Minimum camera for stock?

[baldmountain]

What is the minimum, (cheapest), camera you can use to take successful stock photos? I know you can take great art photos with a $4 yard sale camera, but I'm looking for the camera that you can use to take just about any stock picture and not have it rejected for quality. I have a pile of Nikon lenses so I'm looking for Nikon suggestions. Would a D40 work? Do I need something more like a D200? How about a used D50 or even D1X?

[jdepould]

If you can swing it a D200 would be good, but a D40 would work fine with good lenses. What kind of stock are you looking to do? I'd say lenses and tripod are more important than body.

[baldmountain]

Originally Posted by jdepould

What kind of stock are you looking to do?

That is a good question. Maybe some like this, but may be rejected for being to arty.



Maybe some backgrounds like:



Or some grunge like this:



I'll most likely be taking most of my stock with a AF Nikkor 1.8 50mm lens. And maybe some sports with a AF Nikkor 1:4-5.6 70-210mm which isn't perticularly well suited, but should work. The sports are mainly for moms through smugmug rather than stock.

The above were taken with a Nikon Coolpix P50 which is crap. I'm looking to upgrade to something suitable.

[dakwegmo]

Some stock sites require full sized images to be a minimum of 4 MP. If you tend to crop heavily, you might want more than the 6.0 mp that you get with the D40. The D40x or any of Nikon's current line of 10/12 MP sensor camera should give you plenty of room to work with.

[richsuk]

Originally Posted by dakwegmo

Some stock sites require full sized images to be a minimum of 4 MP. If you tend to crop heavily, you might want more than the 6.0 mp that you get with the D40. The D40x or any of Nikon's current line of 10/12 MP sensor camera should give you plenty of room to work with.

I was about to say something similar. Most stock sites require images to be at least a certain size. Getting a camera with the highest MP count you can will allow you to meet this criteria even if you have to crop.

Probably one of the few things where I would say MP count.

[jdepould]

D40x might run into noise issues, most stock sites are pretty picky about having clean images. Shooting sports with that setup is going to be a major pain.

[candleman]

stock is a tough game, its more aboutyour own ability to set the set-ups and backdrops.
been there, done that, I havn't me anyone that has said it was worth their time (esecially with Photoshelters demise..)

sotry, i'm not wanting to be discouraging. it is allot of work and keywordng eats time like an etheopian as a bbq.
but go for it and see how you feel.. do it. if you sell you sell. thats great.

so long as you can get more than 4mp you're ok.
personally i'd go for a D60
D60 is good.. its got all you need and some

in saying that the d40 is still good.. and far cheaper..
any dslr wi have the quality.

i was accepted to stock with just a p&s camera..

also,
the more resolution you can swing the more you can charge.
most stock sites i've used have prices set by resolution sold.. the bigger the picture.. the more valuable it is to be printed in a large size. and therefore you get more money.

[Sime]

Yep, it certainly depends on the stock site - some want minimum 50mb file size - I shoot stock with an 8.2mp Canon 30D which seems to do OK on some sites...

Sime

[baldmountain]

Thanks for all the input. Here is a bit more about why I'm considering stock. It's not that I expect to make much money. I probably won't.

Having read a few biographies I've noticed that most successful artists do some kind of apprenticeship. This paying-your-dues work forces the artist to learn the technical aspects of their art and in exchange gets to hone their creative style. Stock is going to be my apprenticeship. It will force me to work on the technical parts of taking a picture so that when I'm ready to do creative work the technical aspects will be second nature.

A little more about why I'm asking about cameras. I work at a company called Mobicious that runs a site called SnapMyLife. It's site that focuses on sharing photos from mobile phones. Since I wanted the site to be successful I started taking lots of pictures. I was soon disappointed with the quality of mobile phone cameras and the quality of the images I was taking. I upgraded to a Nikon point and shoot. The pictures were better, but I wanted more. I started reading books on composition. Technically I was OK, but I was taking snapshots.

Then I came across a stock site and decided to give it a try. I figured it would force me to learn to take good images.

Everything from my Nikon P&S was coming back rejected for composition. I saw that new pictures were being accepted that were very compositionally similar to what I was submitting. I then decided, (perhaps wrongly), that the images were probably compositionally OK, but that I was getting a generic rejection due to the quality of the images from my camera. Especially since I got the last rejection almost as soon as the image was finished uploading.

So that's my story. I don't want my pictures rejected for quality. They can be rejected because they are crummy snapshots. That I can fix by learning to take decent pictures. I want a decent enough camera so that my pictures will not be rejected for quality issues. The limiting factor is my budget.

[baldmountain]

Sorry, a little more. The apprenticeship also involves submitting a picture for all the DPS weekly assignments, (I missed Costumes, ), and the What Would You Do challenges. (WWYD is a lot of fun. )