Photo Hosting

[Andy]

I tried out http://ImageShack.US which has unlimited bandwidth and stuff for free. I just found that some of my images can't be thumbnailed and result in full size and link to their home page if clicked. Anyway, it seems quite good for a free service.

Here's one of my images:


I seem to be OK with night shots now. I just need to get a horizontal image 

[TexasLady]

Andy, when I tried to get Image Shack several times this year, it always said it was full and gave me other sites to try out.   

I will try it again.

BTW, My Chicago grands are being raised right.....



Already good at and serious about computer.

[12noon]

When posting photos on here, what size would be best ?
I don't want to post massive photos, but at the same time don't want to post little ones that don't show much detail. What would be the best maximum width and a maximum height of pixels ?

BTW www.imagecave.com looks good for free photo hosting.

[SensoVision]

That's all depend from the picture, and what kind of details it have, generally I try to use resolution around 640x480 and less if picture permit, also I try to keep it's size about 50-100 kb if possible.
Regarding hostings I can't advice you much since never tried them.
But some of my friends are using services from this site: http://photobucket.com/ which allows to use hosted images on other sites.

[Andy]

image shack is still working for the photos I posted. Actually, my own hosting provider seems to have enough bandwidth now so I probably don't need to use these free services. They even support video steaming so I hope to try this out soon. I have a back log of pictures to post. I will go away and do this now... 

[Manu]

I use imageshack most of the times. I have not experienced any major problems with their free service. Used http://xs.to as well.

[TexasLady]

I just used Andy's link below and was able to join Image Shack w/o any problem.    They welcomed me as a "guest of Webmaster Forum".    How about that?   In the process of logging in now.   

Photobucket has been my free imaging hosting service for a long time, but they have recently made numerous changes (upgrades?) to their service and it has been giving me trouble.    So glad to make a change or at least have a backup. 

Now I just have to figure out how to make it work!   

[Andy]

I am planning to self-host hundreds of my own photos. I am not sure how it will work out but at least I hope to fund it via sales of a DVD containing all the original photos in un-edited form.

I plan to do a mass batch conversion of all the photos to resize them and compress them to a medium jpeg compression level using my camera's Canon Utilities. I will do this in the next few days.

My thinking is to scale the photos by a factor of 6 in pixel resolution to go from 3072x2304 pixel size to 512x384 pixels then selecting the medium JPEG compression whatever that means. I don't know whether anyone else tried hosting 100's of pictures before? Is this the way to go?

The site where they will be hosted is at: http://www.geishawalk.com/ So far I just have the home page set up and the blog script installed. I'll post again once some more pictures are uploaded.

[SensoVision]

I don't know whether anyone else tried hosting 100's of pictures before?

I'm going to do same thing as you do and believe that it's depend from how many traffic you going to get simultaneously and what software you'll choose. If it's written well and hosting could handle this amount of visitors at same time than there should be no problem... Also as a first thing you need to prevent hotlinking(it's drain up bandwidth even if you don't host a lot of photos, I know this by myself as few of my photos were used in blogs and homepages). And you probably need to prevent retrieving photos directly, so people could get access to photographs only via site's menu...

[Andy]

Interesting points Sensovision.

It is a good idea to let Google spider your images since that will bring traffic to your site but I think it is worth blocking direct hot-linking from forums etc. I think that allowing hot-linking is good for your site if you can stand the bandwidth hit. But I don't think I could unless there was a lot of revenue being made. YouTube allows hot-linking of video 

Today I categorised my images. I haven't counted them but I have about 1.2GB of data for the DVD. The next step is to make a mirror of the images in a smaller size and resolution for the web. Then I will select which images I will have online.

Currently I am thinking to group images into keyword-related blog posts rather than a photo-album approach e.g Coy Carp Pictures, Pictures of a Caterpillar etc. I think this will get the most traffic to the site. To get traffic, I will be using keywords in the image names and alt tags. So this will make the process of adding the pictures to the site very time consuming but ultimately effective I think.

To handle hotlinking I guess I will use some .htaccess rules to divert direct requests for images to some other page. But one tip I have is to not combat hotlinking initially so you can redirect links later 

When do you think you will start building your photo site Senso? Are you going to host high resolution pictures online or provide the full-res pictures on CD/DVD?

