Well google came out with some interesting gadgets for websites that I wanted to try out. I have posted them in the sidebar to the right. I am not sure if they will stay or not, I suppose I will see if they become usefull at all. So far I am not sure what advantage they would have over the comments section of each post.
We shall see.
Istockphoto is shuffling it’s prices around early next year and the preview of the new prices looks like it will be a welcomed changed. It is creating a little bit of a buzz on microstockgroup
Here is an overview of the changes
Before
Dollar Bin: Everything $1.00
Regular Files:
After
‘Discount Bin’ (the new Dollar bin with a changed name):
Regular Files:
High End Files (a new catagory - only for exclusives):
So it seems as though most of the prices will increase on iStock while at the same time they are increasing their offereing in the Discount bin. They plan on having an initial 200,000 files in each the Discount and High End catagories with the rest of the files in the Regular pricing structure.
It is good to see an industry leader setting a pricing standard which improves the income for the photographer and creates niche pricing levels for special images. Microstock started out as a simple industry with simple pricing but has evolved a lot since it’s organic start in 2000. iStock’s new pricing seems to be evolving nicely as well.
This has absolutely nothing to do with photography 
Just a very cool project - and great idea / video.
This is a review of the Amod GPS Photo Tracker.
The specs:
GPS Receiver
Time to First Fix (TTFF)
Memory
LED
Physical Characteristics
In Use
When looking for a GPS logger I wanted one that didn’t require any firmware. I wanted a unit that would create a readable file, easily connect to a computer, and be understood by virtually any GPS phototagging software. Although the AGL3080 has a few quirks it seems to do the job and I am quite happy with it.
The instructions for the device are quite thorough and can be downloaded here from the AMOD site.
The tracking capabilities of the unit are quite good. I tested it both in a moving car (40-80km/h) as well as walking. Both traks were quite accurate. The car test track was even able to tell which side of the road I was driving on - impressive. While walking I also did a test and took a picture every few seconds. After geotagging the images, each was accuratly placed an appropriate distance from the last.
The time needed to lock onto the GPS satalite varried from under a minute to several minutes. I’ll admit that the unit was kept in a jacket pocket and there was significant cloud cover, but once the tracker had locked on it managed to keep an accurate course.
This unit takes 3 AAA batteries and lasts apparently for 15 hours. I haven’t used the unit for this long yet so I can’t say if that is correct but if so, it should provide ample usage for a day of shooting. However, i can’t help but wonder how the Garmin units manage to last over 20+ hours with only 2 AA batteries and include a LCD screen. Nonethless the minimal design of the AMOD unit is nice and makes for a no nonsense product that does what it is supposed to do and does it simply.
When first reading the instructions it looked overwelming changing the settings without an LCD display, but after playing with it for a few seconds it seemed very logical and simple to understand. The unit records tracks in 1, 5, or 10 second intervals and in GGA/GSA/RMC/VTG format (each type for every track) or only GSV format.
Using the most memory economical output format you could store 120 24hr days worth of tracks - which should be more than enough for anyone.
The directory and file coding system is simple and logical. Each time you start and stop the logger, a new file is created with the naming system being year month day hour minute second. This makes for a very understandable folder of files when you get many tracks. The files are stored as .txt files and may not be understood automatically by every GPS software. The file was not able to be read by Geotag, or Google Maps for example and would thus have to be put through GPSBabble to convert the file to an appropriate file type. Geosetter WAS able to read the files however, and proved to be a very capable software program and is what I have used to tag my photos.
For those interested in seeing what the text file looks like, here is a screenshot of a text file recording the 4 various file formats at 1 second intervals.
and a screenshot of a 1 second interval of the GSV format
Geosetter was able to read both files without a problem, so in the future I will use single GSV format and conserve disk space.
Design
The overall design and feel of the unit is good. It feels like it is made of robust plastic and the battery cover looks like it will last a while with no little parts breaking off. The unit is shipped with a canvas strap that loops around the ‘handle’ on the unit and attaches to itself with velcro. A plastic clip is attached to the strap. The plastic clip is of decent quality, but would be very simple to replace with a metal carabiner. The unit has only two buttons. On/Off and a waypoint button. The buttons are used by themselves (as you would assume) and in combination with eachother to adjust settings.
Conclusion
I am happy with this product. It works well, creates a simple file which Geosetter can read straight from the usb connection, and seems like it will last a long time. It currently sells for $70 on Amazon making it one of the more economical choices. Money well spent!
