Flickr and PBase

I sincerely apologize if this topic has been covered recently, but I've noticed that most of the forum members post pics on flickr. In my relentless journey in search of the "perfect" camera, it seems like I'm always confronted with that clunky flickr interface. I've found it very awkward to navigate. Lots of clicks to get where you want to be, and lots of back-peddling to start over. And, no offense to anyone, but the presentation is worse than plain vanilla. I almost feel like punching that sqare smiley face sometimes. If you have to pay to display original sizes, why not PBase? You can design your own colors, background, and have a sensible outline of sub-galleries. If you're versed in HTML, you can even make your galleries truly original. Or you can just choose a preset CSS, and there are lots of good ones. You can also creat a photo-blog. It's really easy to make changes, once you know how to do it. A matter of seconds. I pay $22 a year for 2G of space.
What makes flickr the host of choice here?
I feel like I must be missing something. Educate me.
--
'If it Looks good....it IS good!'
http://www.pbase.com/gbk

was never attracted to Flickr. Some people praise the communities there. Lots and lots of people use it.
--
John Dunn

Portraits: http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/pictures?userid= {8B9B811D-AD1C-4A7D-923E-A4D0930BB5EE}

I'm new to everything photo but Google has the Picasa Web Album where the maximum size for each photo can be up to 20mb. That should take care of most.

My ISP is partnered with Yahoo! so I get a free Flickr Pro account...

... but I agree, the interface is not stellar and I use very few of the features.

I can't speak to why people have chosen flickr, but I personally use zenfolio, and I really like it. I find Zenfolio's interface to be clean and fialr minimalist.

N

I totally agree with you. I have a Flickr account and can never find my way around it. Therefore I use it for my social pictures - the kind of pictures I wouldn't want to put on my Pbase account.
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Ronni

http://www.pbase.com/ronnihansen

like another poster, I got Flickr Pro for free. It's not ideal, but it's free.

I don't like the clunky interface whatsoever, even though I can get Flickr free through my ISP. I prefer Smugmug. Its a full featured provider that just seems to get better and better at it all the time.

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gallery : http://stv.smugmug.com/

SONY-A700/VG-C, SAL-70-200-SSMG, CZ-24-70Z, 17-35:2.8D, 11-18DT, SAL-14TC, 50:1.7, 5600:HSD {24-105D, 100-300APO}

+ Intuitive interface, very "web 2.0"-ish
+ Cheap, 1 gb free, peanuts for extra gb's
+ They don't mess with the originals
+ Free API access if you want to create your own third party application

• A bit slow with large galleries
• No way around their somewhat bloated upload interface (ftp for example)

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Mike
http://familienberg.zenfolio.com

I'm with you. Flickr does seem clunky. But as others have stated, it's really all about community-building. I'm on Smugmug and even though I love how it displays my photos, my galleries there generate few comments.

Harry Lew

'Buying gear is easy. What's hard is paying for it.'
http://harryjohn.smugmug.com/

Yes, Smugmug does a great display job.

I've managed to develop a number of very supportive Smugmug users myself despite the limited connectivity and with a "hit" count last month of nearly a 100k, but it is no community I agree.

I have contacted a Smugmug "principle" directly regarding the need for more and easier inter-member direct connectivity and was advised to use the Dgrin forum, which isn't quite the same thing.

http://www.dgrin.com/
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gallery : http://stv.smugmug.com/

SONY-A700/VG-C, SAL-70-200-SSMG, CZ-24-70Z, 17-35:2.8D, 11-18DT, SAL-14TC, 50:1.7, 5600:HSD {24-105D, 100-300APO}

I dabbled in DGrin myself. But it seems like there's a curious disconnect between the photo galleries on Smugmug and the conversations that occur on DGrin. Unless I'm missing something.

BTW, you are one of the few that have commented on my Smugmug gallery. Thanks again!

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Harry Lew

'Buying gear is easy. What's hard is paying for it.'
http://harryjohn.smugmug.com/

I use SmugMug and love it...Most helpful tech support I have delt with, in fact the reply is almost instantaneous. Bought a pro account mainly to sell my photos. We do get many comments, and SmugMug allows you to approve them before they are posted. Have a great backup service, thank God, saved my tail after a hard drive crash. They're printer service is excellent. New and better features all the time, no server downtime. Easy uploads, no crashes and seemless ability to link photos to SSTF.

Jim in VT

Harry Lew said:

I dabbled in DGrin myself. But it seems like there's a curious
disconnect between the photo galleries on Smugmug and the
conversations that occur on DGrin. Unless I'm missing something.

BTW, you are one of the few that have commented on my Smugmug
gallery. Thanks again!

--
Harry Lew

'Buying gear is easy. What's hard is paying for it.'
http://harryjohn.smugmug.com/

Click to expand...

