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Stock photography, how to move to video footage


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1 hour ago, Brasilnut said:

 

Thanks Justin for your comments and suggestions. 1/2 seconds sounds good. I was thinking that since for video it needs to be about 1/50 second then it should be more or less the same for stills in view of making a timelapse but that's not true. Also, yesterday I put on Aperture Priority and got some dreaded flickering so have to remember to always shoot in full manual. Anyway, it's OK for me to make these sort of mistakes in early days. I hope to get to your level in a few years + that D850 has really impressive dynamic range! 

 

I'm quite enjoying making these timelapses. Also people in Italy are quite open, as you know, and standing around for 30 mins, people ask me all sorts of questions on what I'm doing and give their own tips. It's like they know I'm a foreigner and proud that I'm taking such interest in their culture. 

 

Grazie mille, amico,


Alex

 

 

 

 

to me, often policemans ask what i'm doing :)

using a tripod without authorization is not allowed on public squares, some of them remember this sometimes lol

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to me, often policemans ask what i'm doing :)

using a tripod without authorization is not allowed on public squares, some of them remember this sometimes lol

 

I had a funny episode the other day when I was shooting with a tripod near a shopping centre. The security guard told me that shooting with a tripod isn't allowed...ok fair enough as it was semi-private property, but then he said I could shoot without the tripod. :huh: Why not just ban "professional" photography altogether? 

 

Strange place. 

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On 4/29/2018 at 04:10, geogphotos said:

 My other thought on this is that I don't see to come across stock video very much on websites that I visit.  So is there sufficient volume?

 

Stock footage isn't limited to the internet. For decades, stock footage has been used in television shows, documentaries etc. 

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On 5/6/2018 at 17:36, Brasilnut said:

 

1/2 seconds sounds good. I was thinking that since for video it needs to be about 1/50 second then it should be more or less the same for stills in view of making a timelapse but that's not true.

 

 

Not necessarily. Time lapse can look great at 1/30 or thereabouts. The same is true for 1/2 second shutter speed for time lapse. It's down to personal preference. For decades, time lapse has been shot on movie film with cameras typically exposing the film at 1/30 and similar duration shutter speeds. Now when viewing these older film-based time lapses, is there anything objectionable about the shutter speeds used in those clips? Nope, they look perfectly fine. Remember there's thousands of feet of film that have been exposed for time lapse over the years.....all of a sudden, they don't look bad or inferior due to insufficient motion blur.  Also consider plant time lapse as another example. With the super slow growth of plants, it's just about impossible to capture motion blur in such subjects when shooting them in time lapse. And once again, the results look fine. And excessive motion blur can also look good in time lapse with the use of significantly slower shutter speeds but I wouldn't necessarily call it a 'better' look. In my opinion, it's a 'different' look. I wouldn't go faster than 1/30 though. 1/30 or slower is recommended to eliminate flicker when using still cameras for time lapse. 

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On 4/29/2018 at 20:46, Joseph Clemson said:

I'm feeling people shouldn't be dissuaded  from having a go at producing video, even if the OP's discussion makes it sound like you have to be competing at a really high level. Nearly every contributor to Alamy will have the facilities for producing HD video at a standard 25 or 30 fps and this standard stuff still sells (when the subject is right), even if the future is in 4K, drones and ultra-slow motion. The key thing is that the new video contributor can dabble in video now with minimal additional outlay and learn the ins and outs of a craft that is in many ways quite different to taking still images. The investment, should one chose to undertake it, can come later. I never have done and continue to dabble in the shallows of video, but it still earns more for me than still images (and I split my time and effort about 50/50 over the two mediums). It takes longer to shoot and edit video than stills, and video colour grading is not as forgiving as working with a still RAW file, but it is not an impossible to produce very acceptable video stock in a short time.

 

Filming and processing timelapses is hard, time-consuming, work. They look great, but that great look does not come easy and I try not to think too much about how much wear and tear it imposes on my DSLR shutter. Unless you are deeply motivated by a love of timelapse, don't feel that you have to jump in this particular deep end as a video beginner. Find your depth first.

 

One noticeable feature of video clips is that if the purchaser finds the right clip for their purposes, they seem less price sensitive about it than the still image buyer. At the one video microstock site where I  am able to set my own prices, my bog-standard HD clips are priced at $50 -$100 gross (50% commission). The limited experiments I have done with lower pricing haven't produced extra sales and I have a gut feeling sometimes the lower price induces a must-be-lower-quality feeling in the prospective buyer. Have a go at video and don't undersell yourself. My final thought would be, think twice before getting into a video bed with a microstock Big G . Unless, you go exclusive, you will be on a miserly 15% commission - I stopped uploading the fruits of my labour to them years ago.

Very good post, I agree with all you say.
I would add that regarding the wear to the shutter, most cameras this days have electronic shutter and as far as I know it does not wear out.
And I agree, absolutely no point to go with the big G for video

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