[SensoVision]

It is a good idea to let Google spider your images since that will bring traffic to your site but I think it is worth blocking direct hot-linking from forums etc. I think that allowing hot-linking is good for your site if you can stand the bandwidth hit. But I don't think I could unless there was a lot of revenue being made. YouTube allows hot-linking of video  Shocked

I've got some nice amount of visitors from Google finding my images and asking for permission to use them on sites, brochures, posters and even one book about radio waves in French and English(I should get a copy of it soon)
And all this with gallery which is never intended for any serious use except of showing photos to my friends and telling about what's happening in my city, pictures don't even have descriptions.
Regarding hotlinking it's a real problem but from other side folks send you visitors as each photograph have watermarked domain in the corner... So I'm leaving hotlinks until I move to new hosting with new gallery, after this I'll block hotlinking and redirect folks to message to contact me about using of my images, probably I'll allow to some of them who don't have a space to host image to continue hotlinking.

Today I categorised my images. I haven't counted them but I have about 1.2GB of data for the DVD. The next step is to make a mirror of the images in a smaller size and resolution for the web. Then I will select which images I will have online.

I was thinking about selling my images like this as well but after consideration I decide that they not good enough for this, maybe there are few shots worth watching but in overall I shot too many bad photos so it would be wasting of time and money of my visitors, I decide to let people buy picture if they like it and leave CD/DVD idea for future if anyone would ask me about it first.

When do you think you will start building your photo site Senso?

shame on me, I've promised it to friend for more than year and even now when I got good hosting with plenty bandwidth and space, gallery script almost finished(it's already working except few key features which are must have in my opinion but wouldn't take much programming time anyway), and even images selected for online uploading I still have some problems(diploma) preventing me from doing final step
I already afraid to name any dates so I'll name two months June-July.

[Andy]

Thanks for confirming that you can get traffic and contacts from simply hosting images.

I saw some of your photos before of flowers and insects and they were very good. Your idea of individual buying opportunities per photo is something I never considered. That would involve micro-payments I guess (an area I need to look into). A CD can be sold profitably online for just a few $ so you may want to reconsider. If some publisher needs a picture of something, they have to buy it or spend say 1 hour out of the office to take the photo so I don't see why they wouldn't pay a few $ for a compilation of good photos. My photos took me over 1 year to take so it would truely be a bargain price whatever I charged. Some involved climbing mountains!

Not all my photos are great but for the web, the required quality is quite low e.g. 100dpi or less. Much less than photo quality. I did some calculations today and think most people are only seeing 59dpi on 17" 800x600 monitors. Hopefully this makes some sense: dpi = sqrt( 800^2 + 600^2) /17 Also, pictures on web pages are normally much smaller than the whole page so the quality is not really a concern. More like the subject matter is most important. For printed media it is a different situation though where photographic quality is important for glossy magazines and posters etc.

I'm looking forward to the launch of your site and your script 

[SensoVision]

Thanks for confirming that you can get traffic and contacts from simply hosting images.

as you know I have them uploaded just in directories and people find them through search engines mostly and contact me via form on main site. it's very unfriendly way IMHO as they don't even know that this form exist if get from search engine directly to picture... I think that if make process more user friendly more people would ask for permissions.

That would involve micro-payments I guess (an area I need to look into). A CD can be sold profitably online for just a few $ so you may want to reconsider. If some publisher needs a picture of something, they have to buy it or spend say 1 hour out of the office to take the photo so I don't see why they wouldn't pay a few $ for a compilation of good photos. My photos took me over 1 year to take so it would truely be a bargain price whatever I charged. Some involved climbing mountains!

Here is big problem IMHO, publisher as any other person is low on time if do job properly, so in my opinion they wouldn't be interested in ordering CD, waiting for it, later reviewing and choosing pictures. I believe that CD could be ordered by enthusiasts who for example would be interested in seeing Japan by your eyes. I believe that it's more likely that company interested in picture would buy royalty free rights for particular photo rather than choosing CD even if it's cost cheaper...
I believe that to sell CDs successfully you need to be well known photographer and have some really stunning photos on your site but with lower resolution just like it done on webshots. Also you may give people time access to full sized pictures just like webshots doing, I believe that giving a way to choose from pictures may be more interesting to designers... but with for last solution you need to have wide collection so someone could choose from.

Also if your primary target is selling photos, I'd advice storing only particular type of photographs which doesn't tied to any particular place and people and could be used over and over for different illustrations. Also don't upload those photos you're not sure about, only best ones would work.

