Tranquility on the St.Lawrence River (Larger view Available)

I keep seeing these images of yours and thinking "thats another 7" But not In this case, this time I thought "there should be a 10! Amazing sky and  the slightly distorted reflections are brilliant, the 50 / 50 split works perfectly. I can't quite make out what the material is on the bottom right Ice maybe or gravel? Not that it really matters the photo a fantastic, I was just curious.

Best Regards

Alf

PS I did rate it 7

Thank you for thinking of this image so highly. After 5 rates including your '7' it was down to 4.9 avg (a couple of fours and a three and I almost deleted it (I would have  retained your comment) but the last two raters have brought it up to a 5.29.

Very prominent sky with refection. I particularly like the strong contrast between the clouds and the blue sky. Trees on the left add a needed subject for the vast space depicted without being too prominent. The only suggestion I would make is to correct the slight lens curvature at the horizon. A great image Tony. Best regards!

Hi Tony... Added one more 7, and this score is just not to top up the rating. :-)

Thanks,

Harsha.

John and Harsha - thank you for your constructive comments and your generosity. It is very much appreciated.

I would like to thank all of the raters for doing a fine job and taking the time :

To be here before these fantastic cloud formation and able to document it is already an achievement. What more to have come up with a wonderful image rendition of this natural occurrence is outstanding. Congratulations, Tony

Tony, you are blessed to view this beautiful spectacle of Nature and capture it in your impeccable style.

My favourite of the series Tony, a beautiful shot!

Stunning cloud formation that looks amazing reflecting on the water......a perfect example of right place at the right time......thanks for sharing.

A beautiful shot by the master of reflections,very nice work,my regards

Very beautiful. Think the most has already been said.

Sidsel

Hi Tony,

Thank you for taking time and leaving comments on my photos; highly appreciated.  

This photo is really superb and there is little if any you can do to make it any better. I am sure you have had experimented with all possible compositions and from what I see you made the best decision!

Best regards,

Hadi   

Tony - thanks for visiting my portfolio and for your comments on my Peggy's Cove photos.

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If that is the case, I would diplomatically suggest that you are spending far too much time tracking ratings to extract individual numbers from a cumulative anonymous average. The whole point of the recent change to the ratings system was to discourage people from putting so much emphasis on individual numbers. :-) ;-)

Having said that (I rated it a 5), this is a very nice photo of a very dramatic sky, but it does appear to be suffering, at least in the low res jpeg uploaded here, from slight overall softness. Probably due to diffraction effects caused by the very small aperture used (f/20 at a 10mm focal length according to the EXIF). At that focal length, even f/8 would have given amazing depth of field, and probably an overall sharper image.

Don't sweat the small stuff (individual ratings) and definitely don't pull an image that has received comments from the ratings queue just because the average may drop during the process. They're just numbers. Besides, I'm occasionally a cranky cuss and I am usually quite stingy with my 6's and 7's. :-)

Lester - thank you for your visit and kind words which are always appreciated.

A.K. really appreciate your generous support on many of my images.

Mark - Thanks you also for your generous support. Wishing you good photos on your upcoming trip.

Harry - I appreciate your kind words and generous rating.

Sidsel _ not sure if i should mention here that you a very young and proud grandma (too late) - hope all is well with everyone. Thanks you for your nice words and generous rating.

Hadi - I am happy to critique (my two cents) and rate your images. I was fortunate enough to come up on this scene and I took at least 20 images.  Anyone who visits my image,  I usually try and visit their images unless i get overwhelmed.

Michael - this is fantastic - I don't often get this type of feedback often and it is directly related to the fact that I know how you rated it and then followed up with you in a very polite and non-aggressive manner:

"I am aware that you rated my Tranquility image in a manner that you think there is room for improvement. Any helpful advice would be appreciated - what changes you foresee that could take it to a 6 or 7."

Many people tell me that they made a mistake when they rated it and that is good enough for me. So your feedback  is exactly what I am looking for in my goal of self-improvement.

In your Bio you indicated an engineering background so you must be familiar with the 'system schematic" for all processes - INPUT - Process - Output - Feedback and then modify either or both the INPUT  and PROCESS. My dilemma over the last little while is that you get great comments (FEEDBACK) but they don't measure up to the ratings (FEEDBACK)  in many cases. Ones needs to thoroughly analyse the numbers - not just what people rate my images but how their images are rated and who and what they rate highly. I have made many many interesting discoveries. Sorry can't help myself -  in my University degree, mathematical modeling and advanced statistics  were my major even though we don't need those skills here.   

So if my objective is to improve my photo skills and everyone is commenting that the image is great but the numbers are low,  one must collect stats since this is part of the feedback process and attempt to filter out the 'noise'.

