Is 500px a suitable Flickr Alternative?

GBarrington · Dec 2, 2014

I ended my Flickr account last week. While I liked the huge amount of storage that Flickr offers, I was getting tired of the delays and overall sluggish response that it offered. Then too, that Creative Commons sales thing made me uncomfortable. I also kind of wished that I could tie in with my Google based blogspot blog better, though I realize there are limits to what third party vendors can do.

What I liked about Flickr, was that the responses and comments I got from other users were usually more intelligent than the typical "Awesome!!!!!" or "You Suck!!!!" responses on other sites. (Just so we're clear here - I get more "Awesome!!!!!" responses than I do "You Suck!!!!" responses! Not enough of them, to be sure, but more!)

I tried to look at 500px since I had heard many good things about it. I noticed that the free account limits you to 20 uploads a week. Not an issue once I'm up and running, though it might prove problematic on set up. But I couldn't find any reference to total amount of disk space used or upload file size.

I notice that the paid accounts offer google analytics which is interesting, does anyone use them?

I also notice that 500px seems oriented towards selling photos via their Prime offerings. Does this mean that it isn't really suitable for the casual amateur shooter? On the other hand, has anyone been successful selling 4/3s photos on this site? It may be obvious, but I am ambivalent about selling my photos If I did offer them for sale, I would want a place for casual, fun, photography as well as marketing photos, I would never be super serious about selling my photos, but if someone wanted to buy one, I wouldn't be insulted, either

Any comments or advice you might have would be appreciated.

barry13 · Dec 2, 2014

Hi,

I have a free account (fyi, when you setup an account, it's premium for the first couple weeks (free trial))...

Upload size: full-res images are scaled down, at least for most views; I don't know what size they are stored at by 500px

One thing I was disappointed by is that the Sets feature is enabled at first, but then disabled after the trial. I'm not sure I can really live without it.

I haven't had any comments appear on my 500px pictures, nor any purchases, but I've only uploaded 5 pics.

afaict, they have no limit on total storage, other than limiting you to 20 uploads / week.

Barry

zathras · Dec 3, 2014

I recently removed all my photos off Flickr as well, after trying Smugmug for a while Flickr seems primitive with its single look that you can't change. I have looked at 500px but it seems oriented towards small numbers of gorgeous photos, not at all like Flickr where it's more of a place to throw everything. I would say Smugmug is closer to Flickr and much better looking, plus the photos don't get crunched down like on Flickr, plus you can upload directly from Lightroom or Aperture and it's highly customisable.

bigboysdad · Dec 3, 2014

You could say it's not perfect, but I think there's a lot of benefits to Flickr. It not only acts as a display for your best pics but also as a handy backup dumping ground and one of the best things about it is the knowledge base. Plus, I can't really see any benefit in removing everything off Flickr considering the amount of time invested in uploading photos there. So generally, I don't think that 500px is an alternative. Have an account there or any other photo hosting site in addition to Flickr instead of as a replacement.

Dramaturg · Dec 3, 2014

500px is not an alternative as there is a totally another philosophy behind it. Users will be able to see you work only if it gets a lot of feedback and gets at least into Popular. Of course anyone can enter your page and see all your work. But for the general flow - your work should be really good in order for you to get comments, likes, faves, etc, while in Flickr you could simply add your pics into a number of pools and get response from those people. To me 500px is really a gallery of your best work. Also I really miss groups in 500px as I don't really like the way they organize my flow. I think there is a reason to use both Flick and 500px as complementary things. Also Google+ seems to be a good place to share your work and get responses as you can join various circles and groups as well (similar to Flickr).

RobWatson · Dec 16, 2014

I used to be fairly active on 500px and one does get noticed based on activity level (I think). No sales...

I'm much happier with paid smugmug account. Just better tools for organizing and sharing compared to 500px. Minimal sales but I'm mostly just interested in a hosting site that is easy to share and has some options for privacy levels.

Never used flickr ...

Luckypenguin · Dec 16, 2014

I started a 500px account a few years ago but at the time there were some functionality issues. I chose not to continue with it because I had no intention of abandoning my Flickr account and I didn't want to duplicate images across two hosting sites.

bigboysdad · Dec 16, 2014

Luckypenguin said:
I started a 500px account a few years ago but at the time there were some functionality issues. I chose not to continue with it because I had no intention of abandoning my Flickr account and I didn't want to duplicate images across two hosting sites.

Exactly my experience.

aukirk · Jan 20, 2015

While there is a lot of Flickr hating going around recently, I really like it if you are looking for community interaction. Any attempts to work with 500px have made me feel out of my league. I have a SmugMug account as my photo backup, with every edited shot uploaded there for saving, and I only upload my favorites to Flickr for public sharing or groups.