No, you are not missing anything. I noticed the disconnect also, plus add the NiCan bias arrogance towards my Minolta 7D at the time. Of course, I would not stand for any of that kind of cr@p and let him know it ... };> )P

I do connect with several Smuggers via e-mail from time to time. The Dgrin forum is open and highly regulated topic-specific so there is little chance to interact directly on member to member basis. That forums traffic is dominated by a finite of posting regulars that predominantly end up talking to each other by and large.(sameoldsameold)

Hint: You have to get into others photo galleries and if you see a photo that you are impressed with or like, I leave a little sincere C&C. Several Dpreview members from here have left many generous C&C compliments in my gallery also. Thank you!
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gallery : http://stv.smugmug.com/

SONY-A700/VG-C, SAL-70-200-SSMG, CZ-24-70Z, 17-35:2.8D, 11-18DT, SAL-14TC, 50:1.7, 5600:HSD {24-105D, 100-300APO}

I usually get more hits on pbase, but I think smugmug looks better. For now I run both.
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See my galleries at http://www.dennismullen.com and http://www.pbase.com/dennismullen “Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Ben Franklin.

Flickr is free - that's why people like it...then you get hooked and buy a "Pro" account (which isn't very Pro). I have a Flickr account and have stopped using it more or less - it's just for "pic sharing", not photography IMHO as it is way too limiting.

Check out Zenfolio - there's a referral code on the first page of my website (which is hosted by Zenfolio with a Premium account) - Use the code to save if you sign up!

Very pro looking, great interface for both the owner and user, customizable, full size images/no compression, unlimited space/bandwidth and I have my own URL (Premium feature). It's a very easy gallery creation tool to give a good impression...and their tech support is amazing - they even responded to me on Christmas Day last year!! I tried and compared to Smugmug (too convoluted), PBase (boring), and a dozen others (none as slick) and just liked ZF the best.

Check out the featured gallery on my (Zen hosted) Site - "Hawaii" and choose the slideshow option - Enjoy! (Mostly Sony R1 images).

My 2 main features for a wish list on Zenfolio - 1. Fully customizable index/home page (HTML or otherwise). 2. Allow "comments" option on a per image and/or overall gallery basis.
--
http://www.karenengel.com

• Karen

because your images are so great!

What version of Smugmug do you run there?

Just curious, because I also have a bit of an issue with Flickr - it works OK, and since I use the Flickr uploader, it is quite easy to upload. The navigation is just the pits! I find it hard even to find the pictures I put up a few weeks ago.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Cheers

Alain
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Still not enough time to take pictures.......

Photorer said:

because your images are so great!

What version of Smugmug do you run there?

Just curious, because I also have a bit of an issue with Flickr - it
works OK, and since I use the Flickr uploader, it is quite easy to
upload. The navigation is just the pits! I find it hard even to find
the pictures I put up a few weeks ago.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Cheers

Alain
--
Still not enough time to take pictures.......

Click to expand...

.... for your generous compliments left to my humble gallery images and here in forum too!

I am using an up-grade POWER account for $59.99 a year but I'm using none of the up-grade features other than a single video posting! ?????? Go figure!

The inexpensive "standard" format offers as much as most users will ever need. Until someone buys something from me, the Pro version is much more than I can use.

The navigation and quality everything is well done in Smugmug. A new up-load copy feature of just cliking on the link thread is sweet too.

Image display is top notch !!!

PS: (I've got a Smugmug refence number too if anyone interested wants to save a couple of dollars for signing on anytime in the future.)
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gallery : http://stv.smugmug.com/

SONY-A700/VG-C, SAL-70-200-SSMG, CZ-24-70Z, 17-35:2.8D, 11-18DT, SAL-14TC, 50:1.7, 5600:HSD {24-105D, 100-300APO}

Preface: I've typed out about 50 replies and keep going back and deleting them, so I'll just keep this short and sweet.

Flickr is amazing, you guys crack me up.

Sure, you may find cheaper (or even free) alternatives, but in the end you're just being cheap and gimping yourself from an extremely robust community experience. Flickr was built from the ground up as an all-encompassing, "web 2.0", social networking experience - and it's jam-packed with thousands of users. Yes, it has UI issues, but you WILL NOT be joining a photographic community as large as Flickr anywhere else. It's a no-brainer. Give it a chance.

P.S. I could only chuckle to myself at the haters who were knocking the Flickr Pro account. It's only $24 / year! How is that not affordable for unlimited everything?

------------------------------------------

In the end, everyone is on Flickr - and Flickr is a rock-solid, social-networking platform. So why waste your time with something else just to save a few bucks?
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesse757/sets/

While I was looking the other way, photo-sharing on the web grew up!
Thanks for pointing out the strength of Flickr. It's free.

Having visited a few other hosts now, I still like PBase for it's straightforward presentation of photos. But it's good to see there's real competition out there.

Thank you for your responses.

Gordon

--
'If it Looks good....it IS good!'
http://www.pbase.com/gbk