One simple way to fund your next digital camera purchase while having fun in the process

Do you want to step out of that point and shoot digital camera but are having a hard time justifying the cost to move up to a new digital SLR camera? Or are you just interested in the latest and greatest new cameras that you have to have but can not justify the new purchase to the wife?

My one simple way is to submit your digital photos to micro stock photography agencies.

What are micro stock photography agencies?

These are companies that sell your photos on your behalf to webmasters, graphic designers, and business people on a budget. They call it micro stock because of the payment structure and flexibility of the image use rights. The purchase price per image is much less then a traditional stock photography structure, but it also caters to a different market, small business and low cost users.

Traditional stock photography houses like Getty Images and Corbis are very hard to get into and require extensive portfolios. They pay a higher price per image but also traditionally sell fewer images through out the year. With most micro stock photography agencies you can get approved with as little as 5 pictures, and start making money instantly.

Micro stock photography agencies will accept almost any topic you choose to shoot. Subjects like nature, landscapes, seascapes, city scenes, kids, people, still life, food and news worthy items. Just make use you get property releases, and model releases if you choose to shoot people and recognizable property. When I started out in micro stock I shot exclusively still life and food because I did not want to bother with releases. I also have a real passion for food as well as photography.

So how much can I make with micro stock photography?

Well like many things it depends, but at its heart it is a numbers and quality game. If you have about 100 great images you can make anywhere from $25 to $1000 a month. The trick to keeping the money flowing is to keep shooting and submitting your images often. At first you should submit your images to many different micro stock sites so you can find the right fit and mix for your images.

Before I go into which micro stock websites you should submit your images to, you need to understand the different business models for micro stock sites. There are two selling models for micro stock photography websites, one is subscription and the other is per image/per image resolution. Websites like Shutterstock are on the subscription model. This is where members of the website pay a monthly subscription for a certain amount of image downloads per month. You then get paid anywhere from .25 to .30 per download on your images in their library. Some subscription site paid up to .36 per image download.

Istockphoto is an example of a per image/image resolution sales model. Commissions for an image are based on a percentage of the sale price, and it is between 20% and 60% depending on the micro stock site. The percentage also goes up if you are exclusive photographer with the provider. Selling prices for your images depends on the resolution and size of the image that is sold for. The price range is from $1 to $50 per image and provider.

You can get started in micro stock with a simple 5 to 6 mega pixel point and shoot camera. Just make sure your images are well composed and exposed. For a greater list of Microstock providers come visit our website.

Happy Shooting!!!

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