New laptop. No Adobe products whatsoever.

 So I got a new Dell XPS 17" 9700 Windows 10 Pro based laptop.  The laptop has an Intel i7-10750H CPU clocked at 2.60GHz which goes up to 5.0GHz I believe.  I got RAM maxed out at 64GB which runs at 2966MHz which is fast but it's not the fastest out there.  It still beats the RAM that Apple puts in its MacBook Pro laptops.  I maxed out the hard drive specs as well going with the 2TB of storage.  The nice thing about this laptop is that it takes 2 internal NVME m.2 SSD drives.  I have one on order coming in this Tuesday.  I also bought two Samsung portable SSD T5 accounts.  They're both 2TB SSD drives and are awfully quick.  The 4K 17" laptop is spectacular. 

I got the laptop for editing photos and videos that I submit to micro stock agencies.  I tested out Adobe Lightroom CC yesterday and the computer almost caught fire because the fans were working so hard and fast, the laptop nearly elevated itself.  I have the Affinity suite of software installed on my new laptop.  No issues whatsoever.  The computer is very silent.  The fans don't turn on and the computer doesn't want to melt away from the heat.

Adobe needs to completely rewrite its software.  And I mean all of the software.  For the system to ramp up like that where the fans are at 100% is unacceptable.  I tried editing photos in Lightroom CC and it was such an awful experience.  Affinity Photo is so much better.  I also purchased the Luminar Suite of photo editing apps and they run silent as well without the fans ramping up.  I haven't tried editing any video yet as I need to go shoot some footage.  I use Wondershare Filmora Pro to edit videos.  I will be testing that over the weekend.

Overall I'd give this laptop a 10/10 on performance.  The laptop also looks and feels fantastic.  I don't think I'd be going back to an Apple laptop or desktop for a while. 

So done with Shutterstock

 On June 1st, 2020, Shutterstock pretty much screwed over their contributors.  I used to make a minimum of $0.36 a download for any picture.  I used to make a minimum of $15-20 for a video download.  Now, it's $0.10 for a photo download and $0.34 a video download.  So basically getting screwed.  Under those new sales figures, I'd cash out maybe once every six months.  If I was lucky.  I disabled my portfolio immediately on June 1st.  Shutterstock basically became iStock which won the race to the bottom.  I even made a video which is published on YouTube.

If you are a contributor on Shutterstock, please consider disabling your portfolio until Shutterstock reverts its payment plan to contributors.  I had 15,600+ photos and 1,560 video clips.  6 years of hard work shooting, editing and uploading.  Shutterstock needs to understand that I do this as a passion. I love photography.  I love shooting video.  If Shutterstock doesn't change, I hope they go down in flames.  In the meantime, if you need photos, you can go to my Adobe stock portfolio.  If you need video, you can go to my Pond5 portfolio.

Some weather rolling in

 

Shot these photos off of the balcony on the 9th floor of our building.  We were supposed to get heavy rain and tornadoes but not even a drop of rain.  The sky was rather interesting non the less.  Both shots were shot with the Sony a7RII handheld.  Both will be available for sale on my site soon.

What are your Pro Photographer moves?

So what are some of your pro photographer moments?  Forgetting the lens cap on your lens?  Dead batteries in the camera? Forgotten batteries at home?  Full SD card?  You forget your SD card at home?  It’s all happened to everyone at some point.  Part of the job right.  Tell me what else has happened to you while you’re out with the camera.

The above shot was taken with the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Photography in the time of COVID-19

Photography, especially, landscape, nature, wildlife, astrophotography is probably the best type of photography to learn and do while social distancing in the time of COVID-19.  You are surrounded by nature socially distancing from everyone.  No one is around you.  You’re out in the fresh air.  It’s fantastic.  

These four photos were taken in Moosecreek, Ontario which is situated roughly halfway between Ottawa and Montreal.  The sky glow in the bottom picture is actually sky glow from Montreal which is about 45 minutes east of the location.  It’s almost like photographing the night sky in daylight which is not good.

