bob_linscombe

If you are using a service such as Earthlink, they have some acceleration proxy software that recompresses images on the fly, between you and the page that is serving the pictures, to give the effect that the "Internet is going faster." The drawback is the quality of the images is drastically reduced.

Who says they're way off?

 

Just because they don't have any photos doesn't mean they don't know how to rate a photograph. Perhaps what you're talking about are people that abuse the ratings system by signing up for an account then rating everything 1 or 2. But to require that only people with photographs be allowed to rate is wrong. When a "non-photographer" views a photo, he usually views it differently than a photographer. I think this is pretty valuable because sometimes it lets us see past things we just can't (we being photographers, although I use that term loosely in reference to myself). If you want advice just from other photographers, that's fine, I guess, but you're limiting yourself, I think.

 

I believe some of the problem is when you take a photograph, and you're so proud of it because you achieved something fantastic, but in a technical way. Other photographers agree because they understand it. However, JoeNoPhotos doesn't see anything special because he's seen that type of thing before in movies or magazines. If this is the case, maybe your photograph does deserve the low originality rating it got. (I'm not speaking directly about you, just in general example type way.)

 

If you ask me, instead of worrying too much about the ratings (like others have said), concentrate on comments. I think there should be a lot less focus on ratings and more on actual comments. In fact, I wouldn't care if ratings were entirely removed from the site. But that's just me.

How long have you been getting this? Did you try rebooting?

 

You may want to check that a certain page wasn't accidentally added to your "Restricted Sites" list. It's easy to do by accident because it doesn't pop up a dialog (or otherwise notify you, except by changing the tiny icon in the right corner) when you do it. To check, go to Tools > Options > Security and click on "Restricted Sites," then click the "Sites..." button.

 

BTW, "holding out" with IE5 may not be a very good idea. IE6 is a pretty big step forward in terms of supporting web standards (far from perfect though) and IE5 is just flat-out broken in some areas (especially in regards to the CSS box model). I know it is the site developer's job to make sure his site works on all platforms/browsers, but I feel in the near future, more and more sites are not going to work (or work very well) in broken browsers like IE5. In the end, it is your choice.

 

(I'm not saying this is the case with photo.net... I doubt it has to do with the fact that you're using IE5...)

I think I read in another thread that photo.net is working on updating the portfolio management system. I think part of the update involves addressing this issue.

 

I'd tried to locate the thread to get the specifics but failed.

 

Anyways, I agree that this is a serious issue (at least to some people). I shot mostly insect macros and to me, fine detail was important. On some of my shots, the recompression would totally kill the fine detail.

fireman,

 

"Last I read a 3 was basically a fair/ok."

 

On the Photo Critique page, it says a 3 is "Below Average" and a 4 is "Fair/Average"...

 

I'm not sure where you read that a 3 is "fair/ok" but if you read it on this web site, then that is something that needs to be clarified so that people are leaving the appropriate ratings.

 

Also, you didn't say his photograph sucked (well, you did, in this thread, all of his photographs, actually) but you said it was below average, and that is not something that is considered good.

 

If you left comments explaining (not justifying) your ratings, you would make people a lot happier, including the ones that are sensible enough not to fire off an upset email. No, you don't have to do this, but likewise, the people on this web site don't have to like you when you only utilize half of the critique feature.

"fireman fry",

 

Look, you can do whatever you want, but if you continue to leave low ratings with no comment, expect to get angry emails. I'm not saying it's right, it's just how it is. Some people take photography very seriously. How hard is it to tell someone why you think his picture is bad?

It's not silly.

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If I went up to you and said "your photograph sucks" and that's all I said, you would want an explanation. If I said "your photograph is great!" you probably wouldn't care if I told you why or not. Leaving low ratings without a comment is the exact same thing. Now, a 3/3 isn't the equiv. of "your photograph sucks" but it's still below average.

