There are some days where the small form factor, relatively slow auto-focus and slow maximum aperture of the Panasonic GF1 and m4/3 lenses that I'm using aren't that much of a problem.

Today was not one of those days!

If you're choosing a camera to shoot stills at sports events like cycling, a GF1 probably wouldn't be your first choice. It was actually one of the few times that I really missed the focus speed of my old E30 and 50-200mm Olymus SWD lens combination.

To make matters more difficult, the conditions for the finishing stage of the Tour de France was overcast and fairly dull. All in all, however I'm happy with the few images that I did get this afternoon.

This week I made a change that I've been thinking about for a long time: licensing royalty free images exclusively at istock.

As a result, my images have now been removed from all other microstock agencies. Editorial images are still available on a rights managed basis on Alamy.

Panasonic GF-1 users got a free upgrade to the video capabilities of their camera, thanks to some handy hacking by "Tester13". In short, this provides an upgrade to the specs of their High Definition video by removing some of the software limitations that Panasonic put in.

Key improvements include:

• 1080 mjpg recording
• Improved audio bitrates
• Reduced compression
• Removed 30min recording limit
• Allows cheaper 3rd party batteries to be used

Naturally I was keen to give the new video settings a try, and it just happened to be a nice afternoon in Madrid, so I put together a few clips. Unfortunately I hadn't tweaked the 1080 HD mjpg settings, so instead of shooting in that format as planned, I ended up with AVCHD files instead (which are only 720HD) with 44Mbit settings.

Audio is all from the GF-1 - the music is a busker who was about 5 meters away from one of the shots, played over the top of the other clips.

To see this properly you really need to click on the icon in the bottom right corner to view full screen, then click on the HD button to view in full resolution!

There's an annual talkfest that's winding up at the moment in Dublin related to the Stock industry organised by CEPIC - the European association that represents stock agencies.

Its significant in that many of the leaders and thinkers behind the industry are there from both the "Micro" and "Traditional" stock agencies. As is usual for these events, what's not on the program or being said officially is far more interesting that what is.

I stopped in for the first few days to catch up with some of those attending that have more serious discussions and business reasons for going. It provided an opportunity to meet and talk about some of what's going on in the industry - and more importantly to get an informal feel about where things are heading.

While I don't intend this blog to become focused on stock photography, its a topic of interest to many of my regular readers, and still my main source of funding for my wandering lifestyle, so I figured its a timely opportunity to share my thoughts about some of the trending topics, and where I see things are heading. Like everyone else who talks about these issues, I don't have a crystal ball - so take all comments with a healthy pinch of salt.