Dear all,

I am new or very very new to stock footage, Could you please suggest 1 site for stock?
Did some photos earlier on is, ss, fotolia, dt and 123rf.
Closed account on ss and closing on 123rf.

In my mind is Storyblock or Pond 5, anyone of you experienced seniors could aide some light? Thank you.

Regards
SK

Thank you very much!

pond5,ss,adobe....other agencies are a waste of time...

Quote from: sanjiv on February 01, 2021, 17:04

Dear all,

I am new or very very new to stock footage, Could you please suggest 1 site for stock?
Did some photos earlier on is, ss, fotolia, dt and 123rf.
Closed account on ss and closing on 123rf.

In my mind is Storyblock or Pond 5, anyone of you experienced seniors could aide some light? Thank you.

Regards
SK

If you want only 1 � go istock exclusive. They have their upload/submit/keywording tool (deepmeta) and this will be easier.
But if you want go professional and earn more �  upload to major 5: shutterstock, adobe, pond5, istock, videohive. You can also try storyblocks. But, as I know, they don't accept new contributors. And, from professional perspective, don't accept scam advises about blackbox or wirestock. Better go iStock exclusive if you want easier way.

Be aware though that iStock don't accept editorial/unreleased footage, so being exclusive there might restrict what you can upload, depending what sort of material you produce, as you can't then upload it elsewhere either - although recently they did offer to take unreleased editorial footage on Getty, which would be good, though I've not done any yet.  But I don't know if that offer extends to new contributors;  I've been on iStock a long time.

I upload to Pond5, Shutterstock and Adobe, plus some to iStock.

Hi there i'm a fellow newbie on the footage front. What quality do you upload, i've tried a ProRes file but a few seconds file is huge so wanted to know if that should be the standard or can i lower the quality a bit?

Quote from: rushay on March 25, 2021, 03:02

Hi there i'm a fellow newbie on the footage front. What quality do you upload, i've tried a ProRes file but a few seconds file is huge so wanted to know if that should be the standard or can i lower the quality a bit?

Prores if you shoot 10 bit or raw. H264 if you shoot 8bit.
Some agencies (like artgrid) accept only ProresHQ. Pond5 has an option for additional raw or non graded Prores. So it's up to you. But prores is preferred.

Thank you for that info.


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Pond5 and Adobe are kings of the game in the footage department. Forget Istock and SS pennies for clips and getting worse by the day. You will only devaluate your work and clap to your abusers.

Videohive you can dictate your prices and commission is not bad.

Don't listen to advices like this.
If you want to be professional � look what professionals do. All of top authors/studios upload to ss and istock

So you are a professional. I doubt it. I am for the last 25 years as a photographer the last 13 living only from stock.  Do you live from Stock ? If so you will not soon if you keep uploading to Istock and SS. I plan to keep living from this in the next 3 years at least. And not in the Ukraine but in western Europe where cost of living is much more expensive.  Planning ahead of that in this convoluted industry is too unreliable.


Don't listen to advices like this.
If you want to be professional � look what professionals do. All of top authors/studios upload to ss and istock


Was that a joke or are you serious? You recommend SS and IS, two of the lowest paying video sites on the planet.

If ss and is make 25-30% of income in big portfolio � why give it up?
Also, there's big community of istock exclusive authors who live from istock and, I'm sure, they wouldnt agree with your position about their only stock agency 🙂
I also can recommend storyblocks. But I'm not sure if they accept new contributors.

This is excellent advice! Although I've never seen a professional telling someone to ignore advice from another professional.

It's not professional to give up part of income. But he gives advice about this 🙂 When you live from this, you should maximize income. Istock and ss make weighty part of my income and some people, that I know.
If I recall it right, maybe it was you, who wrote something like this in another topic: "until agency gives at least 1$ why give it up"?

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 30, 2021, 08:03

Was that a joke or are you serious? You recommend SS and IS, two of the lowest paying video sites on the planet.

If ss and is make 25-30% of income in big portfolio � why give it up?
Also, there's big community of istock exclusive authors who live from istock and, I'm sure, they wouldnt agree with your position about their only stock agency 🙂
I also can recommend storyblocks. But I'm not sure if they accept new contributors.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on March 30, 2021, 16:23

This is excellent advice! Although I've never seen a professional telling someone to ignore advice from another professional.

It's not professional to give up part of income. But he gives advice about this 🙂 When you live from this, you should maximize income. Istock and ss make weighty part of my income and some people, that I know.
If I recall it right, maybe it was you, who wrote something like this in another topic: "until agency gives at least 1$ why give it up"?

Dayum straight... never quite understood people who go out of their way to earn nothing. It's like... "I was earning $1000 a month which I was happy with, but now I'm earning $250 a month which I'm not happy with, so I'm going to remove all of my items so that I'll earn $0 a month, which I'll be happier with than earning $250". Does not compute.

If the agencies are squeezing every last penny from our work then we may as well too... and the market is going to do whatever it is going to do whether we upload to x, y and z agency or not.

Yes, if every single one of us stopped uploading to one specific agency then that one specific agency will shut down, but that's never going to happen. I mean, Shutterstock saw less than a 1% drop in content from the supposed boycott which had been replaced by new content before the week was out.

Our influence on the future of stock is a lot less than you think, and whatever the future looks like it's going to be dictated more by buyers and agencies than it is us lot.