The 500px Thread

[Rajah Sulayman]

I was surprised when my searches didn't turn one up, so I figured I may as well start one.

For those not yet familiar with it, 500px is a relatively new photo sharing site that... okay, yes. I know. Another one? But this one is a little different. Whereas Flickr is meant as a sort of "socially-oriented photodump" and SmugMug is meant as a sort of "pro-oriented photodump," 500px is more of a "pro-oriented online portfolio" than anything else.

The Best of the Best

500px repeatedly makes a point of saying "Only upload your best photos" and if you go from profile to profile, you'll find that most have very few photos in their collections. The average seems to be around 20-50 photos for the entire account, whereas that's the size of one of my average Flickr sets. The result, though, is glaringly obvious. Amazing photos abound, and while not all are winners, even the "mediocre" ones are worlds better than what you'd find on other photo-sharing sites. This is clearly a site with photographers in mind, and just as it's a site of photographers and for photographers, you can count on

Good Feedback

This is probably my favorite aspect to 500px. Rather than use some arcane algorithm based on favorites or number of comments to decide what's "Interesting," 500px keeps it simple: votes. Every photo has a Like and a Dislike button beside it, and you can cast your thumb up or down just like Caesar himself. These votes are then computed and turned into a score from 0 to 100 (photos with no votes just get an N/A) to let you know what the masses think of your image. And since "the masses" are primarily photographers and enthusiasts, you know that you're receiving informed opinions and not the cantankerous caterwauling of some computer. The best part? Photos ranked high enough wind up in the "Popular" pool, and if you have a photo that shows up there, you can expect

Visibility Galore

I've been on Flickr for over five years now. Never once have any of my photos appeared in the "Interesting" pool because I don't get a lot of comment traffic on any of my photos. Four days into my 500px membership, one of my photos got enough Likes to wind up in the Popular pool. In the following three days, my number of followers spiked from five (all friends) to seventy-eight. I received 7,580 views, 76 comments, 1 Free VAL offer from a nearby photographer, and a $30 filter suite from PSKiss. In three days. From one photo. 500px has done more for me as a photographer in a single week than Flickr has done in half a decade.

And that's not even the best part of all that visibility. It's the fact that the more views I get, the more my photos get rated, and the easier it makes

Culling the Herd

I've always hated sorting my portfolio because whenever I go through my work I know that I'm really only getting one opinion: mine. And my opinion is the most biased of them all; I've seen these photos again and again and again. I'm sick to death of them. Who am I to judge what's good and what isn't?

With the availability of all that feedback, though, I can poll the electorate to see which of my photos land and which ones miss the mark. Every day I'll upload a new photo that I think is one of my good ones. Some get immediate praise and reviews, and some languish in obscurity for days. The former get to live while the latter get deleted and replaced with new ones. The end result is a collection I can be proud of, and an easier short list of photos for

My Portfolio

Through a quick step-by-step process, you can organize your photos into various groups that show up in a proper portfolio. A nice feature for photographers that might not have their own dedicated portfolios on their sites, or even those of us that do. Management is a breeze, and there's a small selection of themes available to help customize your portfolio to your tastes. All of them look great, though, and while they're more "Generic Online Portfolio" than "whiz-bang custom jobbie," they're still pretty sharp and again, better than nothing.

One note: if you remove a photo from your gallery, it isn't automatically removed from your portfolio. Depending on how you use your account, this could either be a feature or an annoyance.




Wow. That post kinda got away from me. But, yeah. There it is. If you've got a 500px account please by all means share it here. Likewise, if you have questions, fire away. I'm not affiliated with the site so I might not be able to answer all questions, but I'll do what I can!

[Rajah Sulayman]

Oh yeah, and my own profile is at 500px / Mike Ricca

[DanielLane]

ok so it looks cool and all. I am definitely interested, but I have a question. I am using SmugMug as essentially my web site. People can browse through the photos and buy prints right there and I have to do nothing. They deal with the printing and shipping and everything. I can't seem to find anything that says this 500px does anything like that. Does it or no as far as you know?