I'm looking forward to the launch of your site and your script  Grin

thanks! I'm looking forward for it's launch too Maybe I'll cut one day from diploma program and start uploading it finally.

BTW have you considered about price for CDs?

[Andy]

I will sell a DVD containing 681 photos (the majority of these will be 3072x2304 pixel resolution) and the price is likely to be $17.95 plus postage. I am going to use http://www.kunaki.com to handle all the duplication, shipping and fulfillment. I am amazed at how low cost their service is. They only charge $1.60 per DVD and $3 to take care of everything else. Also, they send you a copy of your disc free of charge! All I need to do is upload my data, design the cover graphics, advertise a link to my sales page and bank cheques. Check out their gallery to see the professional quality of the discs. If you think I am charging too much or too little, please comment with your justification.

So it will be harder to offer downloads of files than a physically shipped DVD.

To start with I will market the DVD and host a selection of the best photos. Also I will have a sample full resolution photo.

Later I can implement a shopping cart for individual photos. How much would you charge for individual photos? What would the licencing terms be? I would probably use PayPal who charge 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction. I have no idea how to value individual photos. It seems like the income potential of photo collections on DVDs will be low but it is a good learning curve to go through. Later I can sell video tutorials on stuff to do with webmaster topics for example.

Update:
I finalized my DVD photo collection, wrote a license agreement and readme file. Then I downloaded the Kunami software to produce a dvd. I selected one of their stock disc/cover designs featuring some mountains that are similar to some of my photos. Now I am uploading the data. It seems like it will take a long time for all the data to upload (they have an upload manager to ensure that the data does eventually get uploaded) but I hope to post a snapshot of what the DVD in it's case looks like soon. Kind of exciting publishing my first DVD 

Hmm it is going to take about 10 hours to upload the data!

This is the license agreement I crafted after getting some ideas from web sites:

"me" grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-assignable right to use images on this DVD in your own projects or those you develop as a service to clients. For example in web pages, logos, leaflets and brochures. The images must only be used in conjunction with other content such as text and other graphics.

You are not permitted to resell the images or give the images away. For example, you are not allowed to offer them as downloads, make image galleries with them or include them in other photo collections.

Images may be invisibly watermarked for tracking purposes.

Do you like that last sentence? 

Here is the product link where you can order my DVD: http://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00ZJO62R

I have started adding many, nice example photos with commentry in various categories to my website. These categories mirror the categories of the photos on the DVD. Even if you have no professional interest in purchasing my DVD I think you will enjoy browsing the photos: http://www.geishawalk.com/ They are 36x smaller and lower quality than the originals but still look good online I think e.g.

[Andy]

I would just like to mention that i updated my site with many nice pictures from my collection and you can see an example in my last post.

[SensoVision]

wish you luck in selling disks! Let me know if it would work for you as I'm really curious if it's work or not.

Later I can implement a shopping cart for individual photos. How much would you charge for individual photos? What would the licencing terms be? I would probably use PayPal who charge 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction. I have no idea how to value individual photos. It seems like the income potential of photo collections on DVDs will be low but it is a good learning curve to go through. Later I can sell video tutorials on stuff to do with webmaster topics for example.

it's all depends, you can find on the web prices ranging from 1 dollar to 100 or even around 5k for exclusive rights(I've read about 5000$ in photo magazine, in article discussing stock photography) when your picture rights transferred to other owner. So it's completely up to you how to choose your price as there is no universal formula from what I could see. Some companies seems to price pictures according to it's resolution but other's don't...
For example I've sold one 2megapixel photograph for 15$ for advertisement purposes. Currently my gallery contain many 2 megapixel photos and I offer rights for them in exchange for credits to non-profit projects for and either payment or credits for commercial ones. 

[Andy]

I don't like the idea of transferring rights unless it's for substantial money. And if your whole collection is up for sale with rights transfer on each photo it stops you selling the collection on disc to multiple buyers. So you might only sell a few pictures a year when you could be selling the lot over and over for years on end.

It would be a different story if I was a stock photo broker. Then I would want to sell other people's stock photos on an individual basis.

Now I'm thinking of further ways to leverage the web site. Possibly marketing a digital camera such as the Nikon F40 as an affiliate and maybe have a guide to setting up your own photo site.

[SensoVision]

Maybe I've told this incorrectly but I not transfer rights to anyone, I gave them royalty free rights for using photograph for their purposes.

