 BetterPhoto Member |
Stock Agency Requirements I have a Canon 20D digital SLR, which I intend to take with me on a 10-day trip to Switzerland in a month. I also have a Minolta 570 SLR,(film camera) which I could take as a back-up. The question is: Do stock photography agencies now take digital shots instead of slides, or do we still need to shoot slides to submit pictures? The answer will help me determine whether I need to take the Minolta. Thanks so much for your input. Virginia
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John G. Clifford Jr |
Well, that depends on the stock agency you are shooting for, but nearly all stock agencies now accept digital images ... IF the images meet their specifications (dpi density). Only you and your stock agency can answer this question.
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BetterPhoto Member |
Viginia, John is correct in that it depends on the agency. Getty announced in August that they will only accept digital submissions - no more film. You can shoot film, but have to do all the scanning and retouching and it has to be a very high quality scan. They also will not accept images from digital cameras that are less than 12mp. However, they are the exception right now, as quite a few agencies still take film and digital from an 8.5mp camera. But expect the other agents to follow suit because it is not 'if', it's 'when'.
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Laura Berman |
Charlie, I've recently been told by a stock agency to "come back when you have a camera that captures a minimum of 11 MP." Before I settle on a new camera to buy, how quickly do you think that this figure will inch upwards to 15 MP ? I'm looking at the new Canon 5D, which is 12.8 MP, but that seems very close to the edge, if Getty has set their bar at 12MP. Thanks for your always sage advice.
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John G. Clifford Jr |
If stock agencies only used photographers with 11 MP+ cameras, there'd be a lot less stock photographers. What is the current resolution of your camera? If you are using a dSLR with at least 6 MP, then you should be able to up-size your images and get acceptable results. Many stock photographers use Genuine Fractals to resize their images; others use the resizing feature of PS or other image editors. What is important is results. If you can use software to get 11 MP+ images from your camera that are acceptable, then you're in business.
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Laura Berman |
Hi John, It's Raw capture size that the agencies are specifying, rather than what the images can be interpolated up to. Sure, you can take an image captured with a 6 MP camera and upsize it to 11 MP or even 60 MP, but it will not have anywhere near the quality of an 11MP capture. There's just more information in the larger MP capture. What Genuine Fractals does is fill in digital information in between the pixels of the original capture size and those of the desired size. That info isn't there to begin with and so it has to be invented by the computer program, based upon what is around the pixels - and therefore it can never be as good/accurate/crisp/free of noise and artifacts as can an 11MP RAW capture. I hope that clarifies the reasons for this spec.
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BetterPhoto Member |
Laura, I mis-quoted above, Getty will take nothing less than images from 11.1 mp (30mb minimum capture). This is a trend we will continue to see. However, it will probably be quite some time before the 12 mp cameras are outdated and no longer accepted. You should be fine with the 5D for a long time. At Fogstock, we will accept nothing smaller than 8 mp images now, because those cameras are mainstream and are very available and quite cost-effective. When the 12 mp cameras are more prevelant and the standard, or priced under $2000, we will announce that that is the lowest resolution acceptable and the industry will probably be doing the same as well. Getty says they sell images up to 300mb, and 6 mp will not cut it, nor will 8 mp. We are hiring photographers to do production shoots for our agency and they must rent a 1DS Mark II to do the shoot. The files are much better. I would not suggest that you interpolate 6 mp files to look like 11 mp to sneak past the guidelines. Our technical guy, Erik, can pick them out and they get rejected, and I am sure Getty's well prepared in that area as well. I would think you are going to be just fine for a long time with a 5D. All the best! Charlie
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Laura Berman |
Charlie, The 5D is a peach! I just got it this weekend but already I can see the difference it makes. And I'm not talking only about the 12.8MPs. With the full sized sensor it's almost like shooting with a medium format camera, after shooting with a Digital Rebel for the past 18 months. What a wonderful change :o)) Laura
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Justin G. |
what medium formats have you shot before?
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Justin G. |
Oh I see nevermind, I read it wrong.
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BetterPhoto Member |
Laura Coingrats on getting the 5D. I am hearing a lot of good things about it. Getty just announced yesterday that they will accept files from that camera. So it sounds like you are set. Take Care CHarlie
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Howard Sandler |
Microstock agencies such as istockphoto and shutterstock accept files of lower resolution. I'm using a Nikon D70 and getting most shots accepted. I understand that Alamy accepts upsized photos and have heard of photographers shooting 6 MP images and getting them approved. As far as the microstocks go, I'm earning about $75 a month now from 150 images on shutterstock. http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=9126
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John G. Clifford Jr |
I understand WHY many stock agencies are going to higher resolutions. IMO, it's for two reasons, one being that high-end dSLRs keep a lot of the amateurs out (it's a way of excluding people that the stock houses don't want to have to weed through). Chances are, someone who can afford to spend upwards of $5k for a 12 MP camera is someone who is serious enough about photography to have taken the time to learn about composition and exposure and will generally create decent images. The other reason is picture quality, and here I think the '11 MP' rule is one of those rules that was created not for quality reasons but instead for screening reasons... a lot of time is saved when it comes to evaluating images (or not evaluating them). With Bayer (CFA) sensor cameras, the rules make a lot of sense because these cameras typically resolve anywhere from 60% to 75% of the expected resolution due to Bayer interpolation and AA filter blurring. However, there are other technologies that can take interpolation to produce an 11 MP shot that is virtually indistinguishable (at 300 dpi) from a 'native' Bayer 11 (or 12) MP image. Of course, in this business the customers make the rules, whether its the stock house or the entity buying stock photography.
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Dorothy Lam |
So, does that mean that if my camera can capture a 4MB JPEG image, can I convert it to a 40MB TIFF image and still get the same quality? Or will it still loose some quality? Thanks.
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