flickr vs 500px

[sinned79]

I am a current user of flickr coming to 2 years (or already 2 years? can't remember). I am using it to import the photos to my website to display my works. Flickr had given me good user expectation till now but then it is still insuficient I find.

Last night, I just sign up with 500px and I am quite impressed with the features... especially you can sell your images off your account website. The payout is not too bad... $2 profit from a $2.99 digital download and $40 profit from a $199 canvas print order. The best part is unlike stock photography... there is no strict rules what images you can sell and if I am not mistaken, there is no need for model release form required for portrait shots. I also like the fact that they have a mobile version to display your portfolio (something that currently I am not free to do for my website).

I am thinking of shutting down my website (currently doing manual HTML codings) and stop subscribing to flickr pro then migrate to 500px.

Users of 500px, care to share your experience?

 

[sjackal]

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet

If you are having a website for professional purposes, self host your own images. It makes little sense to use a separate photo hosting site and be constraint by their bandwidth, restrictions and any uncertainties their companies are going thru.

Flickr, 500px, etc, are all communities and social networking for hobbyists. They are good enough for bloggers using free blogging platforms to post images, but for business work the lack of full control makes it feel amateurish. I upload pictures there to interact with people, but for real work purposes all the real stuff are hosted together with the website.

 

[sinned79]

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet

If you are having a website for professional purposes, self host your own images. It makes little sense to use a separate photo hosting site and be constraint by their bandwidth, restrictions and any uncertainties their companies are going thru.

Flickr, 500px, etc, are all communities and social networking for hobbyists. They are good enough for bloggers using free blogging platforms to post images, but for business work the lack of full control makes it feel amateurish. I upload pictures there to interact with people, but for real work purposes all the real stuff are hosted together with the website.

thanks for the article although I feel that is very self opinonated. But I do agree with some of the points there.

personally myself I am using flickr to host my images for my website and for archiving purpose. In fact u save alot of bandwidth then using your own hosted account. Not all web hosts gives you unlimited bandwidth so... flickr is a good choice. In fact, I coded my website using HTML and DHTML and dynamically displays my flickr photos on my website. So far flickr doesn't really have much restriction since I am using their pro account.

the reason for me moving on to 500px to replace my website is that it offers mobile version which my website can't do for now and I am lazy to recode my website to support mobile version. and on top of this, one good feature is the ability to sell images directly off my 500px account instead of going thru stock photography sites which have lots of rules. although one can argue that I can install a lightbox feature on my website to sell my images but then I do not wish to host my images on my hosted account to save myself some bandwidth haha

anyway I am looking for more views from 500px users.. any issues (be it technical, customer service etc) they encounter using 500px?

I still got another year to go with flickr pro account though but I think I better do some planning now before switching or stay put.

 

[daredevil123]

thanks for the article although I feel that is very self opinonated. But I do agree with some of the points there.

personally myself I am using flickr to host my images for my website and for archiving purpose. In fact u save alot of bandwidth then using your own hosted account. Not all web hosts gives you unlimited bandwidth so... flickr is a good choice. In fact, I coded my website using HTML and DHTML and dynamically displays my flickr photos on my website. So far flickr doesn't really have much restriction since I am using their pro account.

the reason for me moving on to 500px to replace my website is that it offers mobile version which my website can't do for now and I am lazy to recode my website to support mobile version. and on top of this, one good feature is the ability to sell images directly off my 500px account instead of going thru stock photography sites which have lots of rules. although one can argue that I can install a lightbox feature on my website to sell my images but then I do not wish to host my images on my hosted account to save myself some bandwidth haha

anyway I am looking for more views from 500px users.. any issues (be it technical, customer service etc) they encounter using 500px?

I still got another year to go with flickr pro account though but I think I better do some planning now before switching or stay put.

500px is not bad of a photo networking site. But I find the portfolio part of the functionality to be too lacking in customizations. I think zenfolio is slightly better in that regard.

 

[sinned79]

500px is not bad of a photo networking site. But I find the portfolio part of the functionality to be too lacking in customizations. I think zenfolio is slightly better in that regard.

ouch! my office block zenfolio -_-" do they offer mobile version?

 

[daredevil123]

ouch! my office block zenfolio -_-" do they offer mobile version?

Not too sure about that. you might want to check out their website.

If you want mobile version to be done right... it is still best if you implement wordpress template on your own hosted space.

 

[Macrobbs]

Oh, that's Great Sir !!

 

[sinned79]

Not too sure about that. you might want to check out their website.

If you want mobile version to be done right... it is still best if you implement wordpress template on your own hosted space.

hmm I am not too keen to host my photos on my website. will check on the zenfolio, thanks!

