As I was dropping my EC this morning on the SocialCardsters Blogroll I came across one of my favorite Bloggers, Chica and her blog Photo-Projectz. Chica has run into a snag that I bet a number of bloggers have at one time or another. She signed up for a photo hosting account on Flickr and then uploaded a 201 photos which put her over the 200 photo limit. Great! Now What?

Well, like Chica, you have a few options.

Option 1 - Just keep uploading, I mean, who is gonna look at those older photos anyway. (Not Recommended)

Option 2 - You can buy a pro account for yourself at $24.95 for one year or $47.99 for 2 years.

Option 3 - Explore the world beyond Flickr...

If you are on a budget and paying for photo hosting is not part of that budget then you might want to try one of these alternatives.

Buzznet - I've been uploading images to Buzznet since 2003. At one point I got a pro account there and was able to make as many different galleries and folders as I wanted. I still upload my Photo-A-Day to this site because the Photo-A-Day Widget that I created is based on the RSS feed from a gallery on Buzznet. I don't think you have to pay for a pro account anymore and so you can upload a ton there.

Pros - Uploading images is free, you can upload an original full sized image and choose from a bunch of sizes for your blog. You can also easily post to 20 different blog related sites including blogger and myspace. The site is also social so you can give other images 'Buzz' (Mark them as favorites), you can comment on images, add friends, make galleries private and password protected too. I don't think there is a size limitation but there is a monthly upload limit which is 300 images.

Cons - It seems a bit spammy. I've gotten over 400 friend requests from people who are not photographers, who have not photos on buzznet and I think the age range is something like 14-22, so I am an old dog on that network. I upload my one image a day and go.

A Closer Look - You can set specific privacy for your account and if I tighten it up it should cut down on the spammyness, But I am still too unhip for participating in that community.

Zooomr - Zooomr is as close to Flickr as you are gonna get. It looks pretty similar but the major difference is that you have unlimited uploading capabilities. So you will not run out of space, ever.

Pros - Unlimited Uploads, easy geotagging, labeling and you can put a url of a Zooomr image into Pownce and have it show up automatically. You can upload whatever size you would like and Zooomr will make sizes for your blog. You can also generate smartsets of not only your images but other images as well. The site is mainly for serious photographers who want to learn from each other. That is the impressions I get from the place. But that certainly doesn't mean that if you are not hardcore into photography that you can't have an account. Heck you might get some great comments from those hardcore photogs as well.

Cons - No 'one click' posting to your blog. Not many features beyond the unlimited uploads. Yet

Photobucket - I just signed up for this one for this post so I am not as familiar with it. This is a photo hosting site powered by Google, there are a few of them out there, Picasa is another. Once you upload there are a bunch of places where you can automatically post the image. You can sign up for a free account and then you can decide to go pro at $25.00 a year.

Pros - Free up to 1GB of space. Multiple ways to share the image.

Cons - I found the interface clunky. I also just started playing with it today.

As you can see the quality of the image is the same across each hosting site. It doesn't really matter where the image is located. What you have to decide is what features are you looking for in a photo hosting site. There are many other options to chose from when deciding where to host your images. My advice would be to scout them first, sign up for each one and try them out. Upload a few images, see how each interface is, look at the features. What is most important for you when choosing a hosting site for your images? Do you want to interact with other photographers/bloggers. is the hosting site a weigh station for your images before you post them to your blog? Do you post images to multiple blogs? Go through the questions and then decide which one of these options is the best for you. If there are other photo hosting sites that you are interested in please leave comments on this post.

Drew writes four blogs, is an avid kayaker and a Transformers fan, he also does a mean cake plow. He recently completed taking 1000 consecutive photos in 1000 days. You can visit him at The BenSpark, The Wired Kayaker, Read To Me, Dad, Google is not God.

Posted by BenSpark at 02:20 PM in Posties | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)