Harry Harrison Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 (edited) 11 minutes ago, John Mitchell said: and a message appeared saying that it was an unsuitable phone. Oh dear, they are opening themselves up to a world of pain then. Good luck with maintaining a list of suitable phones, and suitable lens/sensors on suitable phones, and unsuitable lens/sensors on suitable phones and...... Edited September 28 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 8 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: Oh dear, they are opening themselves up to a world of pain then. Good luck with maintaining a list of suitable phones, and suitable lens/sensors on suitable phones, and unsuitable lens/sensors on suitable phones and...... Yes indeed. Unfortunately pain also grows exponentially. 🤕 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sally Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 (edited) 5 hours ago, MDM said: Yes. I started out pretty much on the side of allowing phone photos but, after seeing some dodgy phone images from experienced photographers, I was veering in the other direction. However, I think the move to phones in general is inevitable anyway. Apparently Danny Boyle has just made a major high budget movie shot mainly on iPhones (28 Years Later). The excitement among the natives here might be short-lived. One big issue will be how Alamy deal with the almost certain deluge of imagery from non-photographers. Will they use strict criteria on the first upload in order to keep some control over quality? Your typical phone shooter will just edit and upload from the phone so how will they be able to judge sharpness etc? And will prices drop even further? I second these concerns. Apart from those concerns, it certainly means that there are potentially hundreds of new phone photographers who will be uploading. This is certainly good news for Alamy but for current individual photographers on Alamy I suspect it simply means more competition and fewer fees. Edited September 28 by Sally 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 2 hours ago, John Mitchell said: As an experiment, I just tried uploading an image taken with my budget Alcatel phone. It was shot in good light at ISO 100. I checked the image for sharpness, CA, etc. at 100% and everything looked good (certainly fine for Web use). However, the image was rejected, and a message appeared saying that it was an unsuitable phone. So it looks as if Alamy does have some guidelines in place, which hopefully they will be sharing with us eventually. BTW, the minimum file size seems to be 17 MB uncompressed. P.S. I uploaded from my computer rather than directly from the phone. Don't know if that made any difference. Did it get rejected on upload or did it fail QC? Also did you include metadata? It would be interesting to know. I'm wondering if it will accept iPad images which are easily as good as iPhone shots. I'm hesitant to lose my excellent QC record experimenting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 1 hour ago, Sally said: I second these concerns. Apart from those concerns, it certainly means that there are potentially hundreds of new phone photographers who will be uploading. This is certainly good news for Alamy but for current individual photographers on Alamy I suspect it simply means more competition and fewer fees. More likely tens of thousands once news gets out. Who doesn't want to make an easy fraction of a dollar cent? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 A lot more small portfolio contributors, who will sit in the silver band. Their ocaisional sales will net them 20% but 80% for Alamy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sooth Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 I'm using a secondhand S20 purchased from samsung. uploaded 3 photos one taken in sunlight, one taken indoors, one taken in shade. all accepted. at 100% pixel peep I wasn't exactly satisfied with the images compared to a canon, but considering it's use for citizen media purposes (protests, news, reportage, etc) when big cameras can make you stand out in a crowd, I would be very content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Ore Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 18 minutes ago, MDM said: Did it get rejected on upload or did it fail QC? Also did you include metadata? It would be interesting to know. I'm wondering if it will accept iPad images which are easily as good as iPhone shots. I'm hesitant to lose my excellent QC record experimenting. Mine were rejected on upload, same message that John got. The phone program didn't do anything one way or the other with metadata except that I didn't have location tagging. My understanding is that iPads may not have as advanced cameras as the iPhones. The stock camera program on my phone is okay, but have to choose between 12M and 50M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 (edited) 37 minutes ago, MDM said: Did it get rejected on upload or did it fail QC? Also did you include metadata? It would be interesting to know. I'm wondering if it will accept iPad images which are easily as good as iPhone shots. I'm hesitant to lose my excellent QC record experimenting. The image didn't fail QC, it just got rejected. Actually, it was rejected twice. The first time because the file size was under 17 MB (uncompressed). I up-sized the image a bit to get the file over 17 MB and resubmitted it. This time I got the "unsuitable smartphone" message. As mentioned, it was just an experiment. If I decide to submit phone pics, I'll get a better phone that Alamy approves of. I did include metadata -- caption and keywords using my computer. Edited September 28 by John Mitchell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Ore Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 Alamy needs to figure out how to code for why the phone camera was unsuitable, or we we have an amazing number of people posting here in the future wondering why their photos were rejected. I just up sized one of plants and a hummingbird taken with my a6000 and uploaded it. The best use of the phone's camera for me is things for social media and copies of documents like water and light bills where the originals have to go to my landlord, and just quick shots of plants for identification. I assume this generation of the mid-range Samsungs won't work but the first tier phones would be the way to go for those who do want a phone as a take everywhere everything. I've had occasion to look recently at both 19th Century large format photos in print and mid 20th Century consumer film photos ditto -- and the larger formats then were amazingly better in black and white than most of the even pro photos taken with smaller cameras. As film got better, we had the first digital cameras and they needed some time to be equal to good film. Now we've got 35mm equivalent and larger digital sensors, and the phone cameras which started out as really crap are equal to 1970s or a bit later digital, or better. Some phones have one inch sensors. Haven't heard of anything larger. Speed Graphics were still being sold new when I got my first used Asahi Pentax with one 50mm lens at age 16, 60 