Fotopic - the alternative

I use flickr, as I realised that fotopic wasn't much good from the beginning; the functionality is quite frankly appalling.

Generally the advantages are that it's more social as you are encouraged to comment and favourite other pictures. Probably the best group is http://www.flickr.com/groups/railphoto/ (credit to Martyn Fordham for setting it up).

You can also add other users as contacts and see their latest photos that they've uploaded: http://www.flickr.com/photos/friends/

To address previous points, with flickr you can control who can see your photos in various ways. One way is to restrict certain photos to your contacts and/or your friends and/or family. Another way is to create a private set and give a invitation to your friends, (or yourself and then forward the password to them).

Other things include;
Geotagging so you can see where a photo was taken.
Interestingness score so you can find out which photos are arbitrarily "interesting" (based on the number of views/comments/favourites). This can be used by third party applications such as flickriver.

The only downside of flickr as far as I can tell is that you should be wary of some groups that encourage people to comment on your pictures with a sparkly gif image promoting the group, "post one award one!" and all this nonsense which can be quite irritating. But that's just a personal preference - I prefer people to think about and say why they like (or don't like) a photo rather than just saying "great shot!"

my photosteam is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duncharris/

 

Just off topic a minute..

Some of the posts seem to have been put on pre-mod by the auto spam blocking software on the forum. It seems to be if 2 or more links to flickr have been inserted in the posts. I will bring it to the attention of Glyn or Ralph to have a look at the settings on the forum software and see if we can resolve it.

In the meantime please PM the mod team if your post is not approved after a short while.

Thanks for your patience, Neil.

 

I am having a go with Smugmug on there 14 day free trial period, here are a few offerings so far

http://steamrailway.smugmug.com/

Neil

 

Flickr is free - up to a point. I'm still using the free option, but upgrading to a 'pro' account at $25 (£15.50) for a year won't break the bank.

 

list/prices of Smugmug photo site features

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/photo-sharing-features/

Neil

 

It will be a great shame if fotopic is in fact dead, I can see a lot of people will not bother to reload their archieve onto another website.

 

I have had a Pro FLICKR account since 2007 and would recommend it to anyone looking for an alternative to fotopic.Very easy to use and so many railway groups for you to join and browse.Some very talented railway photographers now coming over to FLICKR namely Neil Harvey with some great early preservation mainline shots.Also so many 'real steam' photographs to enjoy namely Barking Bill just look at his shots now all in hi res, great for people like me who just missed out seeing it for ourselves.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10257146@N05/

 

It's not a question of bothering - it's a question of time and the number of hours in a day. One also has to eat, sleep and get dragged round Tescos!

However, I've made a start; 148 down, 7852 (approx) to go...

I'm still sitting on the fence regarding Flickr. I'm warming to it, but would still prefer Fotopic if it a) comes back, and b) could be trusted.

 

With regards to the earlier post about the other option, Zenfolio (http://www.zenfolio.com). Whilst I have played with it and I must admit from the 14 day free trial I am on at the moment the results are pretty professional (http://totallytransport.zenfolio.com) it is rather on the expensive side, the cheapest option is $25 per year with the most expensive being $250. Full pricing options. (in dollars, I'm sure you can do the maths yourselves!)
For me, although it is very profesional and relatively easy to use I don't think I can really justifiy the frankly massive cost. You can try it out for 14days for free for yourself though.

 

Anyone know when Pikfu is likely to be operational ?, for the moment i'll just stick to my Yahoo groups for pics but none of the alternatives like FlickR, Coppermine and Photobucket really grab me, knowing what Fotopic was like before Joel sold it, if Pikfu is anything like similar in layout then i think that would be the one i'd go for.

 

I hear the reason why Photopic went down was because to many people had joined the web site but only used the free part of the site. I wonder if this could happen to the other photo sites when Photopic members sign up to them.

 

I have to admit it's quite ironic that even though your spelling photo right, it isn't right for fotopic!

I also find it quite stupid they couldn't cope with all the free users. I was a free user however i paid for extra quota when i needed it. If they wanted more people to pay then perhaps they should have given less quota to free users to get them to pay, or give more tempting features for premium members? I'm confused why the site has completely vanished though. Usually when this happens to a company the website has a message saying its undergoing maintenance, not completely wiped from the earth.

I also get the feeling no one really knows what has actually happened. It seems to be rumours that it's gone bust, just like it's been said the server is down and it's been hacked. Is there any truth in any of them?

 

Quite. As far as I know the company has made no comment at all. According to Companies House the owner is

SNAPPY DESIGNS LIMITED, 17 HERTFORD AVENUE, EAST SHEEN, LONDON, SW14 8EF I've tried to find their phone number without success.

According to Bing aerial view, number 17 is an office building set back in a residential area. If anyone lives nearby perhaps they could call and ask what the position is.

 

NOT an alternative but for any older shots or ones that you want to donate to the geograph project you are welcome. Plenty on there
http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=19893004

The photos are under the creative commons licence but they are back up by the British library so will be there forever and a day.

I'll also add, avoid webshots (below) at all costs!

 

I did a lot of research a few years ago having grown cheesed-off with fotopic. It seemed to be a toss-up between Zenfolio and/or Smugmug. I went with the former as it seemed quicker at displaying photos and a nicer way of arranging collections, although they're probably equally as good.

My website: http://englishelectric.zenfolio.com/

Discount code: JR5-ZS7-R9Z

 

Quite impressed with Zenfolio so far, this is how it looks at the moment , though have quite a bit of tweaking to do now I have got my head round the structure. I should have sorted out the group structure first and uploaded a couple of token pictures into a couple of galleries within rather than dump a load of pictures on there first and try and sort it out later!

How much discount does the code give? Will give it a few more days and might well sign up as it appears to be able to fulfil most of my requirements. Will probably go for the Premium account as it is the lowest level on which you can watermark pictures and use your own domain name (which is something I am considering)

 

How do you 'get' a Pro account - unless, of course, you pay for it.

I'm experimenting with a free account at the moment and I have to say I'm warming to it. However, I shall sit on the fence for a little longer.