Image of the Day (July 31, 2008): Sashimi and Sushi

This is just some of the tastiest stuff on the planet. I wish I could have this every night.

Shutterstock earnings update for 20080730: 14 downloads.

Today is the last day of the month, so I'm hoping for lots of DLs to make this the best month ever (BME)!

Just broke $100 for the month of July on Shutterstock

Just broke $100 in earnings on Shutterstock for this month with the following photo:

Image of the Day (July 30, 2008)

Guess what lense I used to take this exposure?


Earnings update for Shutterstock as of 20080729: 9 downloads.

Image of the Day (July 29, 2008)

Peculiar little fellow.

Shutterstock Earnings Update for 20080728: 16 DLs. Pretty standard for Mondays.

Image of the Day (July 28, 2008)

Making illustrations with Adobe Illustrator is great fun and another source of profit. Exposures of items like this Texas flag lend themselves very well to a 3-color live trace in Adobe Illustrator. Give a try sometime.

SS Earnings Report for 20080725: 5 downloads and 3 CD Back-ups. Sundays are usually slow, and this is better than nothing!

Image of the day (July 27, 2008)

Much of the magic in photography is using a two-dimensional medium look three-dimensional. But I sometime love taking pictures like this one, which flattens a structure or object into a facade.

SS Earnings Report for 20080726: 4 downloads. Kind of a weak Saturday.

Image of the Day (July 26, 2008)

Here's a flower picture recently accepted by Shutterstock. Work on your pics a little, and you can still get them accepted even if a certain category is "oversaturated."

Shutterstock Earnings Report for 20080725: 14 downloads. Both Mondays and Fridays usually close strong for me on Shutterstock.

300th Photo Accepted at Shutterstock

This exposure of a ivory gunpowder horn and other gear marks my 300th photo accepted by Shutterstock. The reviewers have been very tough on me, but I wouldn't have it any other way, as I want to get better. Compared the photos I made when I first started shooting DSLRs about 1.5 years ago, I think I've improved greatly.

Image of the Day (July 25, 2008)

This is a picture I took of the Battleship Texas. What really amazes me about this dreadnought-class battleship is that it was built in 1914. The first Model T Ford was built only 6 years earlier. This thing must have seemed like something out of Star Trek from the viewpoint of people at that time. Like most people and things that go to war from Texas, this thing has seen mega action, having been in both World Wars as well as a plethora of other conflicts.

SS Earnings Report for 20080724: 11 downloads. Not quite as nice as yesterday, but I'm not complaining!

Image of the Day (July 24, 2008)

Taken with my EF 24-105 F4 L IS. Sometimes indoor low-light shots on my 5D actually seem to exhibit better dynamic range than shots taken with great lighting outdoors. I can't explain it, I just know that Canon makes magic with its DSLRs. Nikon can bring out their D700 or D1400 or whatever they want, I'm sticking with Canon.

SS Earnings Report for 20080723: 21 DLs and 5 CD Backups (someone seems to like my stuff enough to back it up!)

Passed $150 earnings mark on Shutterstock

Last month I had said that by the end of July I should be at around $150 if the rate of downloads held steady.

Well, it's only July 23, 2008, and I'm already at $151.35.
Today has been a good day with 19 downloads and 3 CD back-ups so far.

Someone, probably an entomologist has downloaded almost all of my cicada and katydid photos, such as the one below.



Things are glorious and I'm going to keep uploading.

Make that old PC run PS3 with eBoostr

I'm the kind of guy who'll use a product until it breaks, fix it, break it again, jury-rig it to bring it back to life, break it again, and then finally say that I'm "done" with it. It wasn't until the capacitors started leaking on the mobo of my last PC that I decided to replace it. (At which time, PC parts had already evolved a couple generations so I ended up building a pretty much new whitebox from the ground up. I'll post the parts I used and the costs some other time.)