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I'm not trying to justify the guy sending an angry email, but I've left a few comments, not always praising, and no one has ever sent me an angry email. If you want to do something helpful, leave a comment. Ratings don't mean anything anymore because of everyone's different view of a 3 or 5 or 7 or 1.

I noticed that you have rated 172 photos (as of right now) but only left two comments. That is the problem, not the fact that you are giving people 3s. This might sound hypocritical, but a low rating requires a comment more than a high rating, simply because with a high rating, the photographer knows what he has done right but with a low rating, he may not know what he has done wrong.

BobAtkins.com,

 

I think his question was simply "what is abuse?" (as he pointed out). What I find funny is, instead of answering him, you just said "Learn to live with it." Geez.

Matthew Katz,

 

I'm going to assume your reply was aimed at me since you used a few of the words/phrases I did in my comment. I said why I used it for a year (I thought it was a free site). I never said the site itself was bad/worthless/unacceptable.

 

I am not refusing to pay, because I won't be using anything that needs paying for. If it had been made clear that I had to pay, I never would have uploaded a single photo. Again, the question was "why so few members." This is an answer.

Brian,

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First off, let me say that I am fine with the decision. I know someone "removing his images" is generally one's way rebelling against some aspect of the site he doesn't like, but that's not the case here. I removed them because it is clear now to me that the site is a subscription site and I am not willing to pay for it. Photography is not my life, so me removing my images is not a big deal. I have my own personal website that I can put them on if I need to share them.

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I decided to offer some of the reasons why I'm not paying, since the title of the discussion is "why so few members." I can't speak for anyone else, but I can speak for myself. Two of the reasons I gave are flaws I find in photo.net, flaws I was able to overlook since I thought the site was a free site. However, since it has been pointed out that it's a subscription site, I can no longer overlook them.

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As I said earlier, it wasn't clear to me (I thought it was a donations site) and I still think that the <a href="http://www.photo.net/photonet-subscriptions">Photo.net Subscriptions</a> page doesn't fully clarify it.

BobAtkins.com,

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I don't think nagging people is a good idea. It's only likely to drive away people that weren't going to subscribe in the first place, which might be "better" in that they won't use bandwidth/resources anymore, but it's not an ideal solution.

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photo.net simply needs to decide whether or not it's a subscription-based or donation-based site.

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Here's a few things I've found out over the year or so I've used photo.net, and they are the reasons I never bought a paid-membership. I guess you can think of them as "feedback"... if you're trying to get people to buy memberships, you can at least see why one person (me) isn't.

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1) No matter how many critiques I get, I don't think I'm ever going to get much better than I am now. What this means is a site like photo.net is less useful for me than it is for someone else -- not necessarily photo.net's fault.

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2) There are far too many "unaccounted" or "useless" ratings on photo.net. I would request photo critiques on my pictures and I'd get 10 ratings really fast, but usually <strong>zero</strong> comments. That might be because my pictures suck and aren't good enough to talk about, but it makes that aspect of the site worthless for me. One good comment means more to me than a hundred ratings.

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3) I really dislike the fact that photo.net recompressed my images after I uploaded them. As I understand it, they are still recompressed when you have a paid membership. <strong>Unacceptable</strong>.

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4) I find photo.net's interface to be rather clunky, virtually every portion. For instance, I tried to find people that shared similar interests as me, but this is virtually impossible with the search functions. I don't want to go into detail about this 'cause there's been many threads about this already.

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Going back to point one, I don't think photo.net is a site for me, since the ratings/critique aspect didn't really appeal to me. But it was free, so I used it. You've made it quite clear that non-paying members that have a lot of photos (or use photo.net often) (I had about 90) aren't welcome here. As you can probably guess by my post, I've removed my images.

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It was real and it was fun, it just wasn't real fun.

Michael Chang,

 

Yes, I know it costs money. That's the reason behind the final sentence of my previous message.

 

You have to remember, though... at the top of every photo of mine that is displayed on this site is a banner ad, and I am not the person getting paid for that ad. If those ads do not pay for my pictures to be displayed, someone can let me know and I will promptly remove them (the pictures, not the ads :P).