Regarding marketing camera I probably return to this idea once buy my first dSLR, I was going to market Konica-Minolta Dimage Z3 with  http://www.z3club.org/ and maybe make some fan club of Konica-Minolta camera's users.
But KM sold camera business to Sony so I've stop developing this project.

Anyway I think that pushing good model could be beneficial to you so as to people who will buy it.

[Andy]

Ah, I thought you were transferring all rights over to the buyers. Now I get it. My thinking is to give royalty-free rights to all customer4s too.

Today I did a custom design for my DVD cover and disc since I wasn't happy with the quality of the auto-generated text. The new design looks much better but I'll wait until the new disc is live before posting the image.

I was looking at DSLRs in a shop and I like the Nikon D40 physically. I expect all these top end cameras are going to be great. My freind with the Sony alpha 100 offored to let me have it for a while but I have used it a few times and find it a bit bulky and the camera action is noisy. Canon also have a smaller SLR but it was expensive so maybe Heidi steered me towards Nikon?

If I can pay for the camera via my web site affiliate commission it would be very nice. I could start with my research on the camera and follow with experience of use posts.

[SensoVision]

Canon also have a smaller SLR but it was expensive so maybe Heidi steered me towards Nikon?

Previously I was fan of Nikon as well, but now I'm actually look closer to Pentax products, the reason for this is their new camera Pentax K10D, unlike Nikon D40, Pentax is marketed not as an entry level camera and cost almost 1000USD. I just cross fingers and hope that Pentax would move in same direction and that till the time I've got enough money there would be some affordable model from them with same features(Although Pentax support denied that they are going to develop something like this). Link to review of Pentax K10D.
Right now it's have image stabilization to which I've got addicted, could clean it's sensor just like those models from Olympus, kit seems to have better lens comparing to those shipped in D50 and D40, and overall photo look pleasant to my eye(not on default settings).  And most important, my first digital camera was made by Pentax

Regarding advertising particular model, I would be glad to do so and write review and my experiences with it but I don't feel that advertising product which I didn't used myself and base opinion on feedback of friends and online reviews would be very ethical even if I state that didn't used it myself. Wish I could find some shop or company which would let me borrow(or give as present ) equipment for testing so I can write reviews about them, but till now that's in my dream. Anyway I'm thinking about creating at some point reviews about equipment I'm using, if it didn't bring any revenue to me it would probably help to others choose good equipment.

[Andy]

Thanks for the tip on the Pentax K10D. Why can't these cameras be perfect? Grr! This one seems like a must have until you read about the poor jpeg images. I would be gutted if I bought a DSLR and the shots were worse than my non-dslr. Is it no problem to make the manual changes for all time that the reviewer suggests? I love the idea of the dust shaker and the image stabilization. Also, the instant ability to power up and shoot is good.

I was shocked that a 1GB card can only hold 60 RAW format photos with this camera  I only managed to fill my IG card with my canon A620 after shooting many minutes of video.

With regard to reviews, I wouldn't publish a review unless I personally used a camera. Otherwise I would just write about my wish list of cameras with the specs and hope some web site visitor with experience of the camera posted some comments about it.

[SensoVision]

I would be gutted if I bought a DSLR and the shots were worse than my non-dslr. Is it no problem to make the manual changes for all time that the reviewer suggests?

I've JPEG settings altered on my two Minolta cameras and didn't have problem with this, I believe that as long as it really improve quality it's not that major concern.
Just take a look on Pentax K10D photos in gallery, some have really good details, especially comparing to Nikon D40 gallery(of course it would produce much better photographs with better lens mounted).

I was shocked that a 1GB card can only hold 60 RAW format photos with this camera  Shocked I only managed to fill my IG card with my canon A620 after shooting many minutes of video.

yeah, sizes keep on growing but it's very good that cameras start supporting open DNG format, this would be guarantee that after time you still be able to read your photos not only in software shipped with camera but in free programs as well. I also suppose that using this format could lead to better file conversion in software as right now each RAW editing software seems to produce very different in terms of quality results reading same RAW file.

[Andy]

Can you buy the pentax with a better lens? In the review they mentioned the kit lens was just $100. That sounds very cheap to me for a zoom lens. I would like to buy a good lens from the start to avoid upgrading later.

[SensoVision]

wonder why Bob didn't join our discussion? Although I know that he's not fan of shake reduction systems it would be interesting to hear what he thinks about this all.

