Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
Pond5 just launched an amazing free resource that contains over 75,000 free media clips, including 10,000 video clips formatted in 4K or HD. There are 65,000+ photos and thousands of sound recordings, which include some great symphony recordings. [Read more…]
iStock Image Subscription Email Notice
The popular stock photography service, iStockphoto, sent out an email to contributors today that it will begin offering a new subscription model to customers in April 2014. While iStock did not reveal the customer pricing for the subscription model, it is likely to be similar to Shutterstock’s plans, which allow 25 image downloads per day for a flat rate of $249/mo. [Read more…]
iStockphoto has long used a “credit” payment system that lets you buy images and other stock files with credits instead of dollars.
Until recently, the only option available for purchasing stock files at iStockphoto has been to purchase credits and then purchase the files with those purchased credits. Additionally, the actual dollar value of a credit may be different depending on how many credits you purchase in bulk. For those who buy lots of images on a frequent basis, the bulk purchase of credits makes sense. However, those who only occasionally purchase stock images or other files encounter problems with understanding the credit-to-dollar value of files, as well as the possibility of your credits expiring (it’s happened to me).
The new Shopping Cart Checkout at iStock now allows you to purchase stock images without having to first purchase iStock credits. When you add a file to your shopping cart, you will see the price in dollars and not credits.
[via iStockphoto]
iStockphoto has now made “editorial use only” images available for purchase. Unlike the millions of other pre-existing royalty-free images on iStockphoto, the new editorial collection of images are strictly for non-commercial use and “are intended for use by news outlets, publishers, magazines, bloggers and presenters as a descriptive visual reference to a product, place, event or concept.”
Additionally, contributing photographers will generally not be required to submit a model release for editorial images, nor is there a need to remove trademarks or other branding from editorial images.
More details on the new editorial image collection in iStock’s press release below. [Read more…]
iStockphoto is crossing over into the editorial licensing realm for stock photography. Rolling out in 2011, iStock will only be accepting editorial submissions for specific categories, such as products, architecture and landmarks, travel and lifestyle, social commentary, and urban living. iStock is expressly avoiding submissions for time-sensitive news and traditional photo journalism.
You can find a thorough review of the new editorial submission guidelines in this article on iStockphoto’s website.
Seemingly out of the blue, iStockphoto announced a major change in stock photography royalty rates starting in 2011.
Gone are the days of when a contributor’s canister level (based on number of total downloads) determined the royalty rate received by the contributor. Starting in 2011, the royalty rate will be based on annual “targets” of redeemed credits. [Read more…]
iStockphoto has officially launched its website redesign. The new design offers a more modern appearance with improved navigation.
More details in the press release below. [Read more…]
Last week, iStockphoto raised the weekly limits for photo contributors.
New upload limits for non-exclusive contributors:
New upload limits for exclusive contributors:
iStockphoto has been kicking around for 10 years now. The site has had over 100 million downloads of various types of media files.
Many photographers have become full-time, specialist microstock photographers thanks to the likes of iStock. Over the years, other photographers have grown to loath iStock, and its contributing photographers, claiming that they are killing the photography industry.
Regardless of where your stance is on microstock photography, there’s no doubt that it has changed the industry forever.
Read more about iStock’s 10th anniversary, along with a contest that it’s kicked off in conjunction with this celebration, in the press release below. [Read more…]
Getty Images has launched a new microstock subscription site called ThinkStock. The site is built around a subscription model for image buyers and pulls from Getty’s image libraries at Getty Images, iStockphoto and Jupiterimages. The flat rate subscription of $249/mo or $2499/yr allows users to download up to 25 images per day and 750 images per month on a royalty-free basis.
More details in the press release below. [Read more…]