 

I think some non-subscribers DO feel bad, however, when they try to offer a simple suggestion or post a topic about a problem they are having and they get hit with a bunch of replies about how they should be paying, with none of the replies actually addressing the problem. It really turns them off and I can bet that person is a "non-subscriber forever" after that.

Bob Atkins,

 

You seem to be one of the people that can't accept that people will never subscribe. I've seen you do the "pay up or shut up" that Kenny was talking about several times.

 

The reason some people won't subscribe is because photography is a hobby for them, not a business. This isn't an excuse, it's a reason. If the site design can't support non-subscribers, that's the site's fault. If it was worth it, people would subscribe. Making non-subscribers feel like shit is not a good way to get them to subscribe.

 

I don't make any money with my pictures. Do I really need to kick out $25/yr to use a discussion forum/picture post? If my pictures are causing a problem, let me know and I'll remove them. (This isn't a threat; if it would help any, I will remove them...)

There's a couple ways to get around this.

 

The first is to have a time limit. If it's older than X minutes, it can't be edited. This should be sufficient for people that just need to fix something they missed in the preview. I mean we all read the previews but since it's something we just wrote, sometimes we read what we wanna read, restating it in our head instead of actually proofreading it.

 

The second is to store the original post and have it accessible by a link. Since it's just text, and Brian mentioned that disk space is no issue, it wouldn't be a problem I don't think. This would really dissuade people from "bailing out" or any of that, as there would be irrefutable proof just a click away. Since it doesn't need to display the "Show Original" link if it hasn't been edited, this shouldn't break old posts either.

 

I've administrated some forums before that have the edit capability but do not have either of the above features and I never ran into the kind of "theoretical" problems... but even then, neither of those features are hard, at all, to implement.

John, you did not specify which version of Photoshop you use or the method you use to save the files, but if you are using any relatively recent version, you should take a look at the File > Save for Web option. This should allow you to resize your files and save them in a way that works on photo.net.

 

If you're still having problems, you may want to upload one of the offending images to your private webspace and post a text link to it from here. Then someone could check it out and figure out what the problem is.

Ok, I see now what you're getting at, but it's because I wasn't sure where you stood on the issue from your original post. I didn't intend to pass my suggestion as your concept and hopefully no one else interpreted it that way.

 

You make a very good argument for allowing larger photos (because "at 200% to 300% larger look stunning") and I was at the understanding that you wanted the guidelines to be changed so that there are no limits on photo resolution. Thus, the reason for my comments.

 

So, basically, you want the guidelines to be enforced as rules? Or... ?

I'm not saying that some photos aren't rated lower because they're too small even though they're at the upper width limit. But you reach the point of diminshing returns, especially when you start exceeding the width of the browser window (and if pictures were significantly larger than 800, they would, on most browsers). I know a lot of people browse at 1600x1200, but a lot more browse at 1024x768 and 800x600.

 

As for patrons-only comment, I feel that this is not enough of a problem for it to be worth it for photo.net. If they let you upload higher-resolution photos, they would have to increase the 100kb size limit (as you pointed out), and someone is going to have to pay for this. Depending on how this is implemented, current patrons or future ones might not want to pay for your ability to upload higher-resolution photos.

 

I'm not against this idea, though. It's not a bad idea and for panoramas, it would be useful.

 

And... ok... don't comment on photos regarding the guidelines. But if you leave a 1/1 for this reason, you probably won't last very long on photo.net.

To fix something in my first reply... I said "the opposite"... but what I meant is, if a photo is at least 800x600, it's not likely to be rated significantly lower than if it were 1600x1200 (or some other, larger, size). The same is not true for photos that are 320x240 or some really small size; they MAY be rated lower than if they had been submitted at a larger size.

The first thing I will say is, don't rate any photos 1/1 because of something like that. Leave a comment, but don't do any abusive ratings. You won't like the results.