The shots were taken with the Sony a7R Mark II with the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens.  Pretty good ISO at 1600.  Hardly any noise.  All photos were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and the 512GB hard drive.  All pictures were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro in Affinity Photo. I am using the Apple Magic keyboard to type this and it’s actually an amazing typing experience this blog.  My configuration consists of the 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9” using the Magic Keyboard to type and the Magic Mouse as my primary pointing device.  I am using the USB-C card reader made by Apple to get all my photography.  I also have the second version of the Apple Pencil for very specific editing.

I’ve gone out twice to do astrophotography in the last 2 months which is twice more than I’ve done in the last several years.  It took me a while to find focus since I’ve never used this camera for astrophotography before but I think the pictures came out very well.

I think this summer, the fiancée and I will head up to the Algonquin Radio Telescope for night and do some photography from there.  I haven’t been there in a few years and I need to revisit the place with my new photography setup.  

Review of Adobe Stock. And it’s not good.

I started with Adobe stock about 2.5 weeks ago.  I realize my portfolio is small.  About 1150 photos and clips.  I’ve sold two photos on there within the last couple of weeks.  When I started with Shutterstock, I sold a photo on my first day and I had 7 photos accepted.  My portfolio grew and so did the sales.  I have 15,000+ photos and 1,500+ footage clips on Shutterstock.  I make sales daily pretty much on Shutterstock.  Weekends are a disaster on every micro stock agency.  So I should not be surprised that I’m getting very view sales on both Adobe and Shutterstock.  I typically now sell 46 to 60 shots on Shutterstock monthly.  That’s down from 120+ monthly from 2 years ago with a portfolio that is 75% larger.  My portfolio is varied on both sites.  I’m adding to Adobe and Shutterstock daily.  I’m hoping sales increase next year when I move out west.  The last two days here in Ottawa have been miserable weather wise with rain and more rain every day.

I thought Adobe Stock would be much better than it is.  Reading the reviews of other contributors I thought I would get a few more sales than I have.  I am going to continue to upload shots that I’ve taken over the last seven or so years, picking out the best ones and adding them to both Adobe and Shutterstock if I haven’t already done so.  Pond5 and Storyblocks aren’t doing that well either.  Sales have fallen over the past two years to very minimal.  Maybe one or two sales on Pond5 a month.  Storyblocks has a subscription model on their site now.  I sell less than twenty dollars on average over the past two months which is atrocious.  

Also, I’ve decided, today, I am going to buy the Sony A7RII camera, lens and battery grip when I save enough photography money.  I want to do this as my full time job.  I will be using my Canon Vixia HF R800 for my YouTube channel I think.  As good as the Sony RX100 Mark VII is at video, the 2018 Apple iPad Pro with iPadOS just doesn’t function well.  It takes too long to import gigabytes of data just for a 10 minutes video.  The Sony file structure doesn’t work well with iPadOS.  

I just have to weather the next 5 months here in Ottawa till I move.  It’s just very depressing.

Just an update

I have a huge conundrum right now.  I have the Sony RX100 Mark VI and the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  They are both my primary cameras for my stock photography and landscape photography business.  I want to move away from the I.T business and do the photography business full time.  I started this I.T contract just over a month ago.  I know I’m not getting extended past December 31st of this year.  Our apartment lease is done at the end of March 2020.  At that point I want to move to Calgary to be closer to the mountains, nature and wildlife.  I am currently saving all my money for a Sony A7RII camera body, lens, battery grip.  I figure it’s going to cost me about $4500 for the camera, lens, battery grip combo.  I think the Sony A7RII is more of a professional camera setup.  Since I shoot majority stock which only requires a 5 megapixel resolution sensor.  The Sony A7RII has a 42.4 megapixel full frame sensor.  I think I would only print 13” by 19” if I choose to get back into printing my photography.  The Sony RX100 Mark VI and VII are good enough to print 13” by 19” prints.  I’m currently planning a YouTube channel as well to market my photography.  I don’t do the Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc marketing since I can’t stand Facebook and all its scary privacy breaches.

