Useful and Interesting Links
ClickASnap is a place where you can get paid for people looking at your images! ClickASnap is the world's largest 'pay per view' photo sharing platform, and with 5,000+ new members signing up every day and 400,000 unique visitors to the website monthly. If somebody opens one of your thumbnails and views it for over 5 seconds, you get a payment. There are over 2.2 million members, but you don't have to get your images viewed by a member to get paid. Anyone viewing one of your images for over 5 seconds will generate a payment. The aim of ClickASnap is to be the biggest source of images in the world. There is also a marketplace where you can sell your images as prints or on mugs, keyrings and lots of other things too. Best of all is that everything is handled by ClickASnap, you have to do nothing other than get a seller's account and set up your shop. The platform is ethical in that it does not claim or share any rights to your images.
Please note that the free account does not generate payments. It used to when I first joined, but it was abused so payments for this account was withdrawn, although the free account is still availble. They are useful to get to know the site and benefit buyers, but buyers do not have to have an acount to buy prints or products and their views, if over 5 seconds will still generate a payment for you. There are several levels of paid accounts starting from just £2 per month. The top level Pro account includes unlimited on-line storage, image protection technology, automatic sharing to your social media and more. There is a discount for purchasing an annual subscription, but be sure that you want this as the annual accounts are not refundable.
I have no connection with any of the sites or people listed below. I have found them to be very useful and interesting.
Luton Camera Repair Services Luton Camera Repair Services have been around as long as I can remember. They have always been an Olympus specialist, but also deal with other makes. They also service and repair vintage cameras and lenses and their prices are very reasonable. I have been visiting them over the years and moreso now since I've been interested in vintage lenses. They have a very good stock of both vintage cameras and lenses too. Too many to list on their web site and stock turns over so give them a call if you want to find out if they have something of interest to you. Very friendly and helpful staff. What's not to like?
Mike Browne is a professional photographer who also has a teaching qualification. He offers paid for courses and workshops as well as a palethera of free to view 'how to' videos. In his videos he has a relaxed style and explains his thought process at every step.
Steve Perry is an American wildlife photographer. His web site is a treasure trove of information and includes his blog and YouTube channel. He initally used Nikon kit and his knowledge of the Nikon system is second to none. Now he also uses Sony and Canon cameras and his latest book is on the Sony a1. His books and articles are detailed well written and his videos are well produced.
Bob Brind-Surch is a wildlife photographer based in Northampton. He runs workshops in the UK and abroad and his web site is a mine of information about wildlife photography, tips and reviews. There is a useful review and comparison of several gimbals on a downloadable pdf file.
Mark Denny is a landscape photographer based in the USA. He has a lot of tips and tricks on taking and editing pictures, both in Lightroom and Photoshop. His videos can also be found on YouTube.
Photoshop Cafe
Founded by Colin Smith who was born in Glasgow and moved to New Zealand when he was 5 years old, here is a vast wealth of Photoshop and Lightroom tips and tutorials - and more. Colin has an easy and relaxed presenting style that is easy to follow and many of his videos have an accompanying fully detailed article too if you look at them on his wab site rather than YouTube.
Looking for a used lens or camera?
Usedlens.co.uk is an easy to use site that brings items from multiple sellers into one place. The site now includes used cameras too. Filters are available to customise your search to include or exclude sellers from ebay or to limit searches to specific dealers as well as other options and also will show if a dealer you favour is included in the search.
I've found vintage lenses on here too and I have seen vintage cameras as well. These are usually ebay adverts, but I do see them from dealers too. In fact, my latest vintage lens, a Sun 135mm f2.8 I found via Uesed lens.
The Faststone Image Viewer is a very versatile application. It has a similar appearance to Widows Explorer, but also has some editing capabilities - resizing, cropping and cloning to mention just a few. It is also very customisable and has a great slide show built-in. Best of all is that it is free! You will see an invitation to donate, but you don't have to. However if you do donate you get a key and then the pop-up will not appear. N.B. This is for Windows PCs only.