[Rajah Sulayman]

Originally Posted by DanielLane

ok so it looks cool and all. I am definitely interested, but I have a question. I am using SmugMug as essentially my web site. People can browse through the photos and buy prints right there and I have to do nothing. They deal with the printing and shipping and everything. I can't seem to find anything that says this 500px does anything like that. Does it or no as far as you know?

Yup, you can have your own online store. Here's the cut/pasted blurb from the page under "Settings"

Introduction

Enabling the photo store is completely free (it is commission-based). By enabling photo store you can instantly start selling your photos with 500px. With worldwide community and 30+ million page views per month, we encourage our photographers to take advantage of this opportunity.

About Fotomoto

We partnered with Fotomoto, a company from San Francisco, to enable you to sell your photos on 500px. Fotomoto is an e-commerce system for photographers that takes the pain of selling photos out of the hands of the artist — leaving more time and energy to do what you do best: create stunning photographs. Take a tour to find out how Fotomoto works.

How it works

When you enable your store you will receive the email inviting you to register with Fotomoto. After you complete the registration, you will be able to set your prices and payment options. Fotomoto will do the rest — payment processing, printing and delivery to your customers.

What we make

Fotomoto takes 15% comission that is used to cover transaction costs, management and support. We take 5% to partially cover our costs of running the system. You are left with 80%, from which the cost of print is deducted. For example, you sell your print for $100. Fotomoto takes 15% of that, or $15, we take 5% ($5), leaving you with $80. The actual print costs $5 to make, leaving you with a neat profit of $75.

Pricing

You can set your own pricing, or simply accept the recommended default settings in your Fotomoto account.

[RLucas]

This looks pretty interesting! From what I viewed, most of the stuff on there is way beyond my scope! Some really really good images. I would almost be afraid to post any of my stuff there, but you never know until you try. It's nice to see so many good images in one place though.
I am assuming it is free, and to get all the stats, and traffic meters, you would need to upgrade? Right?

One more thing. The numbers on the lower left corners of the images are the rankings? Correct?

[Krusty79]

Sounds like it's worth a try. It would be nice to get more feedback on my shots. I can always delete my account if I don't like it.

I agree there are some really good shots there.

[Rajah Sulayman]

Originally Posted by RLucas

I am assuming it is free, and to get all the stats, and traffic meters, you would need to upgrade? Right?

From what I can tell, the only limitation on free accounts is the number of images you can upload a week (20). But seeing as the point of the site is quality over quantity, that shouldn't be much of a hindrance. Definitely enough to let you see if you like the site.

When I decided to get a membership I stopped by www.retailmenot.com (bookmark this site omg amazing) and found a 20% coupon code (FRIENDS) that brought the year's membership to $40.

One more thing. The numbers on the lower left corners of the images are the rankings? Correct?

Yup. I'm not entirely sure how they calculate the ranking, as it's not just [Likes minus Dislikes] (a la Reddit). For example, an image with one like and zero dislikes is a 27.0. Likewise. they don't tell you how many dislikes you received. For example, my Ashley pic (the one that made it to the Popular feed) is sitting at a 91.6 with 244 votes. It peaked at 96.5 or so a few days ago, so it must have received a number of Dislikes to drop it down, but I don't know the specifics.

[Rajah Sulayman]

Originally Posted by Krusty79

Sounds like it's worth a try. It would be nice to get more feedback on my shots.

This is what I love most about it because I don't always trust my own eye. For example, I always liked this shot and I still do, but the fact is that it's been sitting there for almost two days and received zero votes. Whereas this one (which I like but not as much as the first) has the same number of views and has already received four votes. It definitely helps give me some perspective on my shots. If the first shot doesn't get some positive feedback in the next 24 hours or so, I'll take it down and replace it with something else.

[Rajah Sulayman]

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention in the OP is that everyone has blog functionality, and a lot of the photographers use theirs frequently. It's a great resource for information. Peter Nguyen, for example, shows his lighting setups! How awesome is that?

There's a lot of great learning to be had just by sifting through user blogs.

[Skoropada]

I just created my account, lets see how this site works...

http://500px.com/skoropada