 

As for your suggestion (allowing larger images)... it's not bad, but I'm almost positive a feature like that would be relegated to paying member accounts, simply because of the bandwidth/disk space issues it poses. Either way, I wouldn't care, because all of my photos are in 650px-700px wide range.

 

However, I don't see this as that much of an issue, so much that it actually effects the ratings of a photo. Except for maybe panos, or maybe the opposite (someone submits a tiny little photo and people rate it low because they can't make anything out.)

Why did you even reply Gary? Now the thread isn't about a real issue (useless recompression) anymore, it's about him "complaining," and you made it that way.

 

He's been a member for less than three weeks and he's not happy with the system, why would he pay? Maybe he was wrong to tack that little "threat" on the end of his comment, but this is the feedback forum and it doesn't say that only paying members can post feedback.

 

I agree with Herb. The photographer should have full control over the compression level. If the photo is too large, maybe the photographer should have the option of resubmitting it. If it fits within the maximum size, it shouldn't be recompressed.

I'd just like to say that I have received my extra Nikon 4T close-up filter. With a single one, on this camera, minimum frame coverage is about 32mm x 24mm (1.25" x 0.94"). With the additional 4T, frame coverage has essentially been cut in half, down to 16mm x 12mm. This is small enough such that a dime is too big to be captured fully.

 

The 10x optical zoom really helps here because the focusing distance is still several inches, thus making the flash usable.

 

Image quality still appears to be very sharp, even on the edges and corners.

 

I also tested the Hoya dual-element +10 close-up filter. Minimum frame coverage was an amazing 9.5mm x 7.1mm. However, corner sharpness wasn't great at all and there was severe ghosting. I don't know if this is because it's not of good quality or because it's not designed to be used with focal lengths other than 50mm. Corner sharpness was poor regardless of the zoom setting I used; the Nikon blows it away. I don't have the best equipment to test it properly. It was $75, though, 2.5 times more than the Nikon. Anyone else have results with the Hoya?

 

As soon as I can get my hands on one, I'm gonna test a 50mm fast lens reversed.

 

Again, thanks for the advice guys. I'm happy.

Mike,

 

Yes, I had considered that, but Mark's photos may actually be a little too close. I believe he states in his tutorial that he must be within a couple inches of his subject. Using my setup, maximum frame coverage is with the camera on full telephoto from a distance of 8-10" away. This makes it easier to get a decent picture because I'm not "all up in" the subject's face, but it also makes it harder to handhold because small movements show up big.

 

Thanks for the tip on the Nikon E series. I noticed quite a few of the f/1.8 50mm Nikon E's on ebay for (some) even less than the 4T. Used, of course. I might just pick one up to see how well it works. If it isn't great, I could always hold on to it until I upgrade to another camera.

I doubt that my equipment is good enough to make quality/sharpness differences a problem; I've read in several places that people have had very good results stacking two of the Nikons, but like you said, poor results stacking cheaper, single element close-ups. They use a lot better equipment than I do too.

 

If the quality is "twice as worse" as it is with my single 4T, that'll be fine since I honestly can't tell the difference with it on or off (except that I can get closer with it on).

 

I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some fundamental problem with stacking two of exactly the same power since I have never really seen that mentioned anywhere. As there's no decent photo shops around here to let me test, I figured this would be the best place to ask.

 

Thanks again for the responses.

Thanks Peter. I figured it would just give an increase in power but I wanted to make sure first. I can see the advantage of having several sizes but I'm mainly interested in getting close. My camera's long zoom (and the fact that the 4T works very well throughout the entire range) gives me a lot of flexibility if I need to decrease magnification and increase field of view, etc.

 

As for the fractional powers, that's what I've always seen for the 3T and 4T. The "manual" (like a piece of paper) for the 4T lists the focal length of the 3T as 664.8mm (which is ~1.50) and the 4T as 341mm (which is ~2.93). I think some places round up the 2.9.

 

Thanks again