Microstock agency 123RF has just announced their own app for uploading images to their database directly from your iPhone, called 123RF On-The-Go. The app allows to capture images directly with the smart phone, tag them with keywords and upload them to 123RF right away or at a later stage.

What are the potential uses for this?

I like to shoot landscapes and especially cityscapes. But for the most of it, my iPhone never produces the results I would like it to. The limitations in selecting angles, photo settings, white balance are not really “my thing”. But I know there are lots of street photographers out there catching everyday life with their smart phone.

Also I haven’t seen any indication how model releases would be handles, so I assume the app is not meant for people shots. I might have a test run at some stage but it does not look like a solution I will use regularly.

But to be honest, for the time being I expect this expect this app to be attractive to the occasional hobbyist who is not willing to take their DSLR (if they even own one) everywhere but still want to try earning an occasional buck. I have seen a new “agency” popping up which specialized on smart phone images. As they seem to approach pure amateurs not prominently mentioning the risks involved in taking snap shots and offering them for sale, I won’t even mention their name.

I am sure 123RF as an experienced agency will cover those topics much better. Though, I am not a particular fan of the agency as it offers one of the lowest Royalties Per Download across the places I am supplying. And I don’t feel inclined to use the app as I have no interest in shooting images which I can only upload to one agency. Though, other agencies like iStockphoto have recently accepted smart phone images as well, so it might be within the trend and just save another step of download the images from the phone to my computer. I will keep you posted once I get to try out how the app works.