tsappas

<p>MIKE<br>

The top photographers enter and win big competitions with thousands of entries.I doubt they feel very important that they reached the top page on PN with maybe 100 daily entries and half of them snapshots.PN is the place that they can tell their story, how and where they took that shot and interact with other members.They are a big asset to the site to the site and should not be ignored.</p>

<p>It's very strange that only me and Line ( who regularly post and rate photos) bothered to take part in this forum.Did anyone wondered what happened to the hundreds of "regulars" that used to frequent the site?Those "regulars" were the members that supplied most of the comments and ratings in the rating forum ( in other words they did most of the work ). The majority of them are still subscribers but are not taking part any more.I will give you some reasons and you can give me your opinion.The site is NOT friendly anymore,very few comments and ratings,very little interaction.If you post a photo in the rating forum you are entering a "WARZONE",ratings coming from every direction with no meaning from "strange" characters.And the PRIZE for all this,maybe views , popularity and interaction.They can get those "PRIZES" from another sites without the hostility and that's what they probably done.The rating system must change to make it friendlier for new and older members so they participate .Once those "attacks" stop the site should regain it's old members and hopefully a lot of new ones.The old excuse that a photo with a score of 6.20 is hit by a 3 " it's someone's opinion" should not be mentioned on the site again.Lets visualize what a friendlier rating system would do to this site.</p>

<p>Jef<br>

The 1s and 2s DO count for the last couple of years.Once an image is in the rating forum they don't affect the rank of the image but they do drop it's average.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Again coming to what i suggested earlier.</p>

<p>Slow down the rate recent forum by introducing a couple of extra buttons,After looking at the large thumbnail, to have the choice to see the image at it's full resolution on another page with a black background,then another page to rate the image and then back to the forum.The fly-by raters with free accounts,no comments and no photos should have the right to rate taken away from them.These changes don't have to be applied at the same time but can be introduced slowly to the site.</p>

<p>Lex. the 1s and 2s do count,At least for the last 2 years</p>

<p>Michael. so far the system you are suggesting is the only one with some sense.That system is used by other sites,it has 3 buttons and a very sophisticated algorithm giving or taking away points for each button.the buttons are DISLIKE,LIKE and FAVOURITE,those buttons have different values.the dislike button is restricted to a selected number of members.if the dislike buttons is used for abuse then it's taken away from the member.This system only ads ratings to an image,it needs a large flow of images (which PN at the moment does not have) and it rates only upwards.A lot of images will go without any ratings and it actually relies on mate-rating to work. If you take the present PN system but restrict the ability of non subscribers,members with a rating average "say" below 5.00 to rate below 5 then you have a very similar system</p>

<p>Matthew. That comment was Not directed at you,you have photos in your portfolio and you are a subscriber,It was directed to the management for allowing fly-by raters with free accounts , no photos ,no comments to interfere with the rating system.Those raters were appearing almost every other day,some of the photos i had to post and delete several times trying to avoid them.I was't the only one,the absence of a huge number of regulars photographers proves that.At one point it was so regular i thought the competitors found a vulnerability in PN and were doing it to shut the site down .There is more to tell you, i am sending you a personal message,check your personal messages</p>

<p>As the culprit of making Fred start this thread i will put some ideas and suggestions forward.</p>

<p>It's 2013,maybe PN was very popular and unique 6-7 years ago but the world of photo communities has evolved.There are so many out there ready to steal the photographers from PN.They have better servers,better designed sites,better rating systems (systems that suit their membership) and some the top photographers.<br>

As for the opposition to some members to any changes,i will give some examples .To my opinion the management left the site to run itself on the ratings side for too long.I think nobody watched the ratings for the last year.Last January a member flipped and dished out 2000 1s and 2s in a matter of 10 days (this member is still very active on the rating forum but has not given a rating since then,somehow the management was alerted and stopped it) .He probably rated every photo posted during that period with an 1 or 2.Can you imagine yourself as a new member who just paid his subscription been bombarded with 1s and 2s for every image you posted during that time.If it was me i would probably leave from a site of crazy raters.In early february another member appeared ,he was rating nudes with 7s and everything else with 1s 2s and 3s( in the thousands),in other words he had no photos probably no camera and was using the site for pornography, but he felt powerful because he could change the order of photos on that night on a FREE account.that account was deleted by Josh as soon he was alerted to it.Since then it became an epidemic,almost every week someone appears who resurrects his free account from 2006 or whatever,throws all kind of ratings around and disappears.Do we really need this kind of members?PN's competitors would not tolerate them.</p>