Up until a couple months ago, the only PC I had was one based around the AM2 Sempron 4000 64-Bit (got it for $19.99 total; read my blog on a daily basis and you'll get wind of plenty of great deals) + 4 gigs of DRAM (which I picked up for about $45 after rebate). The thing rendered large files in Photoshop CS2 and CS3 in the snap of a finger. The only problem was that when my significant other wanted to use the PC to surf the Internet, I had no way to process my photos.

Well, a friend of mine gave me his Dell OptiPlex GX270, which he had bought in 2003 and was planning to ditch anyways. It's a 2.67 gigahertz P4 with 256 MB of memory and runs out of memory whenever I try to run Photoshop on it. I could've bought more memory, but instead I ran across a free solution: Eboostr.

Eboostr basically enables something similar to ReadyBoost and SuperFetch originally designed for Windows Vista for Windows XP. It allows smart caching of frequently used applications and files on both USB and non-USB removable media devices (CF, SD/SDHC, MMC, xD and other memory cards), and additional hard disks. In short, it takes much of the load off your primary hard drive on which your OS is running so that you don't get those "out of memory" error messages with programs like Photoshop. The trial version is fully functional for up to 4 hours with each boot, and allows caching with up to 4 devices of 4 GB each (so you could have 16 GB of additional caching space).

The Eboostr homepage says that it only works with "readyboost" enhanced USB flash drives, but I tried it with 3 flashdrives that I got for free after rebate a while ago: An Ultra 512MB Flydrive, a Kingston 1GB Data Traveler, and a Kingston 2GB Data Traveler.

The program works awesome.

When I was just using the Dell by itself, Photoshop took forever and any operation would result in "out of memory" errors. But now, Photoshop not only loads up a little bit quicker, but I can do all the editing I want in Photoshop on 5-year-old out-of-date PC. It does take longer, but I don't mind watching TV or doing something else while I'm applying this or that filter to one of my digital pictures. Of course, if my SO goes somewhere else, I jump right back into my Mach 5 Photoshop-slaying rig.

So, now I can use this hand-me-done Dell until the capacitors on its mobo rupture as well.

You don't even need a flashdrive. If you own a digital camera, you WILL have some flavor of flash card. Plug this into your USB slot with a card reader and you can run Eboostr off of this.

Try it. How can you beat better performance + FREE?

Image of the Day (July 23, 2008)

This is one of my favorite shots of downtown Houston, although it has only garnered me a couple downloads from Shutterstock. The tiny strip of blue is the sky peaking through some taller buildings behind the spired roof.

Me on Shutterstock's "New Artist" Lightbox

One of my friends told me that she had seen one of my office shots in the "New Artist" Lightbox. I was just tickled pink after seeing it for myself.

Here's the image:

Image of the Day (July 22, 2008)

I took this from one of the many Houston-area parking lots that I frequent.

Panasonic announces Lumix DMC-LX3 with "only" 10.1 MPs

Camera enthusiasts have been complaining about the "megapixels arms race" going on between major camera makers for some time now. While this appeals to the soccer moms and dads of the world (who tend to view megapixels on cameras as they do horsepower on cars), it absolutely wreaks havoc on image quality, with most "cutting-edge" digicams exhibiting noise even at ISO100 (something which would have been unacceptable with bridge cameras just 3 years ago).

Panasonic announced the Lumix DMC-LX3 today, which is a nice slim, pocketable digicam for DSLRs who don't always want to lug their heavy gear around (present company included). It comes with a full set of manual controls, F2.0-F2.8 24-60mm (35mm equivalent) Leica DC Vario-Summicron lens, image stabilization, cool retro styling, and "only" 10.1 million pixels. The Lumix DMC-LX3 will be available in the UK from August at a price of £399.99, and I'm sure it'll make it to the U.S. later on.

Now Panasonic did release some other megapixel monsters to compete with the likes of Samsung and other high-MP measurebators, but I don't care about those and won't even mention the names of the cameras released. If the soccer moms and dads really want to buy into this, that's fine. Those high-MP noise monsters are irrelevant to me. I'm just interested in the DMC-LX3.

