ivan colman

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Aquarium or arboretum ?<div></div>

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Ever since I was active on Photo.Net there was the same critique. In previous ages it was better ! Now a hang around on this side long enough to understand what that means. But my problem is I don�t understand anything. Just as in the beginning of my photo.net precence these critiques came from people who are looking for the large version of �waaaw� or �excellent�. These critiques always refer to this very pleasant, informative and enjoyable in-crowd chats.But if You ask me, this description of photo.net was never true. As outsider it was, is and will be impossible to become a member of this selected conservative peer-group.

 

Now photo.net is exponentially growed the impact of these groups is lowered. By all this new members photo.net evolved and did cope with the modern trends in photography. Of course among all these newby�s there are people who dares to place the in-crowds work in a broader perspective. As with a lot of photo clubs, the modern trends grow homesickness with the conservative members who think of themselfs that they are the global photographicall reference

 

But I never minded. Photo.net offers everything to keep track of modern photography. I never saw photo.net as a confirmation of my skills. I never expected good critics from the photonet members. And instead of critisizing the rating system, I used it for what it is worth.... namely getting an insight in what the public wants. And all this feed back (the absence of comments and ratings is also feed back) I used on my own manner to evolve my photography. And therefor photo.net is still very valuable. Photography is changing rapidely by the introduction of digital photography. Photo appreciation is consequently also changing rapidely. And photo.net still offers a lot (the largest lot on the internet ?) to keep track of these evolution.

 

For the rest my motto is : photography is like wine. Very expensive experts can tell me what I should like. But once it is in my mouth and it taste like shit... I don�t care what all these experts tell me. Then it is bad wine !

Ever since I was active on Photo.Net there was the same critique. In previous ages it was better ! Now a hang around on this side long enough to understand what that means. But my problem is I don�t understand anything. Just as in the beginning of my photo.net precence these critiques came from people who are looking for the large version of �waaaw� or �excellent�. These critiques always refer to this very pleasant, informative and enjoyable in-crowd chats.But if You ask me, this description of photo.net was never true. As outsider it was, is and will be impossible to become a member of this selected conservative peer-group.

 

Now photo.net is exponentially growed the impact of these groups is lowered. By all this new members photo.net evolved and did cope with the modern trends in photography. Of course among all these newby�s there are people who dares to place the in-crowds work in a broader perspective. As with a lot of photo clubs, the modern trends grow homesickness with the conservative members who think of themselfs that they are the global photographicall reference

 

But I never minded. Photo.net offers everything to keep track of modern photography. I never saw photo.net as a confirmation of my skills. I never expected good critics from the photonet members. And instead of critisizing the rating system, I used it for what it is worth.... namely getting an insight in what the public wants. And all this feed back (the absence of comments and ratings is also feed back) I used on my own manner to evolve my photography. And therefor photo.net is still very valuable. Photography is changing rapidely by the introduction of digital photography. Photo appreciation is consequently also changing rapidely. And photo.net still offers a lot (the largest lot on the internet ?) to keep track of these evolution.

 

For the rest my motto is : photography is like wine. Very expensive experts can tell me what I should like. But once it is in my mouth and it taste like shit... I don�t care what all these experts tell me. Then it is bad wine !

Hardly relevant and certainly not important but it intrigues me to

know why the indicated number of photos that I have rated on this

site is dropping ?

What makes birds so special that photo's of them should be kept apart from other nature photo's. With all respect but then I think fish-photographers have more reasons to ask for a separate category. Sorry but for me a good bird photo is a good photo in the category Nature. A bad bird photo would not become better in a special bird category !

Bas, U veralgemeent wel heel veel....

 

Bas, You generalize too much. I dare to use my native language (Flemish) when I am convinced the photographer clearly understands what I am telling. I am fully aware that our native language is hardly to understand by non-flemish (Dutch) speakers. But it is still the only language in which I can express accurately what I want to say. In many cases I swap to flemish when I want to express something I don't like too that particular photo, and certainly not when I want to praise it to heaven. In most cases I give these comments for the photographer.

 

I will take care to use as much as possible the english language. But I don't promise anything. On the other hand I sometimes use www.worldlingo.com to translate some comments. And I discovered that a lot of these native comments are given with the same purpuse as I use my native language. I fear that on an international site, with this amount of contributors, this problem can not be overcome unless non english comments are deleted.

 

 

.... Ik beloof echter niets.

Brian,

 

I like the new lay out. I find it a large improvement compared to the previous format.

 

Congrats....