<p>As for the number of ratings some members are worried about.I posted a photo about 18 months ago (I travelled 2000 miles ,drove for 4 hours and got up at 5.30 am twice to shoot that photo).I put the photo up for rating,it has 57 ratings,33 comments and scored 5.79.DOES IT REALLY take 57 ratings for a photo to score 5.79? (if you want so see that photo send me a message). 15 ratings would have been fine.I have seen other photos with 18 ratings scoring 3.80 .The point i am making here is that the number of ratings does not matter,the quality and message they give matters.(the message i got for the above photo was that certain members did not want me to score any higher).</p>

<p>SUGGESTIONS .Leave the ratings as they are but have a good number of experienced trusted moderators who understand the rating system and give them the power to suspend or delete the accounts of abusers,delete ratings due to abuse,give warnings and keep order. OR ,non subscribers have to earn rating points through comments in order to rate .OR .Put a limit to the amount of ratings under 5 that all members can give (similar to the present 7 rating restriction).</p>

<p>OTHER SUGGESTIONS.Stop the ability to rate from mobile devises.To my opinion the screen is too small to judge the quality of a photo AND .Make the fast rate recent rating forum slower to stop prolific raters from dishing large amount of ratings without looking properly at photos.</p>

<p>I have more to suggest but the last 2 days we had very good light in London and i was out shooting wildlife.</p>

<p>Thanks,Harry</p>

<p>Hi Michael.thanks for the information.The most important of the 2 is the rating forum.The rating forum is the flagship of the site,if that diminishes that will be the end of the site.More than 57 photos go into the upcoming forum of 500PX in 1 hour or less (and photos of excellent quality),and that's a site that is not relying on advertising or has good comment or is known to be very friendly.The members that post in the rating forum here at PN are mainly subscribers.Photo .net is a business and needs subscribers.The present state of the site i don't think is very appealing to future subscribers.I love Photo.net,it's the only site with good interaction and information but i can't see how it can survive at it's present state.Thanks</p>

<p>Mike sorry if i came across rude or abrupt,it's probably my writing style.Yes, i would like to know the difference between" NO PHOTOS" and" NO PHOTOS UPLOADED TO THE PORTFOLIO".As i am writing this there are 57 photos in the rating forum and 35 members logged in (is a site with that many photos a good site for new members to join?).The point i am trying to make is how much damage the free for all rating system is doing to the site.The site is unfriendly,new members are posting a couple of photos and then disappear,older members don't post ,rate or comment.The new management are making efforts to resurrect the site,The FOLLOW move is quite radical for this site(the previous administration made mate-rating a taboo and members are reluctant probably to accept it).The follow system is used with great success on most photo sites.The "NO PHOTOS " "NO PARTICIPATION" encourages cheating and abuse.It's about time for the management to start thinking about a new rating system,THANKS</p>

To Mike Dixon. " THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT FOR POSTING PHOTOS IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THE RATING SYSTEM".Above the logo of PHOTO.NET on every page it states "A SITE FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS BY PHOTOGRAPHERS". If a member ha NO photos he (she) is NOT a photographer.The management should change that to "THIS SITE IS FREE FOR ALL".And lastly .where do you get useful feedback by non photographers,here on this site,another site or asking random people in the local park.If is another site or the park what has to do with this thread.Remember this SITE IS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS BY PHOTOGRAPHERS

<p>To matthew. You posted 1 photo for rating,you rated 12500 photos and made 8 comments.The lack of comments is the most worrying thing.How come and you have nothing to say with words?Comments are hard work,clicking away in numbers is the easy solution (thinking most of the time you are anonymous). Why don't you go out spend some of your time taking photos.post them and see what the members say and what rates you get.As for the so famous average BELL,Josh swore by it and got the sack.A ratings algorithm must be introduced to stop members like you with NO other contribution except clicking away on numbers from participating.</p>

<p>Matthew<br>

You have only one photo with ratings.How did you rate 7000 photos with 3s and 4s ? Were they all heavily manipulated ? Or there was another reason.Did you FIND only 7 photos unmanipulated and good enough to give them a 7 ?</p>

Ron,this is a free for ALL site,you are lucky you did't get an 1.There is no rating algorithm.Any one as long as he (she) registers can give as many ratings as they like.The previous administration always told us that if we did't like the ratings we shoul'd submit photos for ratings.Unfortunately most of the Good photographers did that and left for other sites.The rating forum sometimes drops to 40-50 photos with a handful of ratings on each photo.I remember this site been very friendly with good photos getting 60 ratings and 50 comments.Very hard to tell what the future will bring to PN.