For me, it’s not the equipment that matters.  I’m more worried about the perception. The Sony RX100 line of cameras are awesome cameras for travel photography and videography.  If people see the Sony RX100 Mark VII in the field used for landscape photography versus a Sony A7RII camera with a Sony 24-240MM lens, they’re more likely to perceive better quality coming out of the bigger Sony A7RII camera.  I have until March 31, 2020 to think about my conundrum.  I love the portability of the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  It allows me to take excellent photos and videos as does the Sony A7RII camera.  I just wish my photography would sell better.

As you can probably tell, I have extreme doubt about my abilities to take this on full time.  I just don’t know if I can make it.

Adobe stock first sale

I’ve been on Adobe Stock for a week now.  I have 800+ photos on the site.  Today I sold my first photo on the site.  It’s a shot from Monument Valley which I visited about 3 years ago.  You can click the following link to see the photo and I hope you view some other photos I have for sale.  The photo is ok I guess.  Not my best work but I like it.  My plan is to add about 100-150 photos/clips a day to my Adobe portfolio.  Hopefully in a month or so, I’ll have 3-4000 photos available for sale on Adobe.  I have 15,000+ photos and 1,500+ footage clips on Shutterstock.  I hope Shutterstock lets me download my footage clips since I lost them all when my hard drive got corrupt when I moved last year.

I really fell in love with the southwest American landscape when I was there back in 2016.  I am going to move to Calgary in April of next year to be closer to the national parks in Canada and the United States.  I love photographing the landscape of the parks.  It is truly beautiful out there.  I think I won’t need a tent or anything.  Just sleep in the back of my vehicle.  The problem I’ll have is finding a toilet.  I’ll just have to watch what I eat so I don’t need to visit Mother Nature as often.

Adobe Stock

So after a few years of avoiding the website, I am on the Adobe Stock site.  My portfolio is very small as I just started uploading there this week.  I will be working over the next 2-3 months in adding more photos and videos to the site.  I’ll be going out more on weekends doing more of my photography.  I need to add more photos and videos to my Shutterstock, Pond5, Storyblocks and now Adobe Stock portfolios.  I just want to give people more options to buy my photography and my videos.  You can also go to my own personal website and buy photos there to hang on any wall at home or office.

I wanted to go do some photography after work but it looks like we’re going to get rained on starting today and ending at some point tomorrow.  This weekend, the girlfriend and I are heading down to Lake Placid, New York.  She’s never been and I haven’t been in about 3-4 years.  The fall colours are amazing this year in the north east of Canada and the United States.  Hope you will buy some of my prints.

Back to using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC

So after several months of using my 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9" with the 512GB hard drive, I am back to using my 2013 Apple MacBook Pro with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC.  It is totally frustrating.  I've been using my Sony RX100 Mark VII as my main photography camera.  Apple has not updated the RAW engine so my photos are incompatible with iPadOS.  They are incompatible with Windows 10 as well.  Recently Adobe released the RAW software for the Sony RX100 Mark VII and the Sony AR7 Mark IV.  I absolutely love my Sony RX100 Mark VII.  It's my go to camera/camcorder.  I know the 2013 Apple MacBook Pro can handle editing pictures and 1080 video from the Sony RX100 Mark VI and VII.  Just takes a while to edit 4K footage.  

I was at Mud Lake for a bit today and I was thinking that I really want to use the photos from the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  I read somewhere online that Adobe finally updated the RAW plugins for its software suites to finally use the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  I'm going to use Lightroom Classic CC on my MacBook Pro for a while.  

I really wanted to use my iPad Pro with the iPadOS but iPadOS and the photography software is just not there yet.  Maybe give it another year and it'll be there but it's not there yet unfortunately.  The apps I use have to be fully upgraded for use with iPadOS and external hard drive support.  I'm just going to use Lightroom Classic and Affinity Photo even though I do have access to Photoshop.  I like Affinity Photo much better.