Nikon has announced a new hot shoe GPS receiving for their DSLR line.
The unit is a no frills design with very few buttons and lights. Perfect for doing something simply and doing it well. By attaching it to the camera hotshoe or the camera strap (with an adapter) and connecting it with a cord to the camera, it will automatically write the Latitude, longitude, altitude, time information to every image’s EXIF data. is compatible with the Nikon D200, D3, D700, D90, D300 and D3X cameras.
As I use a Canon camera, I guess I won’t be buying this…. but common on Canon - where is your rebuttle?
[Nikon]
Corbis has come out with an info / promo video discussing their vision and company direction.
“Hear from Corbis senior leaders on the vision of the company and the future of the stock photography industry. ”
They have titled the video Leadership in a Changing Market. Well, the video looks good, and sounds somewhat convincing but from what I have see with their involvement in the microstock market, I am not convinced.
microstock mentioned at 1:00
with it being said that within 3 years time microstock will take over 25% more of the market.
I think that number is rather conservative in both the time and the %. They also mention that they are adapting to the future changes and getting ‘ahead of the game’ …. if snapvillage is their game plan, unless they make significant changes and actually find some buyers, I am not sure they are going to get far ahead of anyone…
Also interesting to note he segued into talking about microstock as the increase of amateur photography in the marketplace. So it appears that corbis views microstock as a bunch of amateurs. Sure there are lots of amateurs involved in microstock, and the microstock model gives the amateur a chance at trying their hand at stock, but the bulk of income, I am guessing 90%, which microstock agencies receive come from photographers who are definitely not amateur.
I was excited when snapvillage was first announced and thought it would be a sure success, but over 1.5 years after it was launched ,it is still struggle to get sales, ftp is unavailable, and the site is far behind even small time start ups when it comes to site design and user interface.
I want snapvillage to succeed as much as they do, but at this speed, I just don’t see it happening.
Lee Torrens wrote another nice summey about the months activities in regards to microstock.
Amongst the highlights was fotolia’s change to their photographers agreement. I think it is really disappointing that fotolia changed the amount of images needed to be sold to reach emerald status. There were many photographers, myself included who were working hard, looking forward to the opportunity to raise one’s prices 2x once emerald status is reached. The required image sales for emerald was raised from 10,000 to 25,000.
Two things make me quite frustrated with this. The fact that the target has been raised so high that it is almost impossible for the average microstocker to reach, and the fact that the change has gone unannounced.
I just thought i would compare and contrast in light of the rankings crazyness that is happening at fotolia now. I have heard some people argue that fotolia is the only (or one of the only) agencies to increase revenue based on rankings. However, both shutterstock and istock increase earnings potential based on downloads, and there are numerous other sites which allow you to price your own images. And very similar to fotolia, dreamstime has a setup where image prices increase the more downloads the image gets. I think this is an ingenious idea because a contributor with 100 images could potentially have all their images in the top price ranking, however, while a fotolia photographer would need thousands of images and several years of downloads to reach emerald status when they can finally raise their commissions. At dreamstime after a mere 5 downloads the pricing (and revenue) for that image doubles. At 10 downloads it nearly doubles again.
I was just reminded of this when checking out my return per download that dreamstime displays for you on your stats page and noticed a significant increase in the RPD over the years. Here is my stats.
September 2004 $0.50
October 2004 $0.50
November 2004 $0.50
etc.
.
.
March 2007 $0.86
etc…
August 2007 $0.96
September 2007 $0.85
October 2007 $0.84
November 2007 $0.83
December 2007 $0.83
January 2008 $1.17
February 2008 $0.79
etc…
July 2008 $0.93
August 2008 $1.18
September 2008 $1.20
October 2008 $1.17
November 2008 $1.24
well done dreamstime!
There is an interesting thread going on at Microstockgroup.com about the future of the non-exclusive photographer at iStockphoto.com
The original poster has a very grim outlook on the profitability of iStock for anyone not exclusive at iStock. I agree that they give a number of enticing beneifits to their exclusive photographers and think that they should do this, as submitting to one agency really puts a damper on your earning potential, but if they make it hard for all non-exclusives to get any downloads they are really discouraging their potential new exclusive photographers who have not received enough downloads to become exclusive yet, and I can’t really see them wanting that.
Well here goes yet another effort at starting a blog about photography. I enjoy reading and learning about photography and hope to share that information with the readers of this blog. I work as a full time photographer focusing primarily on microstock, and shoot with Canon equipment.
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