<p>That explains the strange ISO values on the EXIF data on my D7000.I had the ISO set to 400 and the exif gave it as 370,The brain power of the camera's processor is incredible.Another mystery solved</p>

<p>Untick the box that says "only show images where only anonymous critigue is allowed" then "filter" and you will see all the images.I had to reset mine to see the images</p>

<p>You are only getting the 8 images from a certain category,click on the dropdown category menu on the left " ALL" and then "filter" so can get all the images</p>

<p>I am on vista and firefox 22.0 and just did a java upgrade.i can't acces the reorder function at all.</p>

<p>I felt quite energetic today and decided to declutter my portfolio.I created new folders and deleted some old ones.When it comes to rearranging the folders and the photos in them my PC goes on the blink,everything else works except those 2 functions,any one else experiencing this problem?</p>

<p>I agree with you GJ,maybe the site is gone faster but you can see neglect in far too many places. The contact tab at the bottom of the page has still the name of Josh Root.If you contact them through that tab you are NOT going to get an answer.The mobile phone gallery in the main PN page is still going for the last 6 months,It seems mobile phone images are very important to this site.There is more but i will stop here.Lets see if anyone notices this thread '</p>

 

<p>Only subscribers can enter the photo contest</p>

<p>First,you need to attend several airshows for practice,you need to know in advance what the airplanes are doing in the sky and catch the action at the right moment.Settings for the D7000...6fps,AF-S ,single point in the middle,ISO..as low as possible if the day is cloudy,make sure you are getting shutter speeds above 1/1500th of a second,on brighter days up the ISO.Lens...the best airshow lens is the Sigma 150-500mm OS,is decent wide open and has the advantage of stabilization.MANUAL focus ...most people will have a problem finding a fast jet in the viewfinder let alone trying to manually focus,forget manual focus.Planes at airshows always perform the same routine,UTUBE has videos of jets and aerobatic teams which you must study before attending an airshow ,I have lots of photos shot with a D7000 from last year in the FAIRFORD AIRSHOW folder in my portfolio,have a look and tell me what you think,good lack</p>

<p>Interesting article Howard<br>

I still own a Nikon Pronea s with 2 lenses and a grip ,i bought that camera when i was climbing high mountains,it was very light and very reliable,the biggest problem i had was the quality of film.The Fuji Nexia 100 gold was excellent in all formats,when i could not get it any more and i started using Kodak 200 the grain on the panoramic photos was so visible i stopped using it and went digital.<br>

Maybe Minolta invested too much in the system for a company of its size,don't forget it was a transition period in photography and camera companies were trying to find a new direction for their products<br>

By the way,very decent photos from long expired film</p>

<p>Single point,matrix metering at 6fps,if bird is white on darker background underexpose by 2 thirds of a stop,up your ISO until you get a decent shutter speed (for that lens and a TC at least1000th of a sec) ,remember to use a fast card as well,30 mbps or faster.that works very well for me,regards</p>

<p>This is the method i use for printing multiple panoramic photos on a 60" by 40" poster and i get excellent results,the final size is what to put in the sizing box,if not tick the resample box off,regards</p>

<p>This is for Photoshop elements.Go to file,new and open a blank document making sure the background is white,a box will come up with dimensions,put in the dimensions you require for a large print.Enter all the images you are going to use in elements,go to window and open project bin (is at the bottom of screen)so you can see them.click on the white document so is bottom of the layers,go to the move tool and from the project bin drag the photos in to the document,handles will appear so you can resize them and move them around,remember to use them in the right order if overlapping.elements creates it's own layers automatically,you don't have to enter new layers,once you have the right collage go to layers and flatten the image,good lack</p>