For white isolations on a budget, you can get a cheap light tent online – honestly even better yet, you can construct your own practically for free with an old cardboard box lines with white paper, or cut out into a hollow cube, just covering the sides with white plastic garbage bag. Some have used a white shower curtain as well. The light once shot in through a strobe, through the sides or top, it bounces around like a superball. You can even get great results on a bright overcast day, using this type of setup, or a bright sunny day if you diffuse the light coming in on the top side of the light box. After you get it as best as you can in camera, you can later use Photoshop to remove any dark areas left, and to get it perfect http://arenacreative.com/blog/tutorials/dodge-tool-for-cleaning-up-white-isolations/ This old old old tutorial I made shows how you can even use this method with a really badly taken photo. This was just a pair of sunglasses shot on a white piece of poster board or paper, on a picnic table with my old canon powershot point and shoot.

7d, 5d, who knows… I have gone back and forth so many times. I’m still trying to decide, myself – but I do hear the 7D RAW processing is much better using Lightroom 3, slightly lower noise levels as well. The popup flash is nice in minor cases when you need a bit of fill light, but I can live without that. I think I still will always long for full frame quality, so I think I am leaning more towards the 5d2 once they hit the used markets at a lower price. I bought my 40D for $450 and it’s been serving me very well for these last couple years. I can’t pay full price for anything, business expense or not. Being frugal helps tremendously when you are trying to keep overhead as low as possible to keep your profit margin higher, and to grow your business. Once I hit limits on what I can do with my certain setup, I’ll definitely upgrade my kit. For now, seeing that photography isn’t the only type of images I produce, it suits me. What suits you might be much different.

I just saw your 7D vs 5D II article. I’m a huge fan of 7D and the limiting factor of diffraction and outresolving even the best lenses facts are really disappointing. So which one are you planning to buy in the future? Or maybe non of them? I want to have a Nikon D3s but it’s out of my reach at the moment. For the time being I’m leaning towards 600D with a kit lens and that prime you mentioned, or sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 instead of kit lens as I really love to focus manually and I want to make some short movies and documentaries where I’ll need manual focus ring and I’ve read in photozone.de that manual focus is next to impossible with that kit lens although it is really a sharp lens as you mentioned.

Thanks for the suggestion to the question ‘What kind of photos sells the best?’. Yeah, I myself really hate to copy others’ style. I don’t even follow the rules of third although I find myself shooting with the rules of the third without occurring that on my mind while composing pictures so many times.

I have a question. How do you isolate fruits, people, objects etc with a white background like this http://arenacreative.com/food_drink_g37-two_ripe_strawberries_p6317.html

http://arenacreative.com/objects_g55-game_controller_w_clipping_path_p5457.html
Do you use some kind of papers, lighting etc or use photoshop?

I agree with you, money isn’t everything and I too don’t live to eat but the vice verse applies to me as well. It’s my pleasure to talk to you and I’ve really already learned a lot from you through this blog, your site and by interacting with you through this comment page

I would recommend any basic DSLR and kit lens, to start out… http://amzn.to/jx3CM4 once you feel you have reached your limits with your point and shoot. Pretty soon I am going to make a “What’s In My Gear Bag” post with my equipment list, and I think you might be very surprised to see I don’t even own very many high end lenses. I shoot a 10-megapixel crop sensor 40D still, battery gripped, with the hand grip instead of the strap – just the feel I prefer. If you like Canon, I’d say get any EOS series camera, even a 20D, 40D, or Rebel used at a cheap price, and start there with basic lenses. 50mm f1.8 is still a lens I use regularly, and it’s only $80 USD. Same with the 18-55 IS http://amzn.to/lBhm74 which has really low CA, tack sharp, great autofocus and color. Variable aperture when you zoom is a little of a pain, but I’ve learned to work around it. For models I mainly use friends, family, people I meet day to day. The 7D is a great choice, as is the 17-55 IS – I would love to grab one of those. I briefly purchased a 24-70 but it was so heavy for my liking. I’ll get the 24-70 f2.8 L when I upgrade to a DSLR that is full frame. On a crop sensor, you’re much better off with the 17-55 f2.8 IS. If you want to go el cheapo, for $100 used USD you can get an 18-55 IS kit lens, aperture range f3.5-5.6 and I honestly still shoot with that little plastic fantastic lens regularly. If you know what you’re doing with it, you learn how to squeeze the most juice out of it. I think it’s the most lens for the money, along with the 50mm f1.8 http://amzn.to/lsLo92 prices are a little bit higher right now since the Japan Tsunami and earthquakes hit, shutting down production operations

What sells the best? Still trying to figure that one out myself I think anything will sell, as long as it’s done well enough. Be creative, and approach niche subjects as best as you can. Don’t copy others, get ideas from viewing other photos in the world around you, but try to put your own spin on the subjects, perspectives, etc.

