rdwhiteman

ok, i like everything but the composition/placement of the end of the pier. this placement makes the left look empty and that upsets the "balance" of the image. however, if for some commercial use where text or inserted images were placed in that space, then it's perfect. 

perfect marks for editorial use and near perfect for art on the wall. i know you wanted that pink light on the left and it's pretty, but... :-)

i like everything but the heaviness of the dark pier leading out of the corner in what is otherwise a bright image. is there enough to open that up in tone/value?

tough subject to compose and i feel there is too much space on the left. perhaps a different angle of shooting? 

colors, details and "action" of the incoming wave are delightful. good enough as is, just those few things if being picky. ;-)

in this photo I would take down the sky and splashing wave about 1 - 1 1/2 stops and then go from there. Great composition, detail and color.

I clicked to see what kind of tree would be blooming while standing in water and see now the "blooms" are birds! What a delight it must have been to find this scene. Nothing to say but "well done!"

Exposure, composition and all other technical aspects are as good as could be required. Nice. 

I do not agree with the "over-processed" comments and find this very natural looking, as the eye would view it. I realize we still think of such scenes in the  dynamic range of film or single-shot digital, but in terms of reality, this cannot be the standard as they are not capable of recording the true range of a natural scene. This is very well done compared to much of the HDR seen today. 

What is the location? 

Nice composition of the elments, great movement and the foreground creates the special interest.

Been there at that very beach. Carmel was a favorite spot while living up in that area a number of years ago. Good photo.

Excellent exposure with good details in all areas. Did someone say catchlight in his right eye? Why? It would look out of place and rather contrived with this lighting. Very good work Dirk.(as usual) Who does he look like? All the suggestions above are probably good but this could be ME...in about 40 years. ;-)

the highlights are gone. Shadows are good but you'll find that with some digitals the dynamic range is not real broad. The best thing is to shoot like slides, go for the highlights. You have a good amount of shadow recovery with digital that could be opened up in a darker shot. Bringing back blown highlights usually cannot be done unless you shoot RAW.

 

If you have Photoshop CS you can recover shadows nicely with the highlight/shadow adjustment. Any subsequent noise can be fixed with NoiseWare or similar program.

Personally, I don't think there has to be a specific subject for a landscape. There are mulitple subjects for viewing in this fine composition. The bark on the trees makes for a nice subject as well as the yellow canopy of leaves still on the trees. Who could ignore that wonderful shaft of light streaming through this scene, warming everything it caresses. I think the subject is beauty as found in nature when all the elements come together as they do here. Nice to have been there when it happened with a camera loaded and ready to go.

 

Very nice POW.

...those shadows are creating a break up of the smooth flow of light and shadow. Nice composition and use of the hood. The light looks too "focused" for this type of shot with those hard-edged shadows coming from the nose and lower lip.

 

Great pose idea and good over-all exectution.

but the composition looks centered. A crop on the right and a bit more space on the left to get those highly-detailed roots away from the edge where they take the viewers eye all too quickly.

 

Excellent lighting and exposure with a nice presentation.

who, amongst artists would admit to being "in style". There is a strong sense of personal style coming through all the photos in this folder which is very nice. Not always easy to accomplish this. Style is what you have and what you do. Not really something you imitate and to me, has to be sincere to really work. I don't think true art has to be limited to any certain style or have to follow the crowd with whatever is in vogue at the time. However, most people are followers so...

 

Nice style Tamara!

I can't imagine any one photo doing that. The title "Big City" conjures up a multi-faceted metropolis with varied viewpoints, landmarks and interests. I just recently spent another day visiting/shooting in San Francisco and I can't imagine any one of those many images capturing the soul of that place. Perhaps one of the images does come across more as being "S.F." more that some of the others but it's just one of the many landmarks made famous in that intersting city. Maybe an arial shot would be the best bet. However so much needed detail would be lost on such a "map" shot that the "soul" might get lost in all the details. With S.F. as an example; how would you show all those steep streets with an arial?

 

My vote is NO. Takes more than one shot to reveal the soul of a city with all it's beauty and ugliness.

 

I just thought that perhaps Las Vegas could be an exception. It's not so varied in topography or culture. More like one huge casino with many offspring.

 

The POW here is somewhat interesting being a night shot with the "ghost" figures and other elements bathed in a light not seen by most visitors. Not much else really compelling about this nice image.

Nice pick for POW. Not a lot to discuss here but at the "end of the day" this seems to be about scale. How man fits into the world he as altered with such inventions like this staircase, as it seems to be. I've never been near a set of steps of this scope although at the age of 4 I did take a tumble down the stairs at our house that SEEMED to be as big as this at the time. The resulting knot on my forehead felt almost as large too. They didn't always carpet stairways back in those days. Hardwood if memory serves correctly. Hey, it was 1955-56!