I had been pretty excited about the Sigma DP1 as a DSLR replacement until I read quite a few user reviews indicating more than a few problems with its operation. Putting a full-fledged CMOS DSLR sensor in a digicam body is a pretty cool idea, but Sigma has to work out quite a few more bugs before people are going to starting buying their gear en masse.

Sometimes I like to do some casual shooting while walking around the tunnels of Houston, but everyone will start looking at me the moment I pull out my gear. So I've been on the fence for a Canon Powershot A590 IS. I have a 24-105 L on my 30D right now, and image stabilization is magical. Although I do have a couple older bridge cameras, it's really hard to take sharp indoor shots with them (unless I use the flash, and then people start staring at me again). I may end up waiting for the Lumix and I've heard over and over that the glass is absolutely sweet. But the A590 IS is pretty cheap, and I have to think about all those shots I could take in the meantime.

Image of the Day (July 21, 2008)

I was absolutely tickled that this photo came out so well. When I viewed the exposure at 100%, the transparent tissue of the cicada's wings looked like thin, delicate glass. Thanks to Canon's marvelous sensor technology, I was able to capture this.

Image of the Day (July 20, 2008)

This is an Asian Crocodile. He ain't that big, but he still has a mighty strong bite. This is one of my 10 sample photos accepted by Shutterstock.

Image of the Day (July 19, 2008)

Meet my new pet, "Katy" the Katydid. These things can get up to six inches long in Texas, so I'm feeding her plenty of leaves.

Deal Alert: Refurbished Canon EOS Rebel XT at Abe's of Maine for $290

This is a great price for a classic entry-level Canon DSLR and perfectly fine for shooting microstock photography.
Enter the code "LOYALTY10" for $10 off the advertised price of $299.99.
Ground shipping is free.

Click here to go directly to the site.

Abe's has a 8.79 rating at reseller ratings

Image of the Day (July 18, 2008)

This is a picture of a wire-framework roof to a pavilion that I took several months ago. Skies always seem to come out great in Texas.

Image of the Day (July 17, 2008)

I've never had dried stingray before, but I'm a big fan of Asian food and think I would probably like it.

Samsung continues megapixel race with the 14.7-MPl TL34HD

I was pretty happy with what Samsung was doing with the K10/20D and K100D/200D. Pentax design and Samsung sensors seemed to go well together.

But then Samsung decides to launch 4 new cameras today which most people are tired of seeing by now: digicams with tiny sensors, ridiculously high megapixel counts, and high ISO ranges which produce legendary of amounts of noise.

The TL34HD is the megapixel leader out of the 4, topping the digicam market with 14.7 megapixels. My sister-in-law has a Samsung NV10 and I just was not impressed with it all. The backside was littered with a checkerboard of buttons when just the standard few offered by a Canon Powershot would've done just fine. The shots taken were noisy, smeary, and overprocessed. I can't imagine how the TL34HD will improve upon this.

I'd much rather see camera makers concentrate on other things than higher megapixels. Perhaps Canon could take a hint from the hackers working on CHDK firmware, and start offering official turbo-charged firmware for their next generation of Powershots.

I had been looking at purchasing a S5 IS for a long time since I didn't have a lense going into 400mm territory for my DSLRs. The CHDK firmware available for this camera made it even more attractive.

With the Canon factory firmware settings, the S5 IS has a native aperture of F2.7~F8.0, but with CHDK installed it widens to F2.7~F11.

The native shutter speed ranges from 15 seconds to 1/3200 of a second, but the CHDK the range is augmented to between 65 seconds and 1/33333 of a second.

The applications for the CHDK-enabled firmware are enormous. For example, you could shoot a bullet coming out of a gun chamber.

But the thing that stopped me from going out and buying an S5 IS, nice as it is--and nicer still with the CHDK-enabled firmware--was the noise apparent even at ISO 100. Noise at base ISO makes microstock shooting problematic.

