What happened to "CCD is better than CMOS"?!

[landscapephoto]

And he came back with the strangest fastest reply: "WHY WOULD ANYONE PAY FOR CONTENT IF IT IS NOT BY SOMEONE FAMOUS" ?

Indeed. This sums up the web, I would say.

[JoeKitchen]

Now I know self promotion is difficult, but unless they know about you what you can do, they're not going to to hire you.

Unless you hand them something that is undeniable and presented with more effort than the other guys, well your work just ends up on a big pile in the corner.

Getting work is hard, but not as difficult as people think.   You just have to make use of all of your resources, invest in what you're offering and if it doesn't work, learn from it and come back stronger.

It's not easy, but hey this is a hard business. 

List all your accomplishments, all your awards, anything you've done that can help the client promote you and them and keep at it.

Then you'll see a result.

BC

Makes me think of a really great quote by Calvin Coolidge.
 
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

I am the definition of relentless, and will never stop promoting myself.  Someone told me the other day that he is not be good prospect.  Yes, he really likes my work, contracts out the kind of work I do all the time and, well, I have a super easy name to remember considering what I do, but he already has a few photographers that handle his needs. 

I hung up the phone knowing he was probably the best prospect I spoke to that day.  In five months or so, I call him again or send an update. 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi BC,

No comment on the issue but I really like that picture!

Best regards
Erik

Then up your game.

I have a friend that is a very good screenwriter.

Also one of the best waiters in one of the most exclusive restaurants in LA.

Every night, he's within inches of the people that make the decisions in Hollywood.  I'm talking about people that drop $15,000 on the wine bill.

He has a following, they all love him, they ask for his station and he never promotes himself.  I'm positive they don't know he is a writer.

Now I know self promotion is difficult, but unless they know about you what you can do, they're not going to to hire you.

Unless you hand them something that is undeniable and presented with more effort than the other guys, well your work just ends up on a big pile in the corner.

Getting work is hard, but not as difficult as people think.   You just have to make use of all of your resources, invest in what you're offering and if it doesn't work, learn from it and come back stronger.

It's not easy, but hey this is a hard business. 

Edmund, write your story, get a bunch of kids, go shoot something with your gh4, get a voice over (that's not expensive anymore) buy some music (that's not expensive anymore)  that fits the story build a website and present it.

Or do it in print, bind it and hand it over.

List all your accomplishments, all your awards, anything you've done that can help the client promote you and them and keep at it.

Then you'll see a result.

Remember, the web is full of self famous people.   From photographers, to writers, to chef's.

Some have real accomplishments, most just kept pushing about how great they are until they get a following.

If you don't have the cash replace it with sweat equity.

But that's up to you.

IMO

BC

[landscapephoto]

It is not about persistence or making it (or not), being successful, etc...

The question is "WHY WOULD ANYONE PAY FOR CONTENT IF IT IS NOT BY SOMEONE FAMOUS ?"

And, imo, it is indeed a phenomenal observation. Just think about it. Why would you pay?

[Craig Lamson]

It is not about persistence or making it (or not), being successful, etc...

The question is "WHY WOULD ANYONE PAY FOR CONTENT IF IT IS NOT BY SOMEONE FAMOUS ?"

And, imo, it is indeed a phenomenal observation. Just think about it. Why would you pay?

Who is John Galt?

[eronald]

Who is John Galt?

Never heard of him.

The other day I went to an english-speaking library in Paris, to grab some books for my kid. They had a book for kids called something like "the guy who was friends with numbers" about Paul Erdös, with his picture on the cover. So I told the very dedicated and lively librarian that I met him a couple of times when he came through town, and she just looked at me blankly.

I think fame may be relative rather than absolute.

It might even be a non-standard domain in which most of us are condemned to be forever infinitesimals, never accruing even a single unit of "real" fame.

 

Edmund

[eronald]

"Cooter", the pic is good, the advice too.

I just thought that sentence was an interesting summary of a change that has been taking place in the last ten years.
The crude way it was said to me, the guy finally understood  part of why he'd had to fire me , the magazine folded, he got fired too. Not all of it but some. And there seems to be some new economy of fame and style ... you know, Instagram follower arithmetic, by which the trend message now writes itself.

Edmund

Then up your game.

I have a friend that is a very good screenwriter.

Also one of the best waiters in one of the most exclusive restaurants in LA.

Every night, he's within inches of the people that make the decisions in Hollywood.  I'm talking about people that drop $15,000 on the wine bill.

He has a following, they all love him, they ask for his station and he never promotes himself.  I'm positive they don't know he is a writer.

Now I know self promotion is difficult, but unless they know about you what you can do, they're not going to to hire you.

Unless you hand them something that is undeniable and presented with more effort than the other guys, well your work just ends up on a big pile in the corner.

Getting work is hard, but not as difficult as people think.   You just have to make use of all of your resources, invest in what you're offering and if it doesn't work, learn from it and come back stronger.

It's not easy, but hey this is a hard business. 

Edmund, write your story, get a bunch of kids, go shoot something with your gh4, get a voice over (that's not expensive anymore) buy some music (that's not expensive anymore)  that fits the story build a website and present it.

Or do it in print, bind it and hand it over.

List all your accomplishments, all your awards, anything you've done that can help the client promote you and them and keep at it.

Then you'll see a result.

Remember, the web is full of self famous people.   From photographers, to writers, to chef's.

Some have real accomplishments, most just kept pushing about how great they are until they get a following.

If you don't have the cash replace it with sweat equity.

But that's up to you.

IMO

BC

[JoeKitchen]

It is not about persistence or making it (or not), being successful, etc...

The question is "WHY WOULD ANYONE PAY FOR CONTENT IF IT IS NOT BY SOMEONE FAMOUS ?"

