[Ognyan Yosifov]

5 minutes ago, vpics said:

Personally, I would have used a 100-400mm lens to capture the event. 

 

Only if you have one... 😉

 

[sb photos]

On 05/04/2023 at 16:18, vpics said:

Personally, I would have used a 100-400mm lens to capture the event. 

 

Similar here, would have used my Nikon 80-400, very versatile when you don’t need fast glass.