Micro Stock photography sites are "evil"

At least most of them are... and I have believed for some time that they have damaged the industry. Nice to see someone agrees with me. There is an article here: “Unsustainable” – MicroStock Comes of Age…er, Not. that deals with the Micro Stock photography industry and explains why it is not all coming up roses.

I personally have never had the urge to sell my hard work for a pittance and probably never will develop that urge, but the Micro Stock industry has affected many hard working photographers worldwide negatively anyway. If you feel the urge to work for nothing, at least do it for a good charitable cause, not to simply enrich some jerk in an office a thousand miles away!

Daryl - Portrait

Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8, SB600 flash shot thru cheap transparent umbrella = lots of fun!

Kevin - Portrait

Putting my umbrella to good use!

I could really get used to having so much control over the light...

Another from the same session

It's amazing what a big difference the cheap budget shoot through umbrella makes to portraits as opposed to direct flash. A definite step up in terms of quality! The diffuse light falls off much more gently, and gives a nicer, more natural look. One day I want to step up to more powerful studio lights, but until then my existing flash units look like they can handle these smaller jobs.

Phoebe - Portrait

Trying out my new shoot thru umbrella with a Nikon SB600 flash inside.

Small town blues!

Late night in Parys, South Africa. It doesn't exactly rock, but it's a nice little town.

In the details...

Everybody liked the previous photo so much that I decided to include another from the same shoot. :-)

Courtyard

Bride with Yellow Bouquet

Malawi Fisherman

Quaint Country Church

Whole Lotta Great Music

At the La Fayette restaurant in Centurion mall.

Golden Afternoon Sunlight

At the 102+ year old Palm Court Hotel in Parys, South Africa.

WhooHoo! New Camera!

As some of you may know, I really like the Olympus Trip 35, hey I even started a separate blog just for that little wonder of a camera! So when I came across a close relative of the Trip, I jumped at the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. It is my first range finder camera and is the fantastic but scarce Olympus 35 DC, a fully automatic camera with manual focusing. (Isn't that a contradiction of terms?)

Like all range finder cameras the focusing is very easy and accurate, and the shutter is just amazingly quiet. The shutter speed and aperture is taken care of very effectively by the camera and leaves you free to just concentrate on getting the picture,

As with the Olympus Trip 35 it sports a Zuiko lens, but this one goes all the way open to f1.7! Yeah, now I can shoot in the dark! And if you look at the pics below you can see that the lens is every bit as sharp as the Trip. The main thing I  like about this camera is that the focussing is a lot more accurate than the Trip, but then it also becomes a little slower to use and shooting "from the hip" isn't quite as easy either.

All these photos were taken on expired but frozen for years Kodak Ektachrome 64 slide film and scanned on my CanoScan 5600F scanner. The only thing I did was correct a slight blue cast, resize and brand before posting. No sharpening required, boy this thing is sharp!

If you can get one grab it, as far as I can see there were far fewer of these manufactured than the Trip 35, so they might be harder to find.

Some links featuring the Olympus 35DC:
Photo.net
Flickr
emuu.net
Camerapedia

Pretoria Panorama