Traveling

Weather is warming up and it is time to travel! Part of a series of stock images I convinced my little brother and his wife to do with me.



Here is my tough brother (don't mess with him)!

My little nephew

My sister needed new portraits as the latest photos of her youngest are from when he was only a few months old.

My nephew is a little sober dude. It is rare to get him to crack a smile.



He loves to fight with his little sister, and is pretty good at getting her into trouble. He takes after a certain uncle that was a quite little mischief maker.



We did manage to sneak a few smiles out of the little guy









Just a few photos from around Grandma and Grandpa's house. There is so much fun stuff to do outside.

Back to Snow

A few photos from a recent reunion at Snow College. Been a while that the badgerettes (from 1999-2001) have been together:



My wife and I met at Snow College, so there is a lot of great memories associated with the place. It was great to see some of our freinds again.



On a side note, I have been on a high ISO kick processing with lightroom to get a vintage look. I have been using lightroom for about a week now (loving it) and so I think I am going overboard with the sliders!

One highlight was seeing Kathleen dance to ABBA (Kathleen is the drill advisor). Kathleen is retiring so this was her going away party.



Don't make funny faces at the man with the camera unless you want that funny face posted on the internet ;)





I wanted more candid photos...



I particularly liked this one of Anji and Sabrina.

Photos of the photographer

A while back we gave Clayton our old point and shoot, that we haven't used since we picked up our DSLR almost two years ago. It has been a hoot for me to have a photography buddy, and it has been extremely interesting to see what Clayton takes photos of...

*Nikon D70 * 50mm 1.8 * F1.8 * ISO 1600 * 1/125 second *


Here Clayton is getting a photo of his dad, while his dad is taking a picture of him: My photo of Clayton

*Copyright Clayton Marx*

I think Clayton's photo turned out awesome!

Clayton taking photos of his baby sister:

*Nikon D70 * 50mm 1.8 * F1.8 * ISO 1600 * 1/100 second *


One of my favorites of the roughly 300 photos Clayton had taken during the week:
*Copyright Clayton Marx*

We are having so much fun!

*Nikon D70 * 50mm 1.8 * F1.8 * ISO 250 * 1/125 second *

Microstock photography thoughts

This last weekend I attended Photo Camp Utah. Over 300 photo enthusiasts attended the camp. It was an opportunity to learn from many excellent photographers who shared tips, techniques, many of whom I consider friends.

The presentations covered topics from technique to work flow. While I would love to be able to share everything I learned I wanted to touch one subject that has been of recent interest to me. Rich Legg shared insight from his experience as an exclusive Istock contributor. Rich now works full time as a Microstock contributor, and has learned to make a comfortable living doing so. Rich spoke about his getting to his current situation, and it did not happen overnight. It was insightful to see how many people are interested in selling photos through Microstock agencies.

Rich at the Photo Camp Utah


I started submitting to Microstock, the same way I learned photography, researching on the World Wide Web and then fumbling my way through the process. I know that there are questions about how the Microstock market has changed (I have many of the same questions). I noticed some indications that the Microstock market may have become more difficult to enter and has become more competitive, requiring much higher levels of quality to succeed. From Rich’s point of view, there is huge potential for growth in the Microstock community. Traditional stock is loosing ground due to the leaps in quality and breadth of material available from the Microstock sector. I am not saying traditional stock is going away, but royalty free images are the way things are moving. The lower cost is introducing new buyers, and an overall growth in the industry.

There are many contributors that see the growth (explosion of available material) as a dooms day scenario. These contributors only see the newcomers as competition. I am new to the Microstock world, and I see my entrance not one of being late, but as being right on time (I arrived at the party just when things are starting to get fun). The Microstock market is growing big time, and I am able to jump in when the different agencies have figured things out. The growth is available and I want to be part of the growth, recession or no.



I can’t give any insight into what it takes to succeed in the world of Microstock (except I realize it takes a lot of work). What I can do is share how my experience has been thus far. I plan on adding posts once a month to track how Microstock is panning out for me ( I haven’t found much info from new submitters).

So first things first, where I am submitting Microstock and what those agencies are like:

Istock: Istock is the most dedicated to training their submitters; there are numerous tutorials and a fairly rigorous process to gain submitter status. I think I lucked out in having picked Istock as my starting point. It was fairly easy to gain entry (only 3 photos needed to be submitted), and the review process though slow is really good. What I mean is that if a photo is rejected, Istock reviewers are really good at explaining why. I started out at about 30% acceptance rate (first dozen or so photos), but have made my way up to about 70% acceptance ratio (cumulative). I have been submitting to Istock since October (current tally is just over 100 files).

