I’ve noticed that when a person posts a link to a stored photograph on RailPicture.Net there is some animosity about the site, what is up with the hate for this site?
Yes, those stupid pop-ups. I hate them too, but I bet they are paying for the 80 thousand plus photos stored on that server. So, some young people have an idea of how to make this hobby of ours just a little easier and better.
Some two or three years later, they have built what is known in photography circles as a “STOCK SHOT ARCHIVE.” We as railfans should be giving these folks, what I assume are kids a standing ovation! And because of the site’s entry form, each photo is searchable! Fellow railfans, it just doesn’t get any better than that…
Yes, it does get better than that, most of the photos posted to this site can be printed using the file either on your ink jet printer or turned over to a photo lab and done with chemistry, in large sizes with great results.
I really think we should be praising them for their efforts! OK, yes - I’ve been mad when they didn’t take one of my photos, but that’s some of their youth with a mix of some of my ego.
I too like their site. My only complaint is that when you click on a picture to view it, it opens in a new window. No biggie, it’s something I can live with considering it’s free and the high quality of the photos.
I’ve made some photo submissions but none have been accepted. I can understand your frustration. I look at it this way, it makes me want to try and take better photos plus it gives me an excuse to get out and take more!!
Railpictures.net is probably one of my favorite websites. I too have submitted photos, only to have them rejected. That’s OK, I will just learn to shoot better ones!
What I really like is the search funtion by railroad, state, and make of locomotive. This has really helped me in my modeling of NS. I try to find as many pictures of my models in real action, so I can better model them on my model railroad.
What I also enjoy about Railpictures.net is I have been able to find some of the very same photo areas where I live. This has greatly helped me watch trains.
I hope the site remains free in the future.
I have been able to block most of the pop-ups with Google pop-up blocker and my Windows XP security update.
I sincerely hope that you get the photographer’s permission before doing this?!! If not, then I suggest you read up a little more on copyright violations. (you canNOT save, print, sale, or do anything, for that matter, with those photos without contacting the photographer first) It really gets me how some people assume that these pics are there for the taking to do whatever you want with them! On the other hand, if you did contact them first, then thank you for doing what most people don’t. [:)]
Railpictures.net is nice. I have about 200 photos there, but it has it’s pros and cons.
Pro: photos are screened, so all are properly exposed and framed
Con: photos are screened by individual screeners, so are subjectively judged. What you love, one or more of them may hate. Sometimes itteritive process of getting a photo accepted is time consuming.
Pro: “unique view” stats are generated. You can see if what you’re doing is popular
Con: makes posting photos competitive - in a generally non-competitive hobby.
Pro: photos are on-line - you can see newsworthy photos sometimes only hours after being shot.
Con: Newsworthy doesn’t always equal high qualtiy. Screens don’t always appreciate what they’re looking at.
Pro: standards for quality are very high. No fuzzy or poorly scanned shots accepted
Cons: standards are generally too high for flat bed scanners. Must have $400 slide scanner to get most older stuff accepted.
Conclusion:
I’ll still send my best new digital stuff to Railpictures.net and I won’t bother with tweaks and appeals. All my older stuff plus any rejections from RP.net will go to rrpicturearchives.net from now on. It’s much easier to deal with, even if you have to put up with fuzzy photos of photographer’s feet, sometimes! (why do people upload stuff like that?)
In the beginning I hated Railpictures. Over time, I realized that the camera I was using isn’t that great. Its a cheap floppy disk digital camera. I’m happy with the 19 picutures I have had accepted. Heck, one has over 1500 views!
Some people have a hard time understanding it takes quite a bit of money to run a system that has to carry such a high bandwidth load. And I would assume the image archive type sites, like railpictures.net and other similar sites, move ridiculous amounts of data each day. For some reason, many people seem to have an attitude that anything and everything that is in digital form, should be 100% free, and void of any type of advertising or fee. This is the same attitude of the people that download the bootleg movies, music and software. Nothing else in life is free, so I don’t know why the Internet would be. But that’s how a lot of people feel.
Nonetheless… It does take money to run sites like railpics. I think a lot of it is sour grapes over the aforementioned photo rejections as well. It’s inevitable that some people’s feelings are going to get hurt. But they’re just trying to control quality.
I consider it to be a first-rate site and use it regularly to update my computer’s wallpaper on a weekly basis. I’m especially happy with all of their overseas photos, especially Australia, Brazil and South Africa.
The only problem I have with Railpictures, is that the pictures are too big to fit on the screen. I have to fiddle with the side to side and up and down buttons to see the entire photo.
You might want to try changing the resolution of your monitor.
Chances are you are running at 800x600, when you would probably be better off running at 1024x768, I run my 19" monitor at 1920x1080 and the photos fit on the screen, easily, without scrolling.
It’s a great site, in my opinion. I’ve been submitting my photos there since early Feb. and have so far had 25 accepted (and probably 50 rejections).
It being a moderated site, very few bad photos get accepted. This means the ‘signal to noise’ ratio is good - it’s worth browsing through its pictures because most of them are good, while on other sites, I quickly get bored wading through the bad ones to find the gems.
They are very picky about what they like. This might get annoying if your idea of a good photo is not theirs, but it does mean it has a strong editorial vision. Certainly not every photo you think is good will get accepted. The “unwritten rules” of the place seem to be:
It’s not a general rail pictures site, it’s a locomotive picture site. It’s hard to impossible to get a non-locomotive image accepted.
They often don’t like it if you get too creative with lighting or angle. They seem to be looking for ‘calendar’ type shots a lot.
They detest anything but bright sunlight, except for a few night photos. A grey sky is enough to get rejection, even if the subject is brightly lit.
They like bright colors. Turning up the saturation in your photo editing program is often a good move.
They like eye-popping sharpness. Liberal use of the ‘sharpen’ feature in your photo editing program is often a good move.
You certainly do NOT need to have an expensive camera. I have a Kodak DX6440 pocket digital zoom camera. 4 megapixels, 4x zoom. I also have a 2x teleconverter to give me a bit more range, which does make quite a difference. Total equipment cost maybe $350. I do advise shooting lots - on the average afternoon’s railfanning I might shoot 250 pictures, which may translate into 2-3 photos that railpictures.net will accept.
That picture is VERY artsy - in fact, a very good photograph in all but one area – details of the locomotives are not visable. But that’s fine, because that is not the appeal of the photo.
RP.net is excellent for being able to see the “details”, which is often important. They are not, however, an art gallery.
I like the site and I understand the need for advertising. I just wish it wasn’t so stupid and would change once in a while. If I don’t fall for the “millionth visitor” the first time, I’m not going to fall for it over the next year.
How do they screen all the pictures that people send? I couldn’t imagine a few people manually reviewing each and every one. Do they have some type of (computer) program that scans the pictures? If so, what type of application is it/how does it work? Just curious.