ReeRay Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 I've never really understood this aspect of the industry and would appreciate your thoughts. Is a buyer more likely to purchase (say) a 70mb file over a lower resolution and if so, why? Thanks for any input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Retina? 4K; 5K; 8K? Billboards? wim zooming in? bts warning: it's just a car ad and we all know the jokes and stereotypes about car salespeople salesmen. (If it looks too good it's probably not true.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 For a web page No. For a large picture use or to use only a cropped section of the image Yes. If it's too big it can always be reduced losslessly. If its too small then it can't be used. With memory so cheap nowadays it makes sense to use your equipment to the optimum. dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted July 27, 2016 Author Share Posted July 27, 2016 Retina? 4K; 5K; 8K? Billboards? wim Sorry Wim, I understand the billboard example but a bit lost on the other points. Could you elaborate please. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Retina? 4K; 5K; 8K? Billboards? wim Sorry Wim, I understand the billboard example but a bit lost on the other points. Could you elaborate please. Thanks Current and upcoming screen sizes. 4k and 5k are current screens in the shops. 8k is just around the corner, being available since 2012, but still at a steep price. wikipedia wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted July 27, 2016 Author Share Posted July 27, 2016 ^^ thanks - understood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 I've never really understood this aspect of the industry and would appreciate your thoughts. Is a buyer more likely to purchase (say) a 70mb file over a lower resolution and if so, why? Thanks for any input. No. If there was a demand then top aggregators who supply a lot of the commercial iamges used would be calling for larger file sizes....they're not. Billboards are printed at 8dpi or so..... you don't need a big file. When you start shooting editorial fashion then you will need larger file sizes, until then.... they just get in the way. Hosting of large images is the question, doesn't matter how big your retina screens shows at if the bandwidth is such that files are only max 2000 pixels wide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Brooks Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Yes size does matter. Now if you are talking about stock photography it doesnt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted July 27, 2016 Author Share Posted July 27, 2016 Thank you Geoff. What prompted my question was that I've seen quite a few searches lately with file size specified. This seems to endorse that for some the file size is critical. What was interesting was that I'd covered a few shots at 24mb and 70mb and it was only the latter that was viewed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 One of my highest sales on Alamy was for "billboard" use. The image had been taken with a 10 MP camera with a kit lens. I've never been asked to supply a larger file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Thank you Geoff. What prompted my question was that I've seen quite a few searches lately with file size specified. This seems to endorse that for some the file size is critical. What was interesting was that I'd covered a few shots at 24mb and 70mb and it was only the latter that was viewed. There's your answer. Yes I had 4 stories high billboards from a 5 megapixel camera too. But I bet Sony has not made that 100 megapixel sensor for wealthy dentists. And we have discussed this one here as well. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted July 27, 2016 Author Share Posted July 27, 2016 So, size doesn't matter. Thanks all for your Input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 I remember a story -- and some of you probably do too -- from back in the 1990's about a photographer who licensed a fuzzy 35mm slide dupe for a huge roadside billboard (for a huge sum as well). plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Jay Maisel's famous image of Miles Davis on the cover of the album King of Blue is blurred. But never mind all that -- has The Donald really got small hands? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Jay Maisel's famous image of Miles Davis on the cover of the album King of Blue is blurred. But never mind all that -- has The Donald really got small hands? They look pretty tiny to me. Probably not ideal for wall-building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Evans Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 My wife says it doesn't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlessandraRC Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 to some extent, yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Never mind the quality feel the width. For those who don't know that was the title of an old comedy series on British TV. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Unfortunately, partly do to the double entendre title, this once promising post has fallen into a series of bad jokes. Yes, I'm one of the guilty one in this. We've had just two serious answers from knowledgeable contributors, Geoff Kidd and Wim. But they are in total disagreement. Any other serious thoughts out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Unfortunately, partly do to the double entendre title, this once promising post has fallen into a series of bad jokes. Yes, I'm one of the guilty one in this. We've had just two serious answers from knowledgeable contributors, Geoff Kidd and Wim. But they are in total disagreement. Any other serious thoughts out there? Yes. I'm sure there is little advantage in submitting larger files for general stock here on Alamy so that sides with Geoff who is far more knowledgeable about stock photography than I am. I don't think I have ever sold an image just because of having large file sizes although I do occasionally see the size-based searches that ReeRay refers to. However, having used Nikon 36 MP cameras since they appeared on the market, they do a lot more than get in the way and have some real advantages in certain areas of photography if used correctly and with top quality lenses. Firstly, there is the amazing detail which provides the ability to make large prints (not talking billboards here but normal inkjet or traditional chemical prints which require high resolution files) and the images just incredibly good on a good monitor. I still stare in awe, four years into these cameras, at my images on my monitor (and my prints) and that is pretty satisfying - I think it's really quite important to love one's own work - it's fundamental in fact. Secondly, there is the ability to do very serious cropping - very useful for portraiture and close-up or macro to name a few areas where cropability is more than useful. As Chuck Nacke said recently, it's possible to do a very decent portrait in horizontal format and crop to portrait without turning the camera sideways. And then there is also the superb dynamic range (although this is not just a function of the size - it's a property of the Sony-made sensors on the Nikons but it does get better within the same series of cameras - the D810/800E/800 are better than the D750 which is better then the D700. Dynamic range is not some airy-fairy property of the camera testers - it matters in the real world in all high contrast situations/ So size does matter in general (depending on what you do with a camera of course) but not for stock work in the sense of the original post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrumu Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 At least for RF images, the price depends on the file size. Now, if size doesn't matter, why are clients willing to spend more on larger RF images? Christoph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Contributors with small files will never see the searches for [FS] if the setting is higher than their file sizes. I thought we once had a thread here with rough estimates of the occurrence of [FS], however I cannot retrieve it. So I counted 22 pages of 1 pseudo @100, which is full pages for 1 month. I discarded the last page, which was not a full 100. The very unscientific result: 87 occurrences of the size filter [FS]. Now we have seen in at least one instance that it could also mean someone looking for a very small file. However that's probably quite rare and I have never seen one. So for the moment I'll say it's about 4% of searches for my subjects and researchers/clients on Alamy. A quicker method would probably be to download a full year's Pseudonym Summaries of all one's pseudonyms and feed that to Excel. Now we still don't know what size the settings are, but my hunch is that the searches are all or almost all for over 70 Mb. wim edit: typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted July 29, 2016 Author Share Posted July 29, 2016 It seems I need to re-think my earlier conclusion that size does not matter. Again, my appreciation for all input which has been an education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdh Posted July 29, 2016 Share Posted July 29, 2016 Never mind the quality feel the width. For those who don't know that was the title of an old comedy series on British TV. Allan I dawned on me, size does not matter, it the width and the height that does Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted July 29, 2016 Share Posted July 29, 2016 Never mind the quality feel the width. For those who don't know that was the title of an old comedy series on British TV. Allan I dawned on me, size does not matter, it the width and the height that does You are the only one that saw the other side of the coin in my comment. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.