Sales from the different agencies.


Istock sales: Let me put this out there right out front, you might get lucky with a great photo that sells really well, but with most agencies having ~6 million photos in their libraries, volume is just as important as quality to make money. A huge part of the process is numbers, the more photos you have in your portfolio, the more likely someone is to notice you, and getting noticed is the first step to selling photos. I average slightly less than a dollar per sale at Istock (see the fancy plots).

Some things I don’t like about Istock, as a nonexclusive with less than 250 sales, I am limited to 15 uploads per week (translates into 60 uploads a month). This might seem reasonable but try waiting a week to upload additional images when you upload 15 images in the first 15 minutes of your week.

Uploads each month, (plot is not cumulative).


Fotolia: Fotolia has the quickest review process, but I find that the review process is a bit unpolished and not very consistent. The feedback on the rejects is poor to say the least, and this is the agency at which I have the lowest acceptance ratio. This brings up another item, submitting to Microstock requires a thick skin. It does not feel good being rejected when you upload a photo that you think is awesome only to have one of the agencies tell you that it does not meet their standard due to poor composition, lighting or the like (and that photo just happens to be what you think is the best photo you ever produced).

Fotolia sales: Istock sales started immediately though slowly, Fotolia, sales were non existent for some time. I kept uploading and recently I am beginning to see some activity. I am averaging about 60 cents a sale and have been uploading since mid December.

Dreamstime: Dreamstime has a longer review period for submitted content, but I am allowed to upload 75 images per day (yup per day). I can’t say much about the rejection rate. I have yet to have a photo rejected at Dreamstime. I started uploading to Dreamstime about a month ago. Future posts will give more detail about this agency, I have been uploading with Dreamstime since mid February.

Shutterstock: My first uploads showed activity which peaked my interest early on, so I have uploaded more to this agency than to Dreamstime. The average sale is 25 cents (part of their 25 per day subscription). Review time is pretty short and acceptance has been over 90 percent. If there is a limit to the number of uploads, I haven’t seen it yet. I have been uploading to Shutterstock since mid February.

My earnings are hardly enough to cover dinner (so far it is costing more to shoot than what I am earning due to props etc.), but part of going into working at microstock is that you are investing over a longer term of months and years. Time will tell how things pan out, but I plan on continuing working. Time to get back to shooting.

Additional microstock resources:

Microstock Diaries

Yuri Arcurs

More Vivian

Vivian is such a great little, baby. She doesn't fuss much, sleeps like an angel and eats really well. I wanted to share a few more photos of our new little angel.



Mom is so able to make baby Vivian content. Mother and daughter allready have such a bond. Doesn't Vivian have the greatest little smile!

The gear I use and how I use it.

I get e-mail etc about the gear I use on a fairly regular basis (I don't claim to be an expert or pro, the explanation below is my experience, yours may differ). Usually the question is “what camera do you use”. I respond that I use such and such camera, and that is the end of the conversation (most of the time). So many times it easy to believe that the camera is what creates great photos (after all the camera manufacturers tell us that when they market the cameras to us). The right question to ask when you see a great photo, is to question how that person took the photo, how the photographer used the camera.

My intention in sharing my gear is to help out in understanding what benefit I get from the different pieces of gear I use. I want to show how I use different pieces of gear in my bag.

One suggestion: if are serious about photography, get a DSLR. Any brand will do but a DSLR gives you flexibility that you can’t get from traditional point and shoot cameras (though some are getting close)

My cameras:

I use a DSLR (note that most manufacturers have equivalent bodies, lenses etc. sorry this is so brand specific). I started out with the D40 which I still use today (yup the beginner DSLR by Nikon), and later bought a well used D70 camera body off ebay (mainly for the 18-70 kit lens and because I wanted a second body). As far as I am concerned the camera body makes the least impact on your photos compared to other photo tools you could acquire. Some will argue the point, I don’t have any experience with the expensive bodies so I am unqualified to comment on bodies. From my view point the camera body isn’t where you should focus your dollars. When you get the other items (read below) then upgrade the camera body.


Click on the photo above to see notes on the photo

My lenses:
I really only use three lenses for my shooting, the 18-55mm doesn’t see much use anymore. Not because the 18-55mm is inferior, the 18-70mm wins due to the lens hood, slightly faster aperture and better reach. The other two lenses I use are the 55-200mm VR and the 50mm 1.8 Nikkors. These are the lenses I use and have. The lenses are cheap, and they work well.