I am the least nationalistic person you will meet, as well. I’m sure India is a gorgeous place, and as much as I would love to move to a far away place and live like a king on the same income I currently make, the fear of doing such a thing outweighs the perks for me. I’m mostly Italian (but don’t speak the languge) I only speak English and a bit of Spanish, and I know very little about the area of Asia and Asia minor. In the end, I think we all are just more comfortable staying in a place we are familiar with, and close to family. Not sure I could leave everything and everyone I know behind just for the prospect of living at a much lower cost somewhere else, it’s just that money isn’t everything to me. It’s just a means to an end, we need it to get by – but that’s it. It’s all just vanity, past your basic needs. I’m a strong believer in trying to keep a simple eye. If things were so bad where I was struggling for even basic needs like a roof over our heads and food and water, or lived in a war torn area, I would definitely consider relocating.

I didn’t realize that’s where Mount Everest was! Very cool

Best wishes in your endeavors, and thanks for all of your great comments – much appreciated. There is very little interaction on this blog, so it’s nice to talk to someone like you on here that is so like minded.

Could you tell me which camera and lenses did you use at the starting of selling photos to microstock and which camera and lens are you using now. My uncle is a rich person and he was planning to sell a little part of his land and he had told me that he’d buy me a DSLR and a lens so I had thought of buying eos 7D with ef-s 17-55mm IS USM constant f/2.8 or ef 24-105L f/4. But due to some reason he didn’t sell. Now my father is saying that he’ll buy me a DSLR within 3 months but he can’t afford the 7D with such expensive lens. So I was thinking of 550D with Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8 – f/4 I think this lens cost around $450. Do you think an entry level dslr with a kit lens will do? Lets see how much I can make with my bridge camera before I can get a DSLR. Can you give me some advise on what kind of images sells the most (I can’t afford to hire people to pose as business people like Yuri Arcurs and others) besides business people? What’s your bestselling images? Can I see your photos in stcok sites?

I think you’ll like the nature of Nepal. Most of the degree holders earn about $200-$250 in a month and average people earn around $100 in a month. My friend’s mother earns $110 in a month and they both live with that money and even save $10-20 in a month. $100 in a month for a single person in Nepal is really enough unless you want to eat food items and alcohol imported from USA or European countries. Nepal has a rich geography. The mountainous north has eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains, including the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest, called Sagarmatha in Nepali.

This is from wikipedia In 1998, Microsoft Executive John Wood took a trekking vacation to Nepal. While backpacking in the Himalayas, he met a middle-aged Nepalese man who invited him to visit a school in a neighboring village. Hoping for a chance to “see the real Nepal,” John accepted the invitation.

Arriving at the school, John was shocked by its lack of educational opportunities and resources. When the school’s headmaster showed him the library, John saw that it contained only four books — backpacker castoffs — kept under lock and key.[3] John knows that his adult life was forever changed by the words of that headmaster, who said to him, “Perhaps, sir, you will someday come back with books.”[4]

Moved by that experience in Nepal, John enlisted friends and family to participate in a book drive for that school and, one year later, he returned to Nepal –- accompanied by his father –- to deliver 3,000 donated books, carried by a train of donkeys. In 1999, John left his career at Microsoft to devote himself full-time to helping bring high-quality educational resources to children in Nepal.

I’m not a nationalist, patriot. The world is one and I don’t give a shit about countries and boundaries.

Thank you.

I’ve got some experience with microstock photography, I participated into it over a year (my first months in stock industry). What can I say? Well it brings some money, but… why to do it if we can try normal stock agencies? Microstock agencies usually give You about 20% of the price of the image (they get 80% of it)… and so You get (in the best case) few $ from photograph. If You would sell the same image at normal stock agency like a Photoshelter (Now I’m photoshelter.com stock photographer) You get 70% of price (the agency takes only 30%). The price of image is far higher, and It can give You really nice income (for example, licence for publishing image at Bilboard in one country will bring You about 4000$ quit), If you sell Your Royalty Free license image at microstock it will cost only few bucks and they will be able to put it on every bilboard across the world with that silly price. Is it right? You paid few thousand bucks for camera body, lenses, flashlights, computer, and other things, You spend time to shoot, then edit and add keywords… they get 80% and… Is Your work worth so little money? I got one life, and want to get the best incomes from my work. That is why I left microstock (I still have in microstock portfolios some of my older, weak photographs from the beginning). Now every of my stock photographs are in Photoshelter. I do sale less photographs, but the incomes from these are far better than at all microstock sites I participated. Price Yourself.

From what I can see, although the business and lifestyle genres seems to be getting more and more saturated, it still seems to be the best selling sector. For the other categories, a much larger portfolio might be required to obtain substantial earnings compared to the best selling categories, say 3000-5000 images compared to 1000.

Now with the economy so bust I’m looking to do anything just to have a little bit of spending money, and stock’s been floating back into my brain. Hearing this very real view about what it’s like gives me a bit of hope that maybe it would be possible to supplement some income with it, somehow. I have no intentions of being a stock photographer as a living, but an extra $100 at the end of the month to put towards a new lens or something would be nice. Or as emergency cash. LOL

But the best part about it is that it’s refreshing to hear a real view on the whole matter. I manage a photography forum and one of our members can stop going on about stock photography and that he’s going to get into it. But in the same breath he can’t tell us how to properly expose a photo, and just bought his first lower-end DSLR at WalMart. I’ve shared this article there to hopefully help get his head out of the clouds, since neither myself nor my staff (one who does stock photography, even) have managed to get through to him. I hope you can.

Thanks for all the great information!

-Samantha Genier