Aquatic photography seems pretty dead!

[knifegill]

If I had a nice camera I'd post there plenty. I used to visit everyday but now I only check it out every month or two.

 

[Chumlee]

It's a niche hobby. Low numbers of members, and always has been. A lot of the old members there were pros who earned a living doing photography and aquatic shoots made up a portion of their incomes.

Nowadays, you have companies like Hikari who throw a couple of hundred bucks worth of fishfood and they get 4-5K photo entries which they have full license for. They would never get full license on any image from a pro and they would have to pay a decent price for the use of a good pic.

The same thing is happening in other markets, like cat and dog foods. Look at the contests out there. Lots of people now own digital cameras and photoshop can make a mediocre picture look pretty good.

The economy has killed a lot of advertising budgets so the companies have had to do whatever to survive. It's not that they stopped paying photographers that irks me, its the fact that they con the average joe into giving up full rights on the image they took for the chance of winning some crappy contest.

So what does my rant have to do with APF? It used to be the guys who were in the "business" who drove that site. Most of them are gone and will never be back. There just aren't enough people wanting to improve their photo skills and who want to do the work necessary. Most guys now just want to be told what settings to use.

if only everyone was in it for the hobby and not for the money...great to see how strongly you feel about the topic if only everyone shared that same intensity. Being that you have some sort of power on the site maybe you can do some work towards merging the sites our at least getting the site more well known to mfk members.

I'm only 16 so its not like I could really have a career taking pictures nor am I good enough at it but its a very rewarding hobby if only people could get past the cost of the equipment it would be much more popular. What I like is that there are an infinite amount of ways to get a shot and the quality of the shot (like how "good"someone thinks the shot is...not the actual res or that type of quality lol) all depends on the person who views it.
Hopefully if this thread floats around for a little while maybe some new guys will check out the site who didn't even know that it existed.

 

[jclyde13]

If I had a nice camera I'd post there plenty. I used to visit everyday but now I only check it out every month or two.

Same here. Although I do have a decent camera now, I am still trying to get used to dslr photography, so I really don't have that many interesting shots to post either (and it doesn't help that I spend most of my free time on MFK rather than messing with my camera). I definitely agree with the idea of merging the two sites and just making APF an MFK forum.


I also dislike the new layout of the site. Imo, it makes it more difficult to navigate now that all the options have been moved around. And the white background seems almost blinding after beeing on MFK for so long, and I can't figure out how (or if it's even possible) to change the color.

 

[Chumlee]

That's a shame... post some of your work and people will be able to help you and there also is a general category so it doesn't have to be about fish. I don't remember where of got this quote from but "you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take" SHOOT EVERYTHING out of a few hundred shots you only might get a few keepers but you'll never know unless you try

 

[jclyde13]

That's a shame... post some of your work and people will be able to help you and there also is a general category so it doesn't have to be about fish. I don't remember where of got this quote from but "you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take" SHOOT EVERYTHING out of a few hundred shots you only might get a few keepers but you'll never know unless you try

Believe me, I do. I keep taking pics until my 4gb SD card is full, then I load them onto my computer, delete them off the card, and do it again.

 

[Chaitika]

Same here. Although I do have a decent camera now, I am still trying to get used to dslr photography, so I really don't have that many interesting shots to post either (and it doesn't help that I spend most of my free time on MFK rather than messing with my camera). I definitely agree with the idea of merging the two sites and just making APF an MFK forum.


I also dislike the new layout of the site. Imo, it makes it more difficult to navigate now that all the options have been moved around. And the white background seems almost blinding after beeing on MFK for so long, and I can't figure out how (or if it's even possible) to change the color.

I actually like the new software. AND we have chat. I did ask Neo for a darker skin. It's on his list of things to do.

 

[Chaitika]

if only everyone was in it for the hobby and not for the money...great to see how strongly you feel about the topic if only everyone shared that same intensity. Being that you have some sort of power on the site maybe you can do some work towards merging the sites our at least getting the site more well known to mfk members.

I'm only 16 so its not like I could really have a career taking pictures nor am I good enough at it but its a very rewarding hobby if only people could get past the cost of the equipment it would be much more popular. What I like is that there are an infinite amount of ways to get a shot and the quality of the shot (like how "good"someone thinks the shot is...not the actual res or that type of quality lol) all depends on the person who views it.
Hopefully if this thread floats around for a little while maybe some new guys will check out the site who didn't even know that it existed.

Yeah, you understand the gist of what makes people like me tick about photography. I am a rare bird in that sense. Most hobbyists really just want to keep fish and be able to take decent photos.

I know some guys who take great photos and they're scared/intimidated by the other guys on APF. There's no basis for it other than being insecure and afraid of being flamed. There is no flaming on APF.

 

[jcardona1]

I actually like the new software. AND we have chat. I did ask Neo for a darker skin. It's on his list of things to do.

MFK will eventually be using VB4 too right??

 

[Chaitika]

MFK will eventually be using VB4 too right??

I'm guessing Li will move it to the other MAN forums once they can tweak it the way they want. It's actually pretty darn good software.

 

[jcardona1]

I'm guessing Li will move it to the other MAN forums once they can tweak it the way they want. It's actually pretty darn good software.

Yeah, I'm currently using it on another forum. Takes getting used to, but it's pretty good.