So this deserves a side bar… Am I happy with these lenses? Sort of, they are great because they are light weight and compact (I will keep them when I upgrade lenses so I have a light weight travel kit), but they aren’t fast (I mean that they don’t have a big aperture). Ultimately I want some 2.8 constant aperture equivalent focal length lenses of the two zooms mentioned above (I am just a little financially impaired).

So why use the 55-200 VR?
To get that shallow depth of field and compression you get when shooting at 200mm. Can you get this from other lenses? Yes but most cost a lot more.

A long focal length like 200mm can make the background seem like it is right behind the subject (compression) but look soft like creamy butter (shallow depth of field). This shot of Airen was taken using the 55-200mm at 200mm, see how the background is like a soft painting?



Why use the 50mm prime?
For that 1.8 F stop. When I shoot with this lens it is nearly always wide open aperture. I want that low light goodness. Shooting beautiful natural light usually requires a lens that is fast like the 50mm 1.8. Again you get some great soft backgrounds, this time because the aperture is so big (1.8). The bad is that you really need to be careful how and where you focus otherwise the important part of the pic will be out of focus. Notice how the photo below son's eyes are sharp and in focus but the rest of his face is quickly falling out of focus. Hall mark of the 50mm at 1.8 aperture.



Why use the 18-70mm?
For the wide end and for all the normal angles you might need. It just works well, though it doesn’t have any pop except when wide (when I say pop I mean that at most focal lengths it is like vanilla ice cream a bit boring but still the most popular flavor). If you shoot landscape then you want wide 18mm or wider. I don’t so I don’t have any ultra wide lenses. Here is a wide example, notice how everything appears in focus? That is where the wide bodies excel. Here is an example of a photo at ~18mm.



My lights:
I have an SB600 for the on camera stuff (I don’t use direct on camera flash much opting to bounce of walls etc), and use two older (very worn and beat up) speed lights for my lighting (planning to add a fourth light soon). This was due to a suggestion from David Hobby (Strobist) to buy used and I think I made the right decision. I don’t worry too much about the lights (SB 24 and SB 25), and just use them as the tools that they are.

Lighting is sometimes a hot topic (some think it is cheating). Suffice it to say that natural light can be wonderful, so use it when you can find good light. If you don't think lighting is interesting then skip the rest of the gear post...

Lenses are easy to explain but lights are a whole other beast. Suffice it to say that learning about light is what photography is about. Cameras capture light. I don’t know what more to say except just use it and do it. The more you do it (take photos) the better you will get! Now I don't want anyone who reads this to think that you have to use flash or strobe light, natural light can be the best light you will ever find, but learning to use lights can help you see natural light better, making you a better photographer all around.

Start simple, when learning to light, I suggest starting with a single light and then building up from there. After a while you will start thinking in terms of two, three, four and more lights, but I suggest starting with one. In fact most of time I use one light because I don’t want a shoot to get to complicated.

Here is a behind the scenes photo (indoor and a little more complicated).



Here is the result.



Light modifiers:
As you can see I use three different umbrellas sizes 60”, 43” and 33”. Light size is a huge part in the quality of your light. Most of the time you want soft light as it is more flattering. Soft light is achieved when you have a big source relative to the subject (more about it here). The 60” umbrella is great at providing real soft light. The 33” is a little more edgy but still is much softer than a bare flash.

Remember I said the light source size relative to the subject size, so a 60” umbrella 10 feet away will look as soft as a 33” umbrella shot at 3 feet away. Move the light in close to get uber soft light.

Other stuff:
Light stands, clamps, triggers (to trigger the flash when of camera) are other stuff I use. I use a couple of Bogen nano light stands because they are really compact and easy to haul around. Filters to change the color of the light etc. You can really spend a lot of money on extras.

One last note; there is so much more to photography than the gear, such as posing, framing, color, and the list goes on and on. This only touches the gear aspect which is a fairly small part of the equation. Getting all the right gear only gets you so far, the gear after all are just tools, you are the artist using the tools!

Hope this helps out!

New big brother

For all the change in becoming the big brother and not being the only child. Our little boy is doing awesome. Clayton has a big heart and he truly loves his new little sister. We are so blessed to have such wonderful children.



I love to hear Clayton say about his baby sister "she is soooo cute Mama".