Marc,

 

I fear that what You discribe is the case for all photosites. More general photonet is not different from any other internet forum. You have always two kind of people present on such forums. The polite ones and the rude ones. Anonimity of internet grows a lot of the second group. In discussion fora these groups starts yelling and launches personal attacks, on photo fora this group rate 1/1's and breaks down every photo.

 

Photo fora are in that different that real contributers do have interest in being polite. That could offer an higher appreciation of the own work. I fear that not photo.net or other sites are wrong but that you only see the reflection of human nature.

Chuck,

 

Imho there is no need for such a forum.

1° There is always the possibility to leave a comment clarifying a possible low rating. In addition the photographer has always the possibility to ask, via e-mail, some explanation about a low rating.

2° There are no universal standards of aestetics. Even the perception of originality is very dependend on personal and cultural influences. A forum will only demonstrate this personal aspects about photo evolution and not lead to general accepted guidelines of photo rating.

3° Imho it is a matter of politeness ! The possibility of giving a low rating exist. But when given, such a low rating should be accopagnied by a explanation. Because indeed everybody posting his/her photo's on photo.net has an personal emotional relation with the iece of work. A blund, commentless low rating is indeed a personal attack. Nobody loves to hear that the creation (s)he has produced sucks !

 

So imho ratings is personal ! Rules of Aesthetics is something for the ancient greeks, but nowadays it is much harder to make such rules.

Low ratings must be possible, but I think the rater should then be polite enough to explain why (s)he gives such rating.

Marc,

 

First thanks for taking the time to reply on my message. I must agree that even that becomes rare.

 

You wrote

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I'd say that we should probably look for more objective criteria, but what happens if you think you found an objective reason to rate a picture a 1 ? Do you then do so ? Or do you refrain - remembering that what you see as "objective" may still only be subjective anyway ?

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Indeed and that is one of my main reasons that I am very carefull with negative comments. I'd made a lot of them (negative comments thus) until the time some people bounced them back to my photo's. I was very positive that their comments did not apply to my photo's however after some tedious e-mail discussions I have accepted that they had at least the same right to make these negative comments as I had. Thus I start looking for criteria to motivate possible negative comments. However I am aware that even these criteria are prone to complete different interpretation.

 

quote Marc G

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If a picture can cause joy, it can also be extremely annoying/insulting; and if you express your joy with a 7/7, why can't you express the anger a picture may cause by a 1/4...? Would you or not rate a 1 a picture that promotes murder, to take an even more extreme example ? To me, a picture that is provocative and serves an immoral purpose is what I call awful in originality - and that's worth a 0, as well as a long explanation

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Of course I agree !

But in practice it is sometimes very difficult to act according to it. I once commented on a imho very bad nude. Bad light (to harsh contrasts making wrinckles visible in the face) and a very distractive background. Some days later I got a lot of comments (always using a different name) that make me withdraw some of my photo's. I find this very injust, but apparantly that the way the world turns round. And I addapted myself to that motion, because I can not stop it.

 

On the other hand, one should be very sure about the message of the photo (in the above case there appeared to me no doubt). But please permit me (certainly this is not a personal attact although I am aware of the thin line of interpretation in what follows), the stand-up comedian is an artist to the specators, as long as the subject of the humor or critisism is not part of the audience.

 

And by the way, I am aware that I haven't been always behaving the way I describe above. I appologize for that and hope that will avoid situations like that in tha future. Photography must be fun (besides of a part of my living in the mean time).

Since it is allowed to give a �1� as a personal evaluation of a photo, I think it must be possible to use it as well.

And then the point of the question comes to �In which cases is the use of �1� as the expression of the personal appreciation permitted ?

I think we all agree that real bad images (something like accidental shots at the beginning or the end of a film roll) could receive this rating.

But is it possible to give a �1� rating even as a photo does not meet the �objective� criteria to categorize it as bad ? Or in other words can we give an extreme destructive evaluation, based on only a personal dislike of the final result ? Imho I think we must include the term �politeness� in this discussion ! Or is �personal revange� a better description ?

 

Are we then doomed to like everything made by everyone ? I don�t think so. At least personally I don�t. But I always keep in mind, that most photo�s I don�t like are very well appreciated by the person producing the photo. I am aware that critisism (on a photo) is (nearly) always entering the area op personal interest. That�s why I (almost) never rate photo�s I don�t like, even if that person did rate one of my photo�s low.

Of course I sometimes comment on things I don�t like. But then I always keep in mind that these comments are only my personal vision. My comments never pretends to originate from �universal� standards of beauty, aestetics or originallity. Nor does my comments ever reflect that my taste should be universal.