Finally on Youtube

So I decided for a different format for my YouTube channel.  I hate being on camera so I will just combine all my photos and video clips and put them into a video.  I don't have any experience with film making so I will learn along the way.  I hope you join me https://bit.ly/2kGDsso.

Adobe is funny

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen Adobe advertise a lot on YouTube and other photography sites.  I haven't seen Adobe advertise their Lightroom and Photoshop subscription packages for a few years.  Not since I left a couple of years ago.  I just couldn't justify the $13 and change a month just for Lightroom and Photoshop.  I did the majority of my edits in Lightroom CC now Lightroom CC Classic.  I went into photoshop maybe 5-6 times for every 100 edits.  Even if.  I purchased ON1 Photo Camera Raw 18.5 about 2 years ago for around $90 or so.  I get free upgrades and I actually own the license to the software now.

If I wanted to edit footage on my laptop, I would have to spend about $60 a month on Adobe's subscription model.  For the edits I do, Wondershare's Filmora 9 was perfect for me.  I just colour correct, sometime straighten my footage and remove the noise if there is any.  I paid about $180 for ON1 Photo Raw and Filmora 9.  I get free updates and I own the software for a one time payment.  Now that I edit mostly on my 2018 Apple iPad Pro, I use various software that cost me in total, less than $40 combined.  I get free updates and upgrades, if any cost less than $5.  Why spend $60+ a month for Adobe's product?

Subscription services like Adobe's are great for the company and investors.  For folks like me who shoot semi-professorially,  it's not worth it.  If I was working for a company with staff on board and the company could write it off, fine.  Just as long as someone else pays for it.

I try and get everything right in camera so I don't have to use software to edit the kaka out of everything.  That has always and always will be my philosophy.

Going computerless

So I just watched an interesting video on YouTube.  It's a video by Unbox Therapy about ditching your computing hardware for an Apple iPad Pro.  Granted I don't do much on my 2015 Apple iMac or my 2013 MacBook Pro that I can't do on an iPad.  I just edit my photography and footage that I shoot for my photography business.  I can write and edit any document on an iPad with Apple Pages. I can do spreadsheets with Apple Numbers.  I use Apple Safari for my blog.  I can edit my photography with Affinity Photo.  I can edit my footage with iMovie.  I honestly don't need Final Cut Pro X on my laptop.  Right now all I shoot is 5-60 second clips and edit them for stability and shakiness and a bit of noise reduction.  

All I would really need is an SD card dongle to transfer in my footage and photos.  I would probably get the maxed out Apple iPad Pro with the 1TB storage option.  I'd get the Apple Pencil 2 and the keyboard to type and to protect the screen.  I think the Apple iPad Pro would just add to my minimalist life style that I am aiming for.  One of the failures of iOS is the lack of support for external hard drives.  I'd like to export my photos and footage to an external hard drive and use an FTP client to upload my files to Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks.  But I think with the 1TB storage hard drive, it would take me a while to fill that up.  I'd eventually clean up the hard drive by getting rid of old and unnecessary footage.  I recently lost my 6TB hard drive storing my footage.  The hard drive just failed on me.  I pay about $1.50 a month for 50GB of storage with Apple so I can store unique footage and photos there.

I think the Apple iPad Pro is 90% of a laptop right now.  If I could just attach a USB-C hard drive to it and export my footage and photos to it, it would meet all of my needs.  Also, mouse support would be fantastic.  The Apple iPad Pro does have Bluetooth support so you should be able to pair if with the Apple mouse.  The file system in iOS should also be changed to support drop and drag functionality. 

The Apple iPad Pro can run Affinity Photo for my photo editing and iMovie for my footage editing.  With the recent Apple iPad, you can run Adobe Photoshop on the Apple iPad Pro.  So the software and hardware is getting there.  It's close.  It's not there yet though.