And we're only talking about 8 MPs here, which is already becoming passe in the digicam world. I would've preferred that Canon kept it at 6 MP.

See DPReview for the skinny on the Samsung's new cams.

Image of the Day (July 16, 2008)

A picture of a bluejay fledgling squawking for its mommy from a few months ago.

Image of the Day (July 15, 2008)

This is from a recent trip to Seoul, South Korea. If I had known at that time that some microstock sites were starting to allow editorial contributions, I would have gotten closer and filled the frame with some tight headshots.

What not to submit as Microstock

Anyone who has been submitting to microstock sites for a while knows the usual drill: "We don't want pictures of flowers, walls, rocks, your pet, or your feet." That stands to reason, since this is the low-hanging fruit for most beginning photographers looking to get their feet wet. But that still shouldn't discourage you, as long as you photograph these extremely common subjects in a unique way.

Pictures of flowers are currently ranked #2 and #4, and a picture of a brick wall is ranked #31 on Shutterstock's "top 50 photos."

http://submit.shutterstock.com/top50.mhtml

Hmm. Pretty darn good for "don't submit these"-type photos, wouldn't you say?

Right. That's why I waited for the right lighting and shot this brick wall the other day. It was promptly accepted by a reviewer on July 9, 2008 and has sold 5 times since then.



It's certainly not my top performer, but it brings in steady money and didn't take much time at all to compose and process. Plus, I think it's a nice generic image which will have continual appeal.

"Pentax Gear Up" Rebate

Although I only shoot Canon DSLRs and don't expect to change systems any time in the near future (sure Nikon's D700 looks nice, but I'm already too deeply invested in Canon lenses to switch), I've always been a big, big fan Pentax DSLRs.

Many of my friends and relatives come to me asking for advice on upgrading from a digicam to a DSLR, and I usually point them in the direction of Pentax. I helped my cousin buy a K100D + 18-55mm kit lens for $350 and my aunt a K10D + 18-55mm kit lens for $600 last year, both after rebate. Both cameras produced beautiful JPG images right out of the camera which had different "feel" thank Canon or Nikon images. If I had the cams on hand, I'd post a review here. Maybe next time.

Last year's low prices were a boon to Pentaxians but the company essentially shot itself in the foot for going so low. This year's prices for the K200D ($689 at Beach Camera) and K20D (1,289.31 at Amazon.com) are significantly higher.

However, Pentax has a rebate lasting until July 26 for $100 off either the K20D or K200D bodies. If you already have a Pentax lens, go for body only and save some money. The kit lens is marvelously constructed though, and a steal for the premium you pay over the body-only kit. Click here for the rebate.

The awesome thing about both DSLRs is the in-body IS. Any lense you slap on the body becomes image stabilized, which has been good up to 1/15 from my experience with both the K100D and K10D. I actually own Super Takumar 135mm and 200mm lenses, and would love to have a Pentax DSLR to mate them to.

First $100 at Shutterstock

This photo pushed me from $99.90 to over $100 today at 11 A.M.



My goal is to make $500/month from Shutterstock by the end of the year. I'm going to start submitting to other agencies in earnest next month.

CanonUSA sets Rebel XS Price at $699

Canon is getting serious about taking back the entry-level DSLR market from Nikon. CanonUSA announced today that it will ship the Rebel XS in August 2008 at a price of $699 and sell it only as a kit with the EF-S 18-55mm IS lens.

The company has also announced that it plans to build a new camera production plant in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, to ramp up production of DSLRs and digicams. This is the first new plant to built by Canon in a quarter century.

See the official press release for more details about the XS:


http://www.usa.canon.com/templatedata/pressrelease/20080708_rebel_xs.html

I'm skeptical about how effective a D40(x)-killer this will be. Nikon's cameras have nice ergonomics, glitzy menus, and a price advantage over Canon which have already won over many soccer moms and boy-scout dads.

