I made this video about the reasons why I personally switched from a Sigma 35mm Art to the Canon Rf 35mm f.18. My points are designed mainly from a view point of a photographer and part time use for video. As a hybrid shooter, the canon RF 35mm makes a lot of sense for the Canon mirrorless R system. Besides an opportunity to save some money and getting the native RF mount benefits, it is smaller and has quiet auto focus and good minimal distance focusing abilities.
Is Shutterstock worth it in 2021? Shutterstock vs Adobe Stock (Fotolia) End of the First Year Summary (2020). /
In this video, I talk about my past experience with shutterstock and Adobe Stock (Fotolia) after the first year on both platform. In summary, the average earning per download on Shutterstock was $0.38 per download ($67.17 over 177 downloads) and for Adobe Stock, it was $1.02 per download ($59.35 over 58 downloads). Photography is a hobby of mine and I didn’t spend much time getting started in stock photography. I wasn’t expecting any income. This was more of an experiment to see what photos would sell based on photos I had on hard drives and based on creative project ideas that I wanted to photograph over some weekends.
Even though I made it to level 2 on Shutterstock in Mid September of this year, I did not see a significant increase in earnings. The most common earning per download was still $0.10. The question is: is being a Shutterstock contributor still worth it in 2021?
There are two ways of looking at it.
1) As a person selling your art (your photos being your hard work that you captured, edited and keyworded)
2) Already did the overhead work and since I’m uploading to other stock agencies, I might as well upload to Shutterstock as well.
In the video, I mention some of the benefits of using Shutterstock like the quick review process, ability to sell mobile photography, editorials and commercial stock photos. $0.10 seems super low for any piece of art and I will admit, the feeling of receiving 10 cents for an image is a little depressing. On the other hand, it is 10 cents you normally wouldn’t make if it was just sitting on a hard drive. There is a sense of satisfaction that once this overhead work is done, you could be earning a couple of dollars a month and you wouldn’t need to actively maintain those photos. My dilemma is- If I am spending the time to keyword and uploading the other sites, should I just upload to Shutterstock as well? That overhead work is done already. If I look at this past year, if I only had the photos on Adobe Stock, I would only have half the income from this experiment. It wasn’t double the work to upload to both.
In this video, I am also looking for feedback from designers, visual artistic and marketing people at companies that use stock agencies and platforms. Do companies have multiple subscriptions to multiple agencies and platforms? Do you only search for photos at one site that your company pays for or do you look for the perfect photo over multiple site. For photographers- Which platform and stock website do you prefer and why? What are your experiences on the other sites? What are your average earnings per download? Do you agree with my mindset of uploading to Shutterstock if you already put in the effort of keywording and editing the photo? There are a few perks of using Shutterstock like quicker review times, ease of use for app for even mobile photography, a combination if editorial photos, and commerical photos.
Feel Free to leave a comment or question!
Shutterstock vs. Adobe Stock (Fotolia) Making passive income with stock photography in 2020. /
Is it too late to join stock photography?
What to expect getting into stock photography in 2020? I wanted to give a background on why I decided to try stock photography. Every youtube video I watched about passive income included some form of stock sales. To be honest, stock photography is a passive income that has significant overhead in terms of time (It doesn’t require much in terms of monetary cost since most cell phones today can take photos with enough resolution)
I created a video explaining my experience of making money on Shutterstock contributor and adobe stock (Fotolia). It is a comparison of Shutterstock contributor and adobe stock (fotolia) based on my experience of getting started in stock photography in 2020. I started uploading a few photos in Shutterstock last year and decided to upload a lot more this year starting in Jan. I decided to upload to both adobe stock and Shutterstock because both have non-exclusive uploads which means I can upload photos to both. I have about 111 photos on Shutterstock and 130 on adobe stock (more photos got accepted into adobe stock). Here are things that are good to know before getting into stock photography in 2020 and what to expect. So many YouTubers mention stock photography as a passive income so I wanted to provide more information on my experiences in the last year and how much I have earned on both platforms. This is based on taking photos I had on my previous trips sitting on hard drives (which I thought had a chance of selling on stock sites) and a couple of shoot days with common objects around the house (like notebooks, cup of tea, computers, poker chips, playing cards, chess pieces and random hipster house decorations). Both sites have a monthly shot lists that is suppose to sell well but usually, they require models and model release forms. In my case, I haven’t gone this route and most of my picture are commercial (with no recognizable logos and people in it).
Subscribe to the channel and stay tuned to the end for additional tips in future videos.
Here is what I cover in this video
-Average earning per download on each platform and total earnings in 2020 comparison.
-highest earning per photo and lowest earning per photo -acceptance and review process
-mobile app/ email notifications
-editorials vs commercial submissions
-keywording tools
-shutterstock download royalty levels -and my most downloaded images.
-My tips and what I've learned
Sign up as a Shutterstock contributor!
Sign up on Shutterstock to donwload stock photos for your project.
Please leave a comment or question below if you want to ask me a question related to my experience with these two stock photography platform.
Canon Lenses AutoFocus Test with Canon 5D Mk IV /
I decided to make a few quick videos from default autofocus settings on the Canon 5d Mk IV. The sound is recorded by the built-in microphone on the canon 5d mk IV. What you will hear is the sound of the lens autofocusing in a quiet room using the touch screen dual pixel autofocus. The flexizone single mode was used. I was using the touchscreen to select focus between the characters and all the focus settings are the default one from the camera. I did not tweak or adjust the autofocusing settings. The footage is unedited so you can see how fast the autofocus works and how loud the lense sound if you don’t have external microphones.
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom (now there is the Canon Version III) on the Canon 5d Mk IV. A super handy and useful telephoto with image stabilization. I had the camera and lens mounted to a tripod for this video autofocus test.
For a cheaper lens option. Consider the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 APO EX DG HSM OS shown in the next video or the newer sports version. A telephoto is super useful for videography to compress the background and isolate the subject. This zoom range is handy and have decent reach! Watch this HSM Hyper Sonic Motor lens focusing for comparison with the canon telephoto option.
For every full-frame camera, you need to try a 35mm lens. This video was done using the original EF 35mm f1.4L USM. (Canon has a new f1.4L USM II should be a little quieter). Beautiful bokeh!
If you’re interested in a nice portrait lens for video, you might be considering the EF 50mm f1.4 USM. For a quieter version, check out the 50mm f1.8 stm). Even for photography, I have always found the f1.4 a little noisy even though it is an USM lens, the built-in mic definitely picks it up. The canon f1.4 bokeh is really nice. If you use a shotgun mic or use music over the footage, this lens can get some beautiful footage.
My favourite macro lens for canon is the Canon 100mm f2.8L USM. Look at the details in Chewbacca and the lego astronaut.
A wide angle lens is important. I got a chance to try out this Canon 16-35 f4L lense with image stabilization. Canon also has a 16-35mm f2.8L that is faster but doesn’t have IS. For video work, it is always nice to have image stabilization. The Enthusiasm Project has a good comparison between the f2.8 vs f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2pZT8Hz2YM
Links in this blog have amazon affiliate links. If you end up getting the camera or lens from amazon, I get a small commission..