 

(Almost ?) Every contributor to photonet is proud about the work (s)he is presenting here. A negative critique will always mean a dissapointment of that person. Personally I ask the question wheter it is then nessecary to have such a negative critique followed by the knock out punch of a �1� rating ?

 

I must admit that the above is the result of a learning process. But in a world with a lot of participants the motto �don�t do to anyone what you don�t want to happen to yourself� is the only (very faint) guarantee to keep out of personal conflicts.

Hallo Phil,

I have an original Dimage 7 for almost 4 years now. And I am very pleased with it. That means that it fulfills al my needs. <P><P> What I am doing with it can be seen on <a href="http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman" target="_blank">my website</a>. I am rarely printing photo's and if I do so I never exceed the A3 format. For this kind of printing the Dimage 7 is a perfect camera. When printed on professional equipment there is no noise visible on my photo's. Most of the time my photo's are only used on resolutions far lower than the Dimage 7 can produce. <P><P> Of course there are some drawbacks as well. One of them is that the Dimage 7 series camera's are very slow compared to an analoge SLR camera. Even the upgraded subtypes dimage 7i and 7hi are certainly not fast ! This takes some adaptation from the photographer. <P><P> If You look further on the net You'll find complaints about battery use. Some say the camera eats batteries. Personally I have three sets of rechargeble batteries (two sets of 1800 mAh and one set of 2100 mAh). This permits me to work a complete day, downloading of the photo's included, without any problem. Some days I take up to 250 photo's. <P><P> Another thing You'll find on the net is the possible noise in the ISO 800 setting. I never met this drawback. Because I never use this setting. For the low light exposures I have done with the Dimage camera I always get away with the ISO 100 200 or 400 setting and a tripoid.

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So if the camera fit's your need ? That is something You have to decide. Digital and film have their own strong points. Any digital cammera as similar functions. But if you ask me to change my Dimage 7 for another one ? I think I would refuse !

To my experience the Minolta scanner is the best ! But the extreme high resultion is only an advantage over the Nikon scanner if You use the highest quality lenses and films with the highest resolution. If not the Minolata scanner resolution is higher than those of the lenses and the films, and in these cases using this resulution is pointless.

 

For "amateur" equipment and films the Nikon does the job equally well. Certainly after some PS sharpening there is (almost ?) no difference between the obtained results.

 

I have no personal experience with the canon scanner.

Carl,

 

I hope You still see this answer. I must admit that is very hard for me to see more photographic value in the photo under discussion than in mine portfolio. But these overrated photo's is a thing where I learned to live with.

 

And not only self rating of cluster formation is a magic tool, also putting a nude on a photo seems to be the guarantee for extreme overratings.

 

As I said I learned to live with it. But may I do a suggestion ? Why are those who find such photo's overrated, not adding his / her own appreaciation to this photo's. Seen the long discussions here, it seems to me that rating abuse is not to avoid on photo.net. So I suggest that everybody that agrees that a photo is overrated, put his or her rating also on that photo. Probably the ranking on number of ratings will be skewed then, however the quality of the rating will be more realistic.

This topic is discussed to death.

What's the problem ? I must admit that also I was striving for being on the first page of the top photo's.<P><P>

 

And I succeed twice. I expected about 40 times. And Yes also I found the the higher en more rated photo's were not half as interesting as the work I was presenting on this site.<P><P>

 

But after some time (and heavy internal struggle :) ) I learned to be critical for myself. And the I must admit that only two of my photo's presented here were really worth being on that first page for one or two days. All the rest appeared not bad, but also not good enough. So this "bad" expirience turned out to be very usefull.

 

And why the others ? Well if they have formed self pushing clusters, let it be. I can say, facing the mirror, if it happens again that I am on the first three pages of the "top photos" that it is because of the photo and not because of the friends. <P><P>

 

And by the way, I don't let jalousy spoil my fun of shooting photo's

 

<a href="http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman" target="_blank">my website</a>

I agree with Mr Lund that selective coloration should be considered very carefully. In most cases the selctive colors do not add any value to the photo. Even less...it is often used to push some less-succeeded photo's. <P><P>

 

Of course there are always exceptional situations where a selctive colored element could work and take the whole photo some stages higher. And for these cases, the above described techniques could offer a good approach !<P><P>

 

http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman

I think it is all a matter of attitude of course.<P>

I was a big "Praktica" fan when I had this complete manual camera back in the '80's. Then came a Sigma camera (SA 300 or something) and I swore that I would give up photography if I ever would have to give up that camera and these lenses. However back in the early '90 I gave up photography although I still have that Sigma camera and all these lenses. To revive my interest I bought a Canon EOS 300 and two lensen. And indeed for a few years that was the best thing happened to me since sliced bread !