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Ventura Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 Just uploaded three iPhone photos via my phone. Pretty easy and straight forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 53 minutes ago, John Mitchell said: The image didn't fail QC, it just got rejected. Actually, it was rejected twice. The first time because the file size was under 17 MB (uncompressed). I up-sized the image a bit to get the file over 17 MB and resubmitted it. This time I got the "unsuitable smartphone" message. As mentioned, it was just an experiment. If I decide to submit phone pics, I'll get a better phone that Alamy approves of. I did include metadata -- caption and keywords using my computer. OK thanks for the info. I’m more curious than excited. I will upload a few images shot with my iPad in raw to see how they get on. I have loads and loads of images from my “real” camera to process and upload. The crazy low fees I’ve been getting lately are not terribly inspiring and it looks like they might be on an asymptote to rock bottom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted September 28 Share Posted September 28 (edited) 1 hour ago, Rebecca Ore said: My understanding is that iPads may not have as advanced cameras as the iPhones. The stock camera program on my phone is okay, but have to choose between 12M and 50M Maybe not quite as advanced as the very latest iPhones for video but there are some excellent indie apps that allow shooting of raw stills on some iPads as well as some older phones. I’m just curious about the tech and where it’s all going. Edited September 28 by MDM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) 9 hours ago, John Mitchell said: This time I got the "unsuitable smartphone" message. I suppose they might still be testing, they haven't announced it officially. That might be a 'catchall' reason for failure which ultimately has nothing to do with the actual phone. Could they possibly use AI for this new upload route? Well, perhaps I should ask ChatGPT if they can. P.S. I wouldn't know how to. Edited September 29 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) I wonder if they will insist that images upoaded via the smartphone route always have EXIF metadata. Edited September 29 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 Hands up who googled asymptote??? 😉 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) 2 hours ago, Mr Standfast said: Hands up who googled asymptote??? 😉 Personal senility check. The gradual descent towards and running almost parallel to zero but never quite getting there is what I meant. 😀 Edited September 29 by MDM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 15 minutes ago, MDM said: Personal senility check. The gradual descent towards and running almost parallel to zero but never quite getting there is what I meant. 😀 Or as Private Fraser would say... "Doomed...we're all doomed I say...." 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) Currently using a Pixel 6A as I'm an infrequent phone user and it's suitable for my needs. I uploaded two images on Friday after the news appeared on here and hey presto they sailed through. However subsequent pics uploaded later that night failed due to size. Pics all taken with same phone and no editing applied. Now wondering if Alamy put a block on after my first upload on Friday to evaluate or whether they are genuinely too small. How could that be? Edited September 29 by Sultanpepa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Scheuern Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 Size in pixels or size in megabytes? If the latter, maybe they’re JPEG compressing differently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Ore Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 8 hours ago, Harry Harrison said: I suppose they might still be testing, they haven't announced it officially. That might be a 'catchall' reason for failure which ultimately has nothing to do with the actual phone. Could they possibly use AI for this new upload route? Well, perhaps I should ask ChatGPT if they can. P.S. I wouldn't know how to. Googling the problem I found that for Samsung, the lower price tier phones have had some jiggery pokery done that keeps them from being able to do raw files. Used flagship phones may be a better option. My first Huawei phone impressed me as taking better photos than my newer one, so this may be a manufacturer game across the board. (same model different years). The price of the flagship phones is at least double the price of the mid-range phones. If I was less concerned with money and didn't know people who'd had phones stolen,, I'd look for a flagship phone with a one inch sensor, which should be around the same image quality as the little Sony cameras with similar sensors. The upside of this may be that the hordes of people who would otherwise be uploading can't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) 37 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said: I'd look for a flagship phone with a one inch sensor, which should be around the same image quality as the little Sony cameras with similar sensors. You know how to take and process images that exceed the current QC standards but will those standards, can they even, be the same with respect to smartphones bearing in mind that even current expensive phones have lesser cameras and sensors for different focal lengths? We shall see. Edited September 29 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abiyoyo Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 17 hours ago, Michael Ventura said: Just uploaded three iPhone photos via my phone. Pretty easy and straight forward. I did it as well and no problem. My question is to know which old iPhone is the limit, maybe I will try to upload other images taken from iPhone XS, for example. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sooth Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 When I saw the option for "smartphone" upload, at first I thought it was upload photos via smartphone, i.e., photos you have downloaded from a camera, or from a hard drive to a smartphone, and you are simply using the smartphone like a laptop or desktop to upload. but didn't realize at first it was to upload photos taken with a smartphone. hope that doesn't confuse the exceeding small handful of people who may be doing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Scheuern Posted September 29 Share Posted September 29 (edited) 2 hours ago, Abiyoyo said: I did it as well and no problem. My question is to know which old iPhone is the limit, maybe I will try to upload other images taken from iPhone XS, for example. I just tried two shots from my 11 and that worked. Feels weird. Does the buyer get any indication that it's a phone picture? But, anyway, I'm guessing the XS will be okay if my 11 is. I think the physical cameras are the same but the 11 got some computational enhancements like night mode. And to answer my own question from earlier, these are HEIF images so apparently that's okay. Edited September 29 by Mark Scheuern 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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