My most popular image

My most popular image so far has only been online for just over a year.  I shot it in Banff, Alberta while on a weekend.  I've been doing micro stock for about 4 years now and this image just keeps selling on average every 3 days.  At first I thought it would be a throw away image when I shot it and looked at it on the computer.  Then I had the bright idea of turning it into a black and white image.  It got accepted and I keep selling it.  You can find the image here.

It's been a while

Sometime, life gets in the way.  I've been doing a lot of photography but haven't been posting to the blog.  I wish I could post daily but I've been uploading my fall photos to Shutterstock, Bigstock etc.  Just trying to get more money.  I recently booked a vacation to Arizona.  I'm going to the Grand Canyon, the horse shoe bend near Bend and Monument Valley.  

The above picture is from Mud Lake located here in Ottawa.  I've been there a lot this fall doing video work.  I was able to get a juvenile egret up close which is awesome.  

July is the slow time!

The summer months are the slowest times for photo sales.  At least from my experience.  As people take vacations, they purchase less from micro stocks where I do pretty much all of my business.  I travel as well to various parks to do my photography.  The above shot is from Barron Canyon in Algonquin Park, Ontario.  Took it just before I got to the Algonquin Radio Observatory.  I'm thinking next weekend going to Algonquin Park again.  But this time to the southern Highway 60 corridor.  There are a lot of moose sightings.  I also want to do some astrophotography imaging.  Hopefully the weather will co-operate.  If not Algonquin Park, maybe one of the other parks which are located 2-3 hours just west of Ottawa.  Weekends in Canada are just amazing with the weather and scenery.  

I typically go to Parc Omega in the fall and winter seasons as the landscapes are amazing as the tree leaves turn colours.  I hope to make it to Tremblant as well for a day or two.  It's a good time to be living and doing photography.  The technology is just amazing.

Shooting panoramas

Did another walk around from where I work to the Museum of Canadian History.  This walk takes me about 90 to 120 minutes to complete as I stop along the way to take photos.  Today I decided to shoot some panoramas with my Canon EOS 6D and the Canon EF f2.8 70-200M L series lens.  I gripped the camera vertically and started shooting at 70MM.  I stitched about 8-10 vertical shots in Adobe Lightroom CC and colour corrected, removed sensor noise, corrected white balance and then posted on this blog.

I didn't get to edit many more shots as I had a few errands to run after work.  Tomorrow will be the day for editing.  Actually maybe next week as we're supposed to get sunshine till sometime next week.  I want to be outside and use my camera.  Editing is for those rainy, miserable days.

The sink hole

Finally made it to the sink hole in downtown Ottawa.  Pretty funny to see it in person.  A lot of people just watching the workers and equipment fill in the hole.  What a mess!

Noiseless Pro

Noiseless Pro is a noise reduction plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom which reduces the noise or grain in your night or indoor photography.  Currently it only runs on Apple Mac computers.

As someone who shoots outdoors in low light or in night time, there is a lot of noise and grain in my photography.  Even using the latest camera bodies and lenses, you will get noise and grain.  Noiseless Pro gets rid of the noise and grain artifact in the photos quite easily.  You can check my night photography on my website or my microstock portfolio here and here.

I have been using Noiseless Pro for about 9 months now and have been going thru my previous shots and running them thru Noiseless Pro.  Everything is being accepted for sale whereas before it was not accepted because of high noise values.  The software is on the pricey side but you do get what you pay for.  The noise reduction in Photoshop and Lightroom CC is good, but not as good as Noiseless Pro.  That is why I would ask you to try and buy it here.  Purchasing the product also helps me out as I am an affiliate of MacPhun.

Shot this in July 2015 with the Canon EOS 6D and the Canon EF f2.8 17-35MM L series lens.  I think I had the lens about a month and I was still testing the lens out.  It's a great Canon lens.  

I'm editing a few photos from the past couple of years as it's raining pretty much the whole weekend. Trying a new technique in editing and re uploading the files to Shutterstock, Bigstockphoto, Alamy and Fotolia.  Most have already been accepted on Bigstockphoto so I'm just waiting for the others to catch up.  Hopefully they'll be accepted soon.