jwallphoto

<p>Assuming you also do weddings and family portraits for free, what's the big deal? </p>

<p>I've poked around in the waters you're talking about and have (seven) observations that might be useful.<br>

1. Last week I turned down a request for an image by a print publisher because they claimed they had no budget for photos and wanted the shot for free. That's F-R-E-E. That's what some publishers think photos are worth. I don't make my living from photography, but I always charge at least $50 for any use of a photo for print purposes in support of those who do make their living from photography. If you don't charge anything, then your photography isn't worth anything.<br>

2. I contribute photos to a regional nature-oriented nonprofit magazine. It comes out only 4 times a year and pays usually $50 for a photo they use, unless it goes big or is a cover shot.<br>

3. The most I was ever paid for a photo feature and article (for an in-flight magazine) was $900. A 10-page photo feature in an upscale regional magazine recently paid $500. You don't have to know anyone to get published. You just need something worth publishing. <br>

4. Nature Photographer magazine comes out three times a year. To be eligible to submit photos and articles, you must pay a higher subscription rate. That does not guarantee you will be published. It just means they'll look at your submission. They pay for what they use, but they pay out only once or twice a year. I had a piece in their spring issue and can expect payment (how much, I have no idea) in September.<br>

5. I submitted a bunch of photos to a well-known calendar company back in December 2011. They require you to send a sample before they agree to look at a real submission. That was the lead time for the 2014 calendar. Payment for each photo, should any be selected, is on publication.<br>

6. I provided photos to a well-known stock agency for a while. If I submitted one photo in a dozen with a single speck of dust on it, the whole dozen would be rejected. You are required to do your own keywording, and in fact fill out an online form for each image. I earned a percentage on each sale, but payment was only made when I'd earned something like $250. I went months at a time with no payments coming in, and therefore no positive reinforcement for long stretches of time, and I eventually gave up. I made something like $600 in about two years. <br>

7. As you can see, there ain't much money in dabbling. I'm fine with doing it for fun, but if I needed an income, I would sooner work part-time at a local coffee shop or bookstore. It would pay wildly more than my dabbling in photography does.</p>

<p>As to the image comparison, the more brightly lit photo does not appear to have been scanned from a newsprint reproduction, as the "darker" one was. Also, what you call darker is also called burning. The editors burned out the distracting faces of the cops because the subject of the photo was Oswald.</p>

<p>P.S. When they moved Mubarek to the front of the group in this photo, they also flipped him. Why?<br>

<a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/doctored-photo-flatters-egyptian-president/">http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/doctored-photo-flatters-egyptian-president/</a></p>

<p>Funny that Galbraith and Luminous Landscape both show the difference better than Nikon itself did in the roll-out....</p>

<p>Who hasn't walked up to a print made from an 8x10 view camera to ogle the equivalent of pixels?! More pixels, more detail, more, more MORE! ;)</p>

<p>The photographer was Harvey Keitel. ;)</p>

<p>Photographers are always going to pixel-peep. It's in our DNA. You sort of answer your own question by stating that you can stitch high-megapixel images. The whole point of doing that is to have greater detail. The whole point of having greater detail is to look at it. Alas, a low-megapixel image that moves you will always be better than a high-megapixel image that doesn't.</p>

<p>Printing on metal is not the same thing. Check out face mounting here: <a href="http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/services/presentation/facemounts.htm">http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/services/presentation/facemounts.htm</a></p>

<p>It's called Face Mounting. </p>

<p>I have the Nikon 12-24mm and would recommend you ask the seller if the filter threads are in good condition. The threads are part of a plastic assembly, not metal. You don't want to find out too late that you can't securely attach a filter.</p>

<p>I've done this using Enfuse to produce a more subtle blend of the exposures. It comes as a Lightroom plug-in, very easy to use: <a href="http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrenfuse.php">http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrenfuse.php</a>. I run Enfuse on the images, then stitch the results. Works great. The result looks so natural that if your are used to typical HDR, you might not like it!</p>

<p>Thanks, Michael, great info on the Nikon tech guide. And James, that is a stunning shot, and I totally hear you about MF at night. If I forget a flashlight to illuminate something to focus on with my 12-24mm AF-S, I'm scrooged.</p>

<p>Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Somehow I knew it wasn't going to make the final choice any easier! Frankly I'd like to replace almost all my lenses, but that will take time. I like to shoot wide most of the time, so that's why I'm looking at that range for my #1 lens. If there was such a thing as a 20-105mm that got raves, though, I'd be on it.</p>

<p>Thinking about forking out $3K for beaucoup megapixels makes my stomach churn a little, but adding to my dilemma is the fact I'm a DX user now and don't have a landscape lens for FX of suitable quality for a 36MP sensor. I'm thinking maybe Nikon 17-35mm, or 16-35mm, or Zeiss 25mm (f/2 or 2.8, I'm not sure). Other possibilities? General thoughts?</p>

<p>The best part of your plan to switch is going to a quick-release system. I use a BH-3 with a Kirk FR-1 focusing rail and have a RRS L-plate on my D300. The L-plate lets you easily switch between horizontal and vertical format while keeping your camera centered on the tripod.</p>

<p>Hey, this is an old post, and I deleted all my pre-2011 blog posts, including the one linked above (I've seen traffic at my blog coming from this post). FWIW, I got the Kirk rail and love it. It is much better than the Adorama rail. Also tried the RRS rail but found it worked poorly for focus-stacking purposes and had to return it. No issues with the remote cord jamming.</p>

<p>Might be cool to chimp on an iPad....</p>

<p>Some folks believe copyright shouldn't exist at all. Check out this message on torrentfreak.com (some of the quoted exclamation points have been deleted to satisfy photonet prohibitions on using more than one):</p>

It's insane, though I think "naive" may be a better description. <em>We</em> are all collectively insane for letting things get this far.<br /><br /><strong>Pay attention people!</strong> The copyright fascists have taken over our governments, and they're slowly but surely locking the internet up and turning it into their next brain-dead pay-per-view scheme. <br /><br />And that PISSES ME OFF. Aren't you MAD enough, yet?<br /><br />What can we do? We should write to our politicians! Not emails - we need paper letters, politely telling them why copyright and the internet are at odds, and why the internet needs to win. <br /><br />Contact your Congresscritters or your MEPs and give them a piece of your mind. I'm off to write to mine now, I hope others care enough to do the same.

<p>"The application deadline is March 1, 2011."<br /><br /></p>

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<p>My dad still keeps a few round stones that my siblings and I collected as kids roaming around the dried river floor. I've forgotten whether we have pictures.</p>

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