This image was taken a year ago and I seldom use f20  but I assure you that the full size D300 RAW image is just fine. It shows a bit of 'diffraction' not so much from the fact that I did not use the optimum aperture (usually 3 stops from wide open) but the f20   combo of downsizing and additionally when photo.net does it 'thing' on it. If I post larger it will show more optimally but after friends here at PN alerted me to my images being grabbed  by 3 sites (2 of them had them for sale) I refuse to post them too large. In terms of 'technicals' perhaps you should look at a couple of images that you rated very highly. I will send you a link privately.

I agree with you that you have been stingy with the higher ratings with the bulk of your rates being  '4' and '5' and this is the case for many people. Photo.net shows your overall rating avg for other photographer's images as 4.49 but on a very positive note you have done 1235 '6's and 134 "7"s.

 Considering this is an artistic world with no guidelines on how to rate, I consider you blameless. Even though your rate of '5' on my image is a good rate I wanted to know why you went that route and now I have a much better sense of how you were thinking and I am very grateful that you have provided that info.  

The only reason I pull images when they are rated low along with few comments and few views, is a way to manage the 2500 images I have here at photo.net. It tells me that this is an image not worth sharing and allows me to put up new ones.

 And my final thought on how Photo.net should go in the future, there should be no anonymous ratings, people who rate below the norm should be forced to enter a comment and the pictures up for rating should be without the photographer's name. There could be a peer group mechanism for top (7)  rate or the lowest rate where if a certain number of people check a box, one low rate would disappear and similarly for one high rate. This would relieve photo.net administrators of onerous and additional duties. This trimming of low and high rates happen statistically IF enough people rate.  

I totally agree with you that we should not sweat  the small stuff and I don't. My dealings with a stage C cancer taught me very quickly what is 'big stuff'. It brings focus!

I look forward to future constructive comments and better rates when my photography improves.  

Absolute great shot Tony, awesome clouds and lighting.. best regards.Nima

Definitively an eye catching image Tony.Well done

This is an impressive picture, I must admit, although on my screen I see a lighter halo around the tree that doesn't fancy me, this is the only con I could find, anyway it's a great image. I supose this kind of crispy sharpness I pareciate on my screen is due compression and stuff like that so it's not a big con for me :) If the halo wasn't there I would rate a 7 but it'll stay at 6 that is also a good one

To presence moments like this one live should make you feel kinda lucky and special

About rating... I spoke by my own experience :At first I expected impatiently people rating my pics but always a bunch of 3/3 were voted and lowed my average sum ( if not stayed pretty close to 4/7) that IMO I didn't deserve. Since there are lots of Great photos that doesn't appear on the top gallery first pages because there are lots of doubtfuly highly voted nudes, I don't really care about rating anymore. I apreciate people who takes time to stop by  and vote but I prefer people who takes their time posting a useful comment. Don't worry about ratings, worry about comments. It has more sense ;)

You have not visited recently and the same goes for me. I appreciate your generosity. Thanks again and all the best (I have just finished visiting some of your images).  

Thank you for your support.  All the best,

To get a very good rate and then to tell me why you did not rate higher is priceless. It is all that I could ask and it is appreciated.  I do load some images larger so that i don't get the effect you describe.

Here is a site http://pixdaus.com/?sort=search - just enter hadley in the search box and you will find several of my images (even with my name on the image) taken from photo.net without my permission.

It happened again a few weeks ago when I got an e-mail telling me that one of my top rated images was on facebook as "Picture of the Week" - of course without my permission.

I have to strike that balance of loading a small but detailed image and one where it is not much use for potential sale by others.

All the best and thanks again,

Outstanding composition in this one Tony! That sky is absolutely fabulous, excellent color, and reasonable detail in the foreground beach. I can see some artifacts  from sharpening, or the jpeg down rez process. This is particularly noticeable around the largest evergreen tree, and along the skyline. Other than that it's just excellent! Well done Tony!

All the best,
Neil

Neil - I am in accord with you - many thanks. 

Please click on the image for a larger view for an opinion on the artifacts. Thanks,

I've not seen this till now.  Precious.

Don't worry about ratings or other.  Just keep photographing and full your soul with moments like these.  As said in a comment before, I love the contrast between clouds and sky.  I only miss a quiet water for a perfect reflection in this case which helps more to give a touch of "from heaven".  No nits about lens correction.  I too like many the graves at the bottom corner.  6.5/7.

This shot just blows me away...it jumps off the page. When I see it next to the other shots on the page they pale severely in comparison. Congratulations on a fantastic capture, Tony!