And, imo, it is indeed a phenomenal observation. Just think about it. Why would you pay?

That is kind of a depressing idea, and, if you truly believe in it, well, then, I feel sorry for you. 

I on the other hand believe the glass is always half full. 

[eronald]

That is kind of a depressing idea, and, if you truly believe in it, well, then, I feel sorry for you. 

I on the other hand believe the glass is always half full.

The guy who told me that made a very good career out of buying content.

I have a crap**y web site where I posted a port of science software (Octave for Mac). People download this all the time, never donate, and what is more pester me for free support. What is funny is that a lot of them are well paid  individuals in tech teams and *need* to install this, but still EXPECT CONTENT TO BE FREE; they won't pay ANYTHING, something somehow prevents them. Their institution could pay ... I exchanged emails with a professor at a US institution who wanted me to explain the install process to a student; the student was "too poor to pay" but still had a current Mac.  The professor who was using this for an assignment and whose job it was didn't think that actually getting her own mind round the problem was worth it.  The funniest email was from a female techie at Caltech who didn't know how to install a piece of software but saw no reason to pay for help ... and explained that what she was doing was only "evaluation". And by the way, one guy who won a Nobel Prize in economics asked me no questions whatsoever and simply sent some money. I presume he was competent enough not to need help, and a bit older than the others.

The new mantra for the millenials really is CONTENT IS FREE, unless there is a ceremonial "style" reason why you pay for it, ie. it involves famous people.

Edmund

[torger]

I don't think you can compare software with photography, as the open-source tradition in software is quite "old", you have the Free Software Foundation etc. Especially in the university environments and Unix operating systems this is a strong culture. I've made quite a few open-source things and not made a dime from it, like many many other before me. In parallel I've had paid work of closed-source software which is how I make my living.

The reason most make open-source software is not to make money, but it's a form of satisfying donation to the public, and if the software is free it's easier to get users, the "audience" to us programmers. It's also often the case that the development work that gives you money is "mediocrity" work, integrating databases and making yet another app, while with free software you if you want to really push the limits and just do interesting things which can be very satisfying. That's why user interface generally suck in free software, as everyone wants to be coding the complex algorithms inside.

But sure I can also get a bit annoyed by people's huge acceptance to pay a lot for hardware, and then nothing for software. Like buying camera gear for $50k and complaining about the cost of Photoshop...

[razrblck]

I know of a photo store here, rather big, they spent a few tens of thousands of Euro to renew the place, buy new studio equipment, new printers (of which there's an Epson 9800) etc. They are still using the early version of Adobe cloud products because they are all pirated. They don't even have original Windows licenses (which come with hardware, but they skipped on new computers as well buying from "a friend").

Frankly, I have no idea. For such a business the cost of a useful CC suite would be covered by the OM-D bodies they sell in a week. The shop is run by a guy in his 50s with a Mercedes and all kinds of expensive photo gear you can imagine.

[landscapephoto]

That is kind of a depressing idea, and, if you truly believe in it, well, then, I feel sorry for you. 

I on the other hand believe the glass is always half full.

It is not really depressing. All what it means is that one must first work at getting famous.

[landscapephoto]

I don't think you can compare software with photography

Sure you can. Most of today's images are given out for free on sharing sites like instagram, tumblr, facebook...

It does not mean photographers can't make money just like it does not mean software developers can't make money. Both can make money by working for hire (producing images or software on order) or by being famous (and then get paid for the content they like to produce).

[torger]

Ok, I'll start charging for my software when I become famous

[eronald]

Typical comment from those who are a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.

I would hope that most photographers are paid for their hard work, skill and talent.

I will leave you with hope. My impression is that we have the same distribution as for income in the general population - about 100 guys earn 50% of the fees. d'you think  most of us are being paid a million per click? 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/businessman-buys-photograph-of-a-potato-for-1m-a6831681.html

Edmund

Edmund

[Craig Lamson]

Never heard of him.


Edmund

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt

[eronald]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt

Ah. No wonder I was feeling culturally alienated.

Edmund

[Harold Clark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt

I knew John Galt the photographer when I lived in Ottawa in the late 70s. He very generously lent me his darkroom ( I didn't have one ) for an all night printing session of rush B&W prints from an evening corporate shoot.

[epines]

Have you done any real world comparison at all? If so, then you should have seen enough difference. I have done many, and if I include the tests done by Doug from DT as well, the conclusion is obvious. There is clearly an advantage of DR for these Sony CMOS sensors when you compare them against Canon or CCD.

There's something that's has stuck with me about this thread. I don't understand the noisy examples that people are posting. There were a few in the above post (cropped in on a dark 4x5 camera in a shop window), and Erik Kaffehr's post with the dark piano cover showed the same thing. Is this really what people are getting from MFDBs at base ISO, with shadows pushed? These examples are far noisier than what I get on my H5D50, and what I got on my H3DII-39 (both CCDs).

Take a look at the attached:
1) The full frame, shot yesterday, straight from the H5D50, base ISO, tripod.
2) 100% crop on the rear tire. The top of the tire, just behind the orange reflectors, is black with faint detail.
3) Same crop, with the Shadow Fill slider dragged all the way to the right (to 100). Shadows still nice and clean.

[landscapephoto]

There's something that's has stuck with me about this thread. I don't understand the noisy examples that people are posting.

Because you are using your camera as the manufacturer intended and dematricing the images with Phocus, while the noisy examples are posted by people who insist that only raw images dematriced with home-brewed software without any noise reduction is the real deal.

Of course, with cmos sensors, the manufacturer has the capability to implement noise reduction directly on the sensor and some people suspect that the "raw" data coming out of these sensor is already cooked.