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But even sliced bread becomes an attitude and actually pancakes or muffins are better. And my personal pancake at the moment is my Dimage 7. Never had something beter than that camera. A bit slow ? Yes certainly but when You started with a manual camera, you know some tips and trick to overcome (or mask) that.

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If I had to give up that Dimage 7 ? Well of course it will "hurt" me becouse during the last two years I have learned to know this camera. And giving up the camera is trowing away this experience. However I am sure that Canon, Nikon, Olympus, .... will have cameras producing photos of similar quality for about the same price. Photography is all about light and personal vision and of course the technical capabilities to produce "good" photo's. But that latter feature appeared to me not the monopoly of one camera brand.<P><P>

 

My I invite you to have a look at <a href="http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman" target="_blank">my website</a>

Mark, I never expêrienced the thing you described. When I use the pop-up flash I always use the complete manual mode (M setting). This means that I measure the light conditions with the camera set on the apperture I would like to use in the A setting. The I switch to the M setting en put approx a time 2 till 5 times shorter than the one measured in the A setting. When I don't have a tripod I am restricted to 1/8 sec as longsest time before blurred images are produced.

 

When used as fill in flash I also use the M setting. But then I only decreases the exposure time by 1 max 2 stops. In these case the Dimage 7xy is a perfect machine to provide you with the direct feed back of the result.

 

<P> <a href="http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman" target="_blank">Ivan's website</a>

My I invite everybody to have a look at <a

href="http://home2.pi.be/ivcolman/" target="_blank">MY WEBSITE</a>.

It presents some photo's made by a DIMAGE 7.<P>

After getting used to the EVF, this camera has become my favorite

toy.

When other photo.net participants know that You are around, that is a good start to get comments.

 

So Your question can be rephrased into "How do I succeed in making the other photonetters aware of my existance ?"

 

And now the question is put in such a form that You are in control of the answer. And the answer is by participating. If you never comment on a photo or you never rate a photo then nobody knows you are alive and kicking. But if you engage yourself to other photo's and you give your oppion about them then some of the photographers will make some time for your photo's as well.

 

In that sense photo.net is a very inteactive process !

Since sharpening is the process where the details are made more visible it is obvious that a small print is visually much sooner "sharpened" than a large print where details are magnified.

 

Sharpening is done as last step before printing. I use the Unsharp mask tool of photoshop for this. This option (filter) uses a convolution algoritm to make the image looking sharper. Of course the first requirement to obtain sharp photo's is using a good lens with a resolution that is high enough for producing sharp photo's. The current lenses are mostly very good and satisfy most needs in this regard. But when printing high maginifications of a photo sometimes this resolution can play a role in the unsharp appearance of the print. Traditionally this resulution is expressed as line-pairs per milimeter (lp/mm). Very good B&W films can handle up to 150 lp/mm. High end lenses can handle somewhat around the 100 lp/mm. By all these numbers it is interesting to know that color printing techniques can go a sharp as 70-80 lp/mm. But most interesting is that the normal, naked human eye can resolve up to 5-7 lp/mm. Thus resolution of the lenses, film, printing technique,... becomes only important when magnification wants to be printed.

 

But in the story of sharpness of a photo there is another parameter that is important. The so called accutance. This is the property that tells something about the transition between one brighness level to another. And it is on this parameter that image sharpening takes place. Unsharp mask filters increase this "edge sharpness" by playing around with the brighness levels in the area of the edges.

 

Since unsharpness is a realy nasty thing in a print it is worth spending some time to sharpen a picture. I always do the sharpening on the different channels of the picture. In many cases one of the channels is much worse than the others. By correcting this channel the best as possible, the others can be used to enhance details. For digital photo's (mine made through a Minolta Dimage 7) this is not always necessary. But for most of the scanned pictures I have seen such a channel approach is most usefull.

Whether is porn or not is a question everybody has to make up for itself. But as I go through the critique forum I see that nude women are really making the photographer !

 

I agree with Bob and Garry that it appears that it is enough to put a nude on a photo to receive attention and high ratings. So I am very glad this topic pop up here. It makes it finally possible that it is sayd with so many words that such photo's are not even worth the electricity spoiled to keep the computer running when looking at it.