First though, I do think that for the majority of uses the AF on the 5D isn’t so bad.  I took the picture below recently in poor lighting and with AI servo.

A lot of people have the conception that Canon has different teams.  One team works on the 5D, another the 1D, another the 50D and so on.  When they finish with one camera, they start work on the next.  The reality is certainly not that simple.  Most large products have multiple teams.  These teams can be divided into roughly two types.

• Feature teams.  These are teams that work on a specific feature that often spans multiple products.
• Shipping teams.  These are the actual products that we think of.

In terms of size, far more individuals work on the feature teams than work on the shipping teams.  The shipping teams themselves are quite small and most of their work consists of determining what features will be included in their product and combining these different features into a complete working product.  Despite their small size, the shipping teams are extremely important.  If a particular feature has too many issues, the shipping team will boot it from their product.  The feature teams depend on shipping teams and the pay and performance of the leads of the feature teams is heavily weighted on the inclusion and success of the feature in the shipping product.  For each feature team, the products that their feature ships in are called the “ship vehicles”.

Where I’m getting in all of this is that within Canon, there likely exists an autofocus feature team.  This feature team has limited resources and, in my opinion, was faced with a standard gut wrenching decision that many feature teams constantly face.

“Should we put all of our resources into the next version of the feature, or should we put some of them into an incremental update of the existing version?”

Completely new versions of features are often expensive to develop.  Changes in infrastructure are often expensive and major portions of the feature must be redesigned.  In my opinion, the decision faced by the Canon AF feature team was how much resources to put towards a completely new type of AF and how many to put towards improving the AF in the 5D Mark II.

From a business perspective, a new AF for all cameras would be a big seller.  The 1D has had some issues with the AF and for a marketing sake a next generation AF certainly makes sense.  However, redesigning and properly testing a new AF system is very expensive, and there was no way they could get it in time for the 5D.  Since putting resources on improving the AF in the 5D would delay the ship date for the new AF, they likely made the decision to keep the old AF in the new 5D.  So far this decision seems to be working for them, as the 5D Mark II is expected to be sold out almost everywhere when it ships.

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- Flowers – Most sites have every type of flower you can imagine now.  Certainly if you send an image of a flower and put in the description “pretty flower” it is almost sure to be rejected.  However, if you take a picture of a flower that is not very common (such as a rose or rhododendron) and you include the species name and location of the flower it may be accepted.  Even with roses – I suspect if you include the variety there is a chance it will be accepted.

- Fruits – There are endless pictures of apples, pears, and other types of fruits on the microstock sites today.  They come in baskets of fruits, isolated fruits, fruits on sale, fruits falling, eating fruits, and every possible thing involving fruits.  Do not bother submitting pictures of fruits unless they are a rarer tropical variety that is not already covered well.

- Sunsets – Pictures with descriptions of ‘Gorgeous Sunset’ are almost sure to be rejected.  However, I have found that if I am very specific about the location of the sunset – and it’s a good sunset – it has a chance of being accepted.  Some locations – I suspect Hawaii – are still overdone here and no matter how great the sunset is it will still likely be rejected.

Other common categories include pictures of fire, closeups of eyes, certain common birds, and numerous other things that are overdone.  Whenever you are considering submitting a picture, always go to one of the microstock sites and try searching for it.  If the results come back with thousands of shots, it’s probably not worth your while to submit.  Even if your shot is accepted it is not likely to sell well.

The Not Stockworthy category is slightly different.  Basically the reviewer is telling you that no one will buy the shot.  A recent example is a closeup shot of velcro I did.  There are no closeup shots of velcro on the microstock sites and the framing wasn’t that bad.  However, the reviewer believed that no one would buy the shot and was probably right about that.  Always try to think of who would buy the shot.  If you cannot think of any reason why someone would need the shot, the reviewer will likely be of the same mind.

Similar Images

Most microstock sites allow only two to three versions of the same subject.  This does not mean the same picture Photoshopped two to three different ways (which will almost always be rejected) but instead several shots from different angles and viewpoints of the same subject.  The easiest way to avoid this is to only submit a maximum of three views, then wait several weeks or a few months and submit some more.  This works out well anyway as many pictures sell less often over time – so the new pictures will act as a ‘refresher’.

I do not recommend creating different versions of the same photograph except in rare occasions where that photograph sells very well.  I have made a decent amount from modifying the very best pictures in terms of sales, but even then I keep this at a minimum (one to two different versions).

Releases

To put it simply, all people visible in a shot must have model releases.  The rule of thumb is if the person can identify himself or herself from the shot, you must have a model release.  Therefore even if someone’s back is turned you will often need a model release.  This means you must be careful when shooting city scenes and tourist sites as it is very easy to get a person in the scene.  When in crowded locations where I want to get some object other than people (such as archeological sites) I often use either a telephoto lens to isolate one part of the subject or I use a wide angle lens and get very close to it.

For some sites, building interiors and exteriors may require model releases.  Fotolia and StockXPert are especially strict about this.  However, most sites do not support property releases, leaving you with no way to submit these shots.  For buildings, see my earlier remarks about copyrights.  For interiors, the general rule is the interior must not be identifiable.

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