 

The "corrected" sample above seems somewhat sterile compared to the "movement" of the lines in the original which, by the way, would get my nod between the two. Looks like that $200 zoom came through after all IMO.

 

What will be funny is when the "facts" are made known one day about how Nestor used some figurines from his HO scale model railroad out in the garage to stage this hoax and fool us all into thinking it was actually "real world" stuff. I mean what would it take to stage this POW?...some tiny folk, one floodlight and some lines on paper (including the "barrel distortion") Veeeeeery clever Nestor!! ;-) (uh oh, I can hear the clamor of garage doors slamming and boxes being ravaged already) We'll see if they remember the barrel distortion thing too.

If it were mine I'd crop the left about half way between the tree and the side. The rest is fine as is.

The busyness is what MAKES it interesting. This must have been too much fun! Stop it! ;-)

The composition of this image is unusual but with everything else comes across extremely well. The lighting is nearly perfect and needs no improvement along with the pose and expression.

Top-notch work!

You just can't fault those Sony lenses. So sharp!

This was shot at the "same" time but several minutes later in which the light had gotten brighter by the minute. The light changes quickly at dawn as you might know. Also, in the wider view you can see the sky reflecting in the water with the right side pink and the left side bluer. Soon after this was taken the whole sky turned pink and the water took on a pink hue for a few minutes that slowly faded to the normal gray/blue of early morning.

 

The original photos shows the water dark since the sky was just starting to turn reddish-orange at the horizon. It was still quite dark then.

 

If you're ever in the area you just have to hit La Jolla before dawn and stick around a couple of hours as the light changes. Oh yea, bring the camera!

I did take this at the largest file size the camera has. The "small file" I was refering to is the file I uploaded to photo.net. I've been able to print up to 11x14 from the DC4800 but some (including me) might question whether that is a good idea. 8x10 is probably a more realistic limit depending on subject and personal taste. I've always shot at the highest setting except for family stuff.

 

The Square idea might work but the foreground was framed this way due to some plants just out of the frame that changed the whole look of the shot. See the link below to see the same rocks from a wider angle with more light.You should be able to see water instead of sky Geraldine. ;-)

 

 

 

bob

quite a unique and dramatic image of this young baboon(?) clinging to it's mother. This evokes quite a feeling of security and confidence. The light here is superb.

At ISO 100 there is very little noise on the DC4800 if you don't under-expose too much. Also you can run the files through NeatImage which helps quite a bit. This photo has never seen NeatImage and is right from the camera as stated above. I didn't discover NeatImage until later the next year.

 

For those interested I will try to locate the original file for comparison. I just don't remember how much saturation boost I gave it but it couldn't be much since the noise level would be unacceptable with anything over 20 which isn't much.

This is the same subject with a different camera and different light. The light is not as warm in this recent photo as well as the flowers are blooming. The original photo was taken in mid-winter with the rocks having a "cleaner" look due to the rain and a deep pink glow in the east.

 

The DC4800 always has a warmer look to it compared to the Fuji S2 which tends to be cooler.

 

Also the later shot shows a lower tide revealing the rocks below where the waves were in the previous photo.

...did I expect to see THIS photo HERE.

 

But now that it is, my thanks to all who have looked and commented. I find it interesting how different everyone views this image and the reactions to it...both favorable and not-so-favorable.

 

Technically speaking, this is a straight forward shot looking down from the top of a cliff with the early warm glow of dawn just beginning to appear in the east (right of camera) with some "fill" from a street light just behind me that gave enough light so I didn't end up falling off the edge! The noise from the DC4800 is there but not too bad since I always used ISO 100 and this is a small file. The saturation may have been boosted about 10-15 on the master channel and that's about it. No filters were used since I didn't have any at the time that would fit this camera. The white balance may have been set to auto...I just don't remember since it's been 1 1/2 years since this was taken. And yes, a tripod was and is ALWAYS used. Other than the "touch" of saturation the only PS was to resize and USM. Oh yea, and add the frame!

 

About the black border, this was from my "large black border" period that may have lasted...uh, too long for some tastes but in defence of this border some have agreed that the stark white of the photo.net background often "bleeds" into the edge of darker photos somewhat veiling the subtil details and this black border eliminates this to a large degree for easier viewing of the image. Just look closely at the border and depending on your type of display you'll see it. I have about 3/8 inch of bleed on my display but with this border it's NOT in the photo.

 

Personally the thing(s) that impresses me most about this image is the reaction to it and the fact that the auto focus actually worked with it being as dark as it was.