Regarding your question of course it's possible to find body only, e.g. on Amazon here the link to Pentax K10d body only. But as you can see getting it with lens would be a bit cheaper than buy same lens and body separately.
Anyway I'm sure that distributor shops in your areas should also offer body only and let you choose some highend lens for it, probably you'll be able to get discount(at least I know that here we had Nikon D50 sold in kit with lens which originally came in kit with D70 model and have much better quality, of course you got better price for it than if you would buy lens and camera separately).

[Andy]

wonder why Bob didn't join our discussion?

I think his phone line was going to be upgraded so he may be offline for a while.

I used my small camera last night in an entertainment center to take some stealth-mode photos. A big camera may have been a problem there.

My wife suggested I do a photo DVD about hot Japanese girls like I tried to photo last night  I did everything wrong like spending too much time adjusting camera settings and trying to do sneaky pictures. So I got spotted and when I went over to them they were not letting me take any photos. They did seem to find it funny though. It is a tragedy that the world is denied seeing how incredible these ladies can look. Now, the plan is to make a business card to hand them and have a professional-looking camera to get the credibility to pull it off. I was going to visit the fashion districts where they are to be found in abundance. 

[SensoVision]

I think his phone line was going to be upgraded so he may be offline for a while.

I think that saw him yesterday logged, but maybe it was other day.

My wife suggested I do a photo DVD about hot Japanese girls like I tried to photo last night  Grin I did everything wrong like spending too much time adjusting camera settings and trying to do sneaky pictures

wife suggesting you to do such things?

I used my small camera last night in an entertainment center to take some stealth-mode photos. A big camera may have been a problem there.

not necessarily, you can hang it on the belt around your neck and just keep it with one hand, if you see someone or something you need to shot, just pull shutter not moving camera anywhere, from what I've read most people only see that you photograph something if you look into the camera, and if it's hanging on you they don't spot you, of course if flash doesn't fire up

[Andy]

Thanks for the tips 

[SensoVision]

my pleasure let us know if it's worked for you.

[Andy]

Here is an example from manic babe hunter in action  I should be more polite in future or use a telephoto lens. Ahh paradise 


Too good huh?

This would be great for a caption competition I think. The lady on the far right is the focus of attention so what are the others saying?

[Menard]

I actually hadn't paid much attention to this thread as it was originally about photohosting which I am doing through photobucket or from my own hosting.

When I go with a DSLR, it will be with a Pentax. The reason for this is that my 35mm equipment is all Ricoh/Pentax, and I want to be able to use my present lenses with a digital body. It would make a a good compliment to my film outfit.

Things I am waiting for though include a full-frame sensor which matches a frame of 35mm film. I am liking the idea of a more solid and larger body as I don't like these tiny digital cameras which have become the standard. I like to get a good grip on my camera and would prefer a hand full of camera as compared to a few fingers full of camera.

The main thing, though, which leaves me out of the DSLR market right now is the cost. They are coming down progressively, as I have predicted on several occasions, It shouldn't be too long before we see a DSLR for less than $400 USD, with lens.

RAW vs. JPEG?

A studio for which I have done wedding photography in the past uses jpeg capture rather than RAW. The reason they do this is due to the extreme difference in size between the files. They can use a 1G card to shoot most of a wedding, if not all, using jpeg capture; where it would take several cards to do the same using RAW capture. They get just as printable of images using the jpeg format as they would using the RAW format and converting it; they just cut out the middleman. Not to mention the savings on not having someone working the extra time to convert the files and not having to allot more CF cards to each photographer when they do a wedding.

We still have pur arguements over quality, as Jim believes that his 10.4 MP digital cameras can produce as good of results, if not better, than film. I try to remind him that his 645 cameras can produce an equivalent 35 MP+ using film. Of course, the rub is that most people are not going to get larger than a 20x24 print, and most won't go above 16x20, so the distinction won't be that noticeable, particularly with using interpolation.

A recommendation for getting shots, and not spending too much time making adjustments and missing shots, is to set and forget. Get a reading of the average conditions in which you are going to be shooting, but keep in mind to keep the shutter speed set at a hand holdable setting, and don't open the aperture wider than f/8. Basically, shooting indoors with a shutter speed of 1/30-1/60 and the aperture set at f/8-f/11, with a flash, and your camera set at an ISO of 400, you should be able to get a high percentage of good shots; provided that the sensor has a decent exposure latitude.