 

[heshanj]

i love 500px. i dont know why but over 3 years, i hardly got any views on flickr... like 2000 views over 3 years. got more than 2000 views on 500px in a month.. and the community seems better, to me. im not sure how the portfolio things out if u look at it in a professional sense.. but i also love the market place to sell my photos. i highly doubt anyone's gonna pay $199 for my prints but its good to have the option..who knows wat might happen!

 

[Sgdevilzz]

Zenfolio looks good and the price is not bad. Down side is you have to pay $120 a year for Zenfolio branding removal and domain name. Is this better than wix?

 

[sjackal]

Not too sure about that. you might want to check out their website.

If you want mobile version to be done right... it is still best if you implement wordpress template on your own hosted space.

Another plus for self host wordpress. There are many templates and addons widgets available for wordpress. Slideshows, lightbox, gallery, passwords, forms, etc, etc,

 

[daredevil123]

Zenfolio looks good and the price is not bad. Down side is you have to pay $120 a year for Zenfolio branding removal and domain name. Is this better than wix?

Wix is more expensive than zenfolio actually. each has its own pros and cons.

 

[daredevil123]

Another plus for self host wordpress. There are many templates and addons widgets available for wordpress. Slideshows, lightbox, gallery, passwords, forms, etc, etc,

Wordpress templates are definitely a lot more flexible. But more work is required to set it up, especially if one wants to customize the look and feel a lot more. For folks who are less technical, or more focused on their core competence, or just starting out, wordpress might not be the best route to start out. Hosted space is not that cheap either. If you do the math, pricing will come up to pretty much the same. Just that sites like zenfolio, wix, yola, web.com, squarespace, jimdo are mostly on cloud servers now, which is very very high availability... and hosted space in singapore can run into problems from time to time... Cost wise, they are actually not too far apart...

 

[catchlights]

thanks for the article although I feel that is very self opinonated. But I do agree with some of the points there.

personally myself I am using flickr to host my images for my website and for archiving purpose. In fact u save alot of bandwidth then using your own hosted account. Not all web hosts gives you unlimited bandwidth so... flickr is a good choice. In fact, I coded my website using HTML and DHTML and dynamically displays my flickr photos on my website. So far flickr doesn't really have much restriction since I am using their pro account.

the reason for me moving on to 500px to replace my website is that it offers mobile version which my website can't do for now and I am lazy to recode my website to support mobile version. and on top of this, one good feature is the ability to sell images directly off my 500px account instead of going thru stock photography sites which have lots of rules. although one can argue that I can install a lightbox feature on my website to sell my images but then I do not wish to host my images on my hosted account to save myself some bandwidth haha

anyway I am looking for more views from 500px users.. any issues (be it technical, customer service etc) they encounter using 500px?

I still got another year to go with flickr pro account though but I think I better do some planning now before switching or stay put.

I'm a istock exclusive contributor, I only can use 500px for portfolio usage, not allow to sell my images there.
IIRC, you are exclusive contributor of dreamstime, I think you should check with dreamstime are you allow to sell your photos thru 500px first.

 

[sinned79]

I'm a istock exclusive contributor, I only can use 500px for portfolio usage, not allow to sell my images there.
IIRC, you are exclusive contributor of dreamstime, I think you should check with dreamstime are you allow to sell your photos thru 500px first.

thanks for the reminder! hmm but let say if I did not sell the same images on both dreamstime + 500px, that should be fine right?

 

[dougs]

I thought about exactly the same issue a few weeks back. I am unsure of hosting my photos in Flickr or 500px. Both seems ok, although the layout of 500px seems more refreshing.

 

[catchlights]

thanks for the reminder! hmm but let say if I did not sell the same images on both dreamstime + 500px, that should be fine right?

For istock, that is the answer I get, not sure about dreamstime,

you better read the agreement carefully and consults contributor support for answers.

 

[sinned79]

For istock, that is the answer I get, not sure about dreamstime,

you better read the agreement carefully and consults contributor support for answers.

will do. thanks!

 

[Oshkosh]

Wordpress templates are definitely a lot more flexible. But more work is required to set it up, especially if one wants to customize the look and feel a lot more. For folks who are less technical, or more focused on their core competence, or just starting out, wordpress might not be the best route to start out. Hosted space is not that cheap either. If you do the math, pricing will come up to pretty much the same. Just that sites like zenfolio, wix, yola, web.com, squarespace, jimdo are mostly on cloud servers now, which is very very high availability... and hosted space in singapore can run into problems from time to time... Cost wise, they are actually not too far apart...

I uses wordpress too for my photography blog and they are fantastic. Will definitely recommend. Actually its not that difficult to set it up, keep trying and eventually will get a hang of it. Plus its free.

 

[daredevil123]

I uses wordpress too for my photography blog and they are fantastic. Will definitely recommend. Actually its not that difficult to set it up, keep trying and eventually will get a hang of it. Plus its free.

It is not free if you want to use custom templates, as well as host your own wordpress site.