Alex Todd Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 i found this quality image on page one: S000T8 Credit is PJ Image Group / Stockimo. Is PJ for PhotoJournalist? I also don't have an iPhone, using an Android but I may use this route to get my SoLD RX100 images up for license Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 My problem is not the new market, I would like to make use of it myself (Android User) But it's the way they are all being lumped together with no option to exclude/include them in searches. totally agree, if it opens up to Android then I will happily join in. I am concerned though at the unfair placing given to the Stockimo images on a search. I just did a small test, for example Flag blue sky - a Stockimo image comes up as the 11th image out of 37,000, isn't this somewhat biased towards Stockimo images? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Another thing that puzzled me, why does the app not use the gps location - I know some other apps in this field do. Probably a good thing. My iPhone GPS gives some wildly inaccurate readings. I've never been to the Sahara Desert but I have been according to my iPhone GPS. i wasn't aware it is working so poorly. But see the benefits. It's a great way to shoot travel images and save the travel costs. The Arctics and Africa on the same day. First time I noticed it, I thought it might have been because it had not been awake long enough to get sufficient satellite coverage but since then I've noticed it frequently gives very erratic results. I use a Garmin trekker GPS to make a record of my general location when I take pictures and that is highly accurate. Meybe it is just my iPhone - it's had several falls yet is apparently in perfect working order but maybe not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 My problem is not the new market, I would like to make use of it myself (Android User) But it's the way they are all being lumped together with no option to exclude/include them in searches. totally agree, if it opens up to Android then I will happily join in. I am concerned though at the unfair placing given to the Stockimo images on a search. I just did a small test, for example Flag blue sky - a Stockimo image comes up as the 11th image out of 37,000, isn't this somewhat biased towards Stockimo images? You mean this one. It was high up in the Creative section. 2nd line down out of 37k images! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 My problem is not the new market, I would like to make use of it myself (Android User) But it's the way they are all being lumped together with no option to exclude/include them in searches. totally agree, if it opens up to Android then I will happily join in. I am concerned though at the unfair placing given to the Stockimo images on a search. I just did a small test, for example Flag blue sky - a Stockimo image comes up as the 11th image out of 37,000, isn't this somewhat biased towards Stockimo images? You mean this one. It was high up in the Creative section. 2nd line down out of 37k images! exactly. And the same works with other searches too, on a result of 2700 images Stockimo gets placed as image number 2. OK, its not so bad now with only a few Stockimo images available, but that will change fast. If they are going to get such preferential treatment then it is rather disheartening and offputting to submit images if they are going to end up placed pages down from this sort of dross. I don't really mean that to sound so negative, but I had an email from Alamy earlier this week telling me the German market was growing and please submit more images of German subjects. I was feeling enthusiastic, but if they are never going to be seen it ends up feeling rather pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrioticAlien Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 PatrioticAlienIf the photos are good they should be allowed, but if they are bad should be a QC fail, it should be checked the same way how our uploads are checked at 100% etc softness etc. You dont you want your client to buy bad images because impressions are everything. we could gain one new customer but may lose customers. Now it's just going to be harder to make that sale. I just hope the client uses the minimum size to filter them out. Guess it's going to be Phone Vs. SLR on here now You missed my point about there already being NON QC images in the main search and them being marked as such (reportage and archive) these routes have existed for a while now - do you think these should also go are are you happy that they are marked as such? What i meant was when someone uploads a new photo aka lets just say taken yesterday of a duck in a pond on a phone, it should be checked the same way as ours are checked, if it would have be taken with a DSLR. Reportage and archive are fine and more then likely going to be a completely different customer *in my opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mihai Popa Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Martin, instagram-like processing on iPhone creates a lot of noise. Many photos are over-processed and cropped. It's great that Alamy went for mobile photography so we don't have to carry bulky DSLRs all the time, but we need some guidelines and filters for these photos. I am going to upgrade my 4S to iOS6 so I can test the app. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 The chorus of disapproval is depressing and predictable. Listen to yourselves, folks! The world is changing, and the world of image-making and -selling is changing with a fierce velocity. Feel free to bemoan the passing of the good old days. The past may be another country... but there's no need to emigrate there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 The chorus of disapproval is depressing and predictable. Listen to yourselves, folks! The world is changing, and the world of image-making and -selling is changing with a fierce velocity. Feel free to bemoan the passing of the good old days. The past may be another country... but there's no need to emigrate there... John, I think a lot of people (myself Included) are not against the change, it's how it's been implemented. I welcome the opportunity for mobile images but not at the expense of everything else. It needs tweaking but fundamentally it's going in the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I have been increasingly feeling that alamy search results might be back to front. Now I know they are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrioticAlien Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 The chorus of disapproval is depressing and predictable. Listen to yourselves, folks! The world is changing, and the world of image-making and -selling is changing with a fierce velocity. Feel free to bemoan the passing of the good old days. The past may be another country... but there's no need to emigrate there... Point is (for me) that some guy at QC may fail your images because he noticed a purple pixel peeping from behind a tree trunk in a forest, photographed at 100 hundred meters away and at the same time, Alamy opens the floodgates for dross and they pass with flying colours AND they even seem to land on page one, surpassing the good quality pictures. THAT's what's making me angry Cheers, Philippe +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 The chorus of disapproval is depressing and predictable. Listen to yourselves, folks! The world is changing, and the world of image-making and -selling is changing with a fierce velocity. Feel free to bemoan the passing of the good old days. The past may be another country... but there's no need to emigrate there... Point is (for me) that some guy at QC may fail your images because he noticed a purple pixel peeping from behind a tree trunk in a forest, photographed at 100 hundred meters away and at the same time, Alamy opens the floodgates for dross and they pass with flying colours AND they even seem to land on page one, surpassing the good quality pictures. THAT's what's making me angry Cheers, Philippe I'm with Philippe. I have nothing against adding phone images, but they should certainly be subject to the same stringent requirements as those taken with any camera on the approved list. As someone who spent 3 days at a dog show taking 1400 shots, then about 16 hours going through them worrying about noise as I had to use 1600ISO, yeah, it ticks me that the guy sitting next to me could have taken the same photos, gone home, then uploaded and be done. Me, I just ended up uploading 51 of 1400 cause I was so borderline on many of the shots. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I also do not have a problem with these images being added but separated from the rest ! Unfortunately, as was the case with keywords being visible to all, I guess the decision has been made and that is that. I just can't help having the uneasy feeling that the race to the bottom has just been stepped up a gear.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drtaylor23 Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I guess I picked an interesting time to get started with this whole thing. After reading what a waste of time stock is at this point I finally decided that if I keep it to interesting images of content there isn't much of (relatively) then it would be worthwhile. I agonized over my first three submissions worrying about noise, interpolating after crops, etc... and was relieved to see them pass. Then I see this. I guess there's no downside to participating in the continued decline of the market since I fall in the bonus 50% group since I happen to have signed up a couple of weeks ago. I do see the merit to making this a totally separate portal since 99% of these shots are going to be technically and artistically crap and I thought the point of stock was to start with a high quality base image with flexibility for use. I just wish I had downloaded Instagram and made photos of everything under the sun for the last couple of years so I could properly spam this thin and jump to the front of the line as it seems to be allowing (one would presume due to a simpler keywording process and algorithm that will give more weight to these images). Instead I just made it a policy that since iPhone photos are terrible that I'd rather pass on the photo and just appreciate it in person at the time than have a smudgy, blocked image to look back at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Hey, if I take my images, move them on to an iPhone, can I bypass QC that way? Or will the app recognize that the photos weren't taken by the phone? Or can you do that with an iPhone? I can with my BB Z10. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Why bother? I suspect by the end of the 2014 microstock prices will look good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abiyoyo Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 and in the very near future images and/or video taken from Google glass directly to Alamy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonywiles Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 The chorus of disapproval is depressing and predictable. Listen to yourselves, folks! The world is changing, and the world of image-making and -selling is changing with a fierce velocity. Feel free to bemoan the passing of the good old days. The past may be another country... but there's no need to emigrate there... Point is (for me) that some guy at QC may fail your images because he noticed a purple pixel peeping from behind a tree trunk in a forest, photographed at 100 hundred meters away and at the same time, Alamy opens the floodgates for dross and they pass with flying colours AND they even seem to land on page one, surpassing the good quality pictures. THAT's what's making me angry Cheers, Philippe +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Many of us complain about the prices. There's quite a lot of snapshots on Alamy. I think this Stockimo venture could be a way of keeping the snapshots (the phone images) in the lower end of the price range, while hiving off the larger size pro quality pics for the higher prices and clients who are not interested in phone pics. Clients who want big advertising banner pics, that sort of thing. How would the Live News be effected by this? I suspect that much like Demotix and Newzulu you can upload via your mobile phone pics straight to their app. Most of the time news pics from the instant something happens usually comes from mobile phone footage. I guess Alamy are thinking about this too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I also do not have a problem with these images being added but separated from the rest ! Unfortunately, as was the case with keywords being visible to all, I guess the decision has been made and that is that. I just can't help having the uneasy feeling that the race to the bottom has just been stepped up a gear.... The problem Alamy has with the race to the bottom, is they don't have the volume of downloads to support the low prices. It's a fine line. A lot of people have an objection with Micros but, supply them with the right imagery and they make good money. For instance, just one of the 6 micros I submit to (separate port), has made more money in one morning than Alamy has in the last month. And they do it every day. It seems like Alamy are trying to compete with the wrong competitors. I would rather see Alamy up the game, edit the library going forward (including Mobile Images) and aim to provide a smaller but better quality library with acceptable prices. Let micros deal with micro priced images, they're well established and good at it. The only winner here when the prices start to drop is Alamy & the buyers. Alamy maintain their overall turnover but the photographers get a smaller and smaller cut. Adding millions more mobile images via a poorly thought out implementation plan is not going to help. Just dilute the quality even further, which in turn lowers the price. Now, if these images were edited correctly/tightly and kept as a separate Mobile Collection, it would add value and could turn into a USP (unique selling point) rather than bringing down the quality of the overall portfolio. Which is likely to happen if QC criteria is lower. They are trying to do to much with One collection. It's like adding more and more lines of data on a graph, eventually no one will be able to make head nor tail of what it's try to say or do. Break the graph down into smaller chunks and it becomes clearer and easier to understand. Alamy needs to split the library into a 2-3 different collections to make it easier for customers to find what they need. If they keep throwing all the products into one bucket and then tell the customer to go find, they will do but elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drtaylor23 Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Double post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drtaylor23 Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 This just in! After researching key wording on my DSLR HQ submissions and filling out my model releases for a week before going live my first photo for sale is going to be a caterpillar sushi roll photo taken to show my kid what I had for lunch. Didn't see that coming. Project for tonight is to go through my downloaded photos imported to Lightroom and put them back on my phone to see if I can get some mileage out of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I took a look at the animal photos since that is my area and S002HP is a puzzle. It is 51.3 MB and is not in the square format. An error? I know nothing about photos from the iPhone. I have resisted having one. Maybe I need to move forward???? I don't know whether to feel inspired or discouraged. I just spent a bundle on the new Nikon 80-400. Ah well. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I totally agree Duncan. I might look at micros again for the appropriate work. I have a whole raft of concept illustration ideas. For the bulkof my photography I am targetting stuff that takes committment that the snapshotters will not have the patience for or even in some cases the access. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 One thing I don't understand, if accepting the phone shots, why have a restricted camera list? Would you not simply have a size requirement, with QC passing or failing with customers having a size filter? Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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