This is how I shoot weddings as there is not the time to stop people from what they are doing to make adjustments. For posed shots, and when you have the opportunity to take the time, by all means fine tune your adjustments. If you don't have the time to make adjustments, just set and forget. Well exposed shots are....well....well exposed shots, but the seconds it can take to make adjustments can cost the split second in which a special moment happens.

Another advantage to set ans forget is that people have the impression that professional photographers do not have to bother with taking time to set their cameras; they have watched too many movies and TV shows where photographers just start shooting and keep shooting.

One thing a good professional photographer does not do is introduce themselves as a professional photographer. I have worked with many professional photographers, and they have never identified themselves as anything other than a photographer. If someone asks me if I am a professional photographer when I am taking casual shots, my reply would be along the lines of 'not today...as I am doing this for free; but if you want me to be a professional today, that'll be $200'.

Being a people photographer is not so much about getting a good exposure as it is about being good with people. When I set up a studio and people come into that studio for portraits, they are stepping into my comfirt zone where I am in control and can put them at ease. When I walk into a room of people, I have the same attitude; I am going to be in control of the room with an air of confidence and putting people at ease.

I had not paid much attention to myself, but Jim had pointed out to me once, when he asked me to help him dress the boys at some schools for senior portraits, that he wanted me to help him because I don't fear people and they respond well to me.

Of course, I don't quite picture Andy as one who has a fear of people either.


"May I take your picture?"

That same question can be used in two different ways and produce different results.

A photographer who asks that question, then timidly waits for an answer, is going to hear no more often than yes.

If I ask that question, it is my polite way of saying 'I am going to take your picture'. Of course, I will have the camera ready and my body language indicates that I am going to take their picture; the question is just one of many ice-breakers used.


"And would you prefer that delivered today, or tomorrow?"

What is missing from that question?

The opportunity to say 'no'.

Obviously, that question is not going to come into play during a photo-op, but it does illustrate a point; it is called an assume close.

When given the opportunity to say 'no', people will take it. The way to eliminate a lot of no's is to not include it as a possible answer.

Wrong: Can I take a picture of you in a fuzzy and soft rodent pose?

Right: This next shot is going to be fuzzy and soft rodent.

My approach: This next shot is going to be fuzzy and soft rodent; or would you prefer...sleazy. (it may amaze you as to how many times the answer is 'sleazy')

Giving someone the option to do something is like giving them permission. Lots of people don't want to make a decision about doing something, even if they might have asked it themselves, as that would be taking full responsibility. Giving the decision as an option gives a certain degree of permission.

Of course, my approach would only be used with someone I have read as being receptive, or as being good humored.



Oh well; I have yammered long enough and pretty much forgotten what I was talking about in the first place.

My internet connection is still active at present. I don't know if he is planning on shutting off the phone line at the end of the month or before then (I had thought it would have been shut off by now), but it has not been done yet. As long as it is active, I will use it.

[mic_comte]

 Just a question about copyright:
Your pictures are watermarked, right. But what would you do if you come accross somebody using your pictures for a commercial purpose ?
 On which basis would you sue him? Is this watermarking usable in a trial? Is this recognized a an evidence for a trial in all/most countries?

[Andy]

what would you do if you come across somebody using your pictures for a commercial purpose

I would send them an invoice for a market-rate fee depending on how they used my image. Then I would expect they would either stop using the image/pay or come to some other mutually agreeable arrangement. It's unlikely that lawyers would ever be involved except in extreme cases such as my images were packaged in another commercial product.

The invisible watermark is a great deterant on it's own I think.

[SensoVision]

Oh well; I have yammered long enough and pretty much forgotten what I was talking about in the first place.

Bob, thank you for great post! you've remind one again most important thing to us that good shot is created not by camera but photographer...
BTW here is article which try to convince people that equipment doesn't matter, maybe it would be interesting to someone:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm
And thanks for sharing your secrets, it's cool to hear them from first hands and you've really opened my eyes for many things I didn't mention before.

Just a question about copyright:
Your pictures are watermarked, right. But what would you do if you come accross somebody using your pictures for a commercial purpose ?
 On which basis would you sue him? Is this watermarking usable in a trial? Is this recognized a an evidence for a trial in all/most countries?

I think you would be amazed how many people ask for permission of using photo, at least I was I'm sure that reputable company would respect your rights for photograph and wouldn't break it. Anyway if you found your photo used without permission you can do it like Andy, at least it wouldn't involve any more expenses.