If the only reason you are abandoning Flickr is that it seems sluggish, I would stick it out. While there have been lots of complaints about "changes", they really have done some amazing things over the past few years and seem to be (slowly) addressing most user complaints. After so many years of no updates or innovation, I am just happy to see it changing.

If you couldn't tell, I am a Flickr fan... just wish they would make some improvements to the groups and contacts by allowing you to create lists of those you want combined into single pools for viewing photos, but hopefully that will happen eventually.

Linh · Jan 21, 2015

Jay86 said:
Interesting thread. IMO 500px is not a good alternative to Flicker. SmugMug would be however. I am curious however about Google+… wonder if its a more community thing like Flickr or just a photo dump site to store/link images.

G+ can be both... G+ itself is a "social network" but just the photos part of it is actually great. Unlimited storage for pictures 2048px on the longest edge. Great editing tools. Easy sharing. There are communities you can post in and discuss.

But with that said, they completely botched organization. It's been long suspected Google will break photos out of G+. I hope this happens and they fix organization. It's a mess... especially if you have many albums or use Hangounts and G+ as a social medium. You end up with a giant icon list of random ordered albums (actually, I think it's last used based, but it's a mess regardless). And the communities are there, but a bit annoying to navigate IMO.

I would also say smugmug is completely different from flickr in purpose.

jrsilva · Jan 21, 2015

I use both Flickr and 500px.
I'm not doing much updates on 500 for a wile, but my intention is to only put a selection of my best shots on it.
The one that get's more interaction and feedback is Flickr and also the one I found more easy to manage.
They have different philosophies and I like both.

pdk42 · Jan 21, 2015

As others have said, the standard on 500px is very high. I've had a few shots trending well in the "Popular" stakes, but it's hard to stay there unless you're both very good and taking a lot of images.

Flickr has its issues, but I'm firmly staying with them. It still got a very strong community and you can post stuff that's good but not first rate without feeling ashamed!

flamingfish · Jan 21, 2015

zathras said:
I would say Smugmug is closer to Flickr and much better looking, plus the photos don't get crunched down like on Flickr, plus you can upload directly from Lightroom or Aperture and it's highly customisable.

You can upload directly to Flickr from Lightroom. I don't know about Aperture.

I agree that Flickr is not very customizable -- or if it is, they're not making it obvious that you have any options.

MiguelATF · May 23, 2015

This may be a too late reply to a long-resolved thread, but I would recommend Ipernity strongly as a flickr alternative. I don't have as many gripes as others about flickr; I've occasionally hated some of their recent and extreme format makeovers, etc, etc - but on the whole, I've found flickr useful and generally fun. The parts I don't like have to do with the incredible slowness of the way flickr pages load - and also a number of aesthetic decisions that the yahoo marketing geniuses seem to have imposed on flickr, to make it more of a competitor to Instagram and/or Facebook. But it's not bad, for what it is.

Ipernity, however, seems to mimic many of the photographer-friendly aspects that flickr enjoyed many years ago - but also to have improved on them in many ways. It's got a large community of photographers, many of them both excellent and articulate, who offer feedback or comments if those aspects interest you; and it's extremely customizeable in terms of how viewers can see photos, collections, galleries, etc etc. All in all, it's really very cool. So much so that after fooling around with it for awhile on their introductory 'free' account (with a maximum limit of 200 photos) - I decided to upgrade to a paid account. And, so far, I have not only zero regrets - but quite a few positives.

I briefly dabbled with 500px several years ago but, honestly, it wasn't my 'cup of tea'; it seemed oriented much more towards photographers trying to make a transition from amateur or hobby status to some kind of semi-professional involvement; and though many good photographers both use 500px and make it their home, my admittedly brief perusal of photographic work there left me with a feeling of homogeneity and 'sameness': too many photographers trying to tailor their work to some standard, and not the kind of originality or quirkiness which both flickr and ipernity seem to invite and foster. Obviously the preceding may be both an oversimplification and unfair, but it's how I felt about it.

Hope this helps.

bigboysdad · May 23, 2015

That description of 500px from MiguelATF is about as good as you're going to get.

TwoWheels · May 24, 2015

dornblaser said:
What I would really like is a site that is semi-public, where I can invite and control those who view my photos.

i realize I'm replying to an old thread here, but if it's still relevant to you, I suggest you try Smugmug. That's exactly what it is--there isn't the community aspect of flickr, but you can upload your photos into galleries and control access and downloads by gallery. I have one for my daughters soccer team to access, another one for my family photos, etc. I have been very happy with it.

Replytoken · May 24, 2015

If one is considering SmugMug, then Zenfolio should also be added to the short list as well.

--Ken

Is 500px a suitable Flickr Alternative?

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