I'm thinking about starting to seriously shoot for stock, and I'm wondering what the general expectation is as far as resolution and technical quality goes. If I go with a 4x5 view camera and a good flatbed scanner, I'll have ridiculously big files with a lot more enlargement potential than some DSLR, but is it worth the trouble? Would the clients pay more or something? I'm planning to use Alamy unless there's a better place to sell mostly landscape images.
If it isn't worth it, I'll probably go with a smaller format. Film seems like it would be best for now - I could also get a Hasselblad setup including a dedicated scanner and tripod, and 4 lenses, for about as much as a 5D and a 17-40, which isn't even all that good as far as lenses go, at 100% the results I've seen are basically appalling.
Also, regarding shooting hundreds of variations and uploading them all - do you really sell the sub-par variations very much? I don't plan on uploading anything that I'm not really happy with, but do crappy pictures actually sell?
Out of curiousity, what would be everyone's ideal setup for shooting stock for, say, 3 grand? |