Frankly, if I were looking to purchase my first entry-level DSLR, I'd push the trigger on a Pentax K200D in a heartbeat. Many in my family own Pentax DSLRs, and they seriously kick booty compared to the price paid

Fantasy Microstock

Thus far, I've submitted photographs which are realistic representations of what I have seen. But the other day I decided to play around with the wonderful toolset in Photoshop CS2, and created a set of "fantasy microstock" pictures. I figured that buyers would like these if they had enough visual impact. I was right. The following was downloaded from my Shutterstock portfolio shortly after having been approved.

More than one way to skin a cat with your DSLR

I just read this interesting article on News.com about a guy who parks a car with the name of his commercial website emblazoned on the side and spends all day taking pictures of motorists who pass by. I applaud the guy for his entrepreneurship, but can't help but wonder when someone is going to sue him for lack of model releases.

Read the rest yourself:


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-9984218-52.html?tag=nefd.top

Autostitcher: A completely automated Panorama Stitcher

You gotta' love the digital age. There is just so much new software coming out every day it's hard to keep up. Luckily, one of my friends tipped me off to this nice piece of software called Autostitch.

Autostitch completely automates the process of stitching panoramas together and it does it SEAMLESSLY. I've tried the trial version of Arcsoft's Panoramamaker and Adobe's CS2 and CS3, but they just don't cut it. Even if I use a tripod, there are always some bothersome "rogue" seams that just make me quit or reach for my 10-20mm ultra wide angle.

Here's an example of a photo I made with autostitch from 6 different exposures:



You can download a beta version of this software at:

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

Seasonal Themes

When submitting Microstock, it's a good idea to take pictures of seasonal themes before the season arrives. As you all know, July 4th is tomorrow, and to prepare for this I had already taken several images of the United States and Texas (Lone Star) flags. Both have already sold several times on Shutterstock.





Now I just have to dig out those Christmas ornaments...

Payout at Shutterstock

The usual payout limit at Shutterstock is $100, but you can (and I did) set it to $75. I reached this yesterday with the sale of the following image.



Payout is mailed at the end of the month, so my payout, which should arrive a couple weeks after the end of June, should be close to $150 if the current sales trend continue. Anyhow, I'm excited about getting that money.

Earnings Schedule for May & June 2008

I joined Shutterstock about ten days before June, but the sales didn't start coming in fast furious until the beginning of June. The only other sites I was seriously invested in were Fotolia and the now-defunct Lucky Oliver. Fotolia has always been slow in terms of sales, but did land me 2 payouts. Lucky Oliver almost got me to payout but then fizzled and shut down. I ended using all my money from LO to buy pictures mainly from Eco, who shoots great National Geographic-esque photography.

Here is an earnings breakdown for May and June 2008.



Conclusion: Shutterstock kicks booty in terms of earning power. I broke 200 pictures in my portfolio right before the close of the month and hope to double that to 400 before the end of June. I see that most contributors at SS making $200 or more per month have at least 800 high-quality photos in their porfolios, so that'll be my goal for this year.

Kevin Connolly from "TheRollingExhibition"

2007 Winter X-Games Skiing Silver Medalist and a professional photographer who has produced more than 32,000 pictures from travels to at least 15 countries. Pretty impressive, but even more so when you consider that Kevin Connolly has no legs.

Check out his site at:

http://www.therollingexhibition.com/statement.php

What really impresses me is the power of a single idea. Kevin has no legs, so his vantage point for all of his photographs have to be taken from a worm's-eye perspective from his skateboard. But the theme he has adopted, the limitations imposed upon him, and his technique have produced some very powerful images.

Picniche: A Keyword-rating Engine

Wondering why your images aren’t selling so well? Perhaps you’re submitting to an oversaturated category, like “flower.” Or, you aren’t choosing the best keywords for the job.

Enter picNiche.com, designed by Robert Davies and co., which is currently in beta and runs off the Fotolia API (with plans for more microstock agencies to be added later).

A rating less than ten is “bad” and over one hundred is “niche” (or very good).

Basically, you just head over to http://www.picniche.com/index.aspx and enter a keyword.

For instance, “Korea,” which spits out the following data:

Search Term: korea

TotalImages: 1393

TotalViewsIndexed: 12692

TotalDownloadsIndexed: 458

9.11 views per file (inferred).

0.33 downloads per file (inferred).

Our Rating: 3.00

Hmm, this seems to be a pretty oversubscribed keyword, but my Korea shots—such as the palace shot below--have actually done quite well for me on Shutterstock.

What about Houston?

Search Term: houston

TotalImages: 99

TotalViewsIndexed: 2975

TotalDownloadsIndexed: 112

30.05 views per file (inferred).

1.13 downloads per file (inferred).

Our Rating: 34.00

Certainly much better than “Korea.” Shots of Houston certainly have sold better for me on Shutterstock, but then again, that’s because of most of my shots are of Houston.

I’m looking forward to when Robert Davies adds all of the top-tier Microstock APIs to his keyword-rating engine.

Play it again Sam: Nikon pre-empts Canon's 5D MKII with D700

Nikon is seriously kicking butt this year. Rumor has it that the releases of the D300 sent Canon back to the drawing board for the 5D MKII. Well, before Canon can even catch a breath, Nikon has done it again with the D700, which the folks at DPreview got a copy to play with today.

Full specs on the "5D MKII Killer" can be had at:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08070103nikond700previewed.asp

So what does Canon do? I think most people who've shot Canon for a while know that the company is a big fan of field-proven, rock solid, CONSERVATIVE upgrades. This is not a bad thing, since Canons just plain WORK--like Macs. My guess is that whatever Canon may have re-planned for its second iteration of the MKII is probably pretty conservative, and it's possible that this has been eclipsed by Nikon's most recent broadside. What can Canon do? It's entire semi-pro to pro camera line is based on full functionality at the top and crippled functionlity at the bottom. It's hard to imagine them putting a 1D focus system into the MKII.

Canon is pretty good at keeping secrets, so no one has the slightest inkling of what the MKII will look like if it is unveiled in September 2008. Meanwhile, fanboys can only speculate about what might be included.

I decided to post my own fanboy laundry list of what I want in the MKII. At first, I was pretty conservative in adding new functionality, but then making the list started getting fun (and quite ridiculous). Here's what it looks like now:

• Image sensor cleaning / dust and hot pixel delete via firmware
• 16 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor
• ISO 50 - 6400 (with boost up to ISO 25600)
• Support for EF-S lenses
• 51 focus points (15 cross-types for lenses F1.4 and faster)
• Dual Digic III Processors
• 14-bit A/D conversion, 12 channel readout
• Kevlar / carbon fibre composite shutter with 200,000 exposure durability
• Pop-up flash
• Weather sealing
• Real-time contrast-detect live view with second dedicated full-frame CMOS sensor
• Virtual horizon (can overlay on live view)
• Highlight tone priority
• Dual card slots supporting both CF and SD
• 5 frames per second until memory card(s) is/are filled
• Programmable auto ISO
• On-screen white balance toggling
• Intervalometer
• 360-degree swivel 3.0" 920,000 pixel TFT LCD with glare-resistance coating
• Self-timer allowing single or multiple shots
• Face tracking for up to 10 faces
• In-body image stabilization (Stabilizes along X, Y, and Z axes; can toggle off when IS lenses are used)
• Battery compartment allows either BP-511 or 4 AA batteries
• Top control panel LED shines blue in dark (shine duration can be toggled)
• Flash sync supported up to 1/2000 of a second
• 256 MB of internal memory for voice annotation
• Date imprint stamp option
• HDMI video output
• 10 customizable shooting banks for picture style, ISO, etc. presets
• Digital help menu accessible

Oh, and the release price should $100 cheaper than Nikon's at $2,899.
Ridiculous, I know, but it's so nice to daydream.