Into The North
by juhaseila

Comment:
Wow, great image! Detail/focus/sharpness are great, good composition. Very good exposure. I can even see the snow falling. :-)

Christmas Smile
by HBunch

Comment:
Watch the compression level! Jpeg artifacts ruined the detail around the left eye abd in the hair. :-(

All Creation
by Shiiizzzam

Comment:
Even without color this picture has a very strong impact and the lighting looks more balanced (the red in the original I have seen was so strong that it blew away the texture at the bottom-middle to the bottom right and right of the right eye).
Awesome photo!

Thinking
by Rackat

Comment:
Oversharpened look distracts. Otherwise it would be a good photo.

Roadside Repairs (Portrait of a friend)
by Azrifel

Comment:
Thank you for your comment Ellen.
The red bike is mine. :-)

Whipped by the Wind
by andrewm

Comment:
~~~~Critique Club Comment~~~~

Composition (content)
The strong point of this image is the texture created by the motion blur. The subject fills the frame well and the layers of colors (bright blue sky, light brown, green, dark green&brown) enhance the picture. Another good thing is the diagonal from the lower left to the upper right, created by the wind blowing against the 'grass'.

Background
The background gives some context to the foreground subject without taking the view from the subject away. You see a tree at the left and right, the skyline and some sand at the right. It is a bit sharp though, you migh have wanted to blur that by choosing a smaller aperture, but with the ISO already at 50 that would cause a to fast shutter. So you made the right decision.

Camera Work (Technical)
Good exposure. I have my doubts about the sharpness. There seem to be a lot of sharpening artifacts, don't know if that is caused by the camera or by post processing. Or could that be jpeg artifacts because there is so much detail that the quality level at 150kb is still to low?

Digital Processing (technical)
See camera work.

My opinion
It is a good shot, but I my eyes physicaly hurt when I look at it (not meant as a bad thing! I scored it a 7 originally.). Perhaps it needs one fixed point for reference.
Good exposure, but there is too much digital clutter.

Message edited by author 2002-12-23 12:53:15.

Harsh lands
by Natasha

Comment:
~~~~Critique Club Comment~~~~

Composition (content)
Good silhouette. The dreary sky, the tree without leafs and the choice for B&W do a good job in communicating the message. In a way the tree and sky seem to tell the story about live in this place?
The placement of the tree and buildings is excellent and it is great how the bright parts of te sky are behind the tree and enhance the contrast.
The building at the lower left is a distraction. The picture would be better without it being there. You could opt to take it out for purposes other than this site (where the rules don't allow spot editing). This could also be applied to the branches in the lower right part of the image.
The tones in the sky are great.

Background
No real background, see above.

Camera Work (Technical)
The exposure is excellent for a silhouette. No detail in the foreground subjects, dramatic/erie dark grey tones in the sky. I don't know how much of this was done with the camera and how much in post processing, either way it is a good job.
Focus is good, depth ok, sharpness ok.

Digital Processing (technical)
Concerning quality vs compression I again have to say: save at the highest quality possible. See the comment on "Motion" picture.
A little bit of unsharp mask (30% 0,4 1) doesn't hurt, but isn't really necessary.

My opinion
Nice, but it does not really appeal to me personally.

Message edited by author 2002-12-23 11:36:58.

Starlight Express
by Natasha

Comment:
~~~~Critique Club Comment~~~~

Composition (content)
A great idea to include the two different wheels. The big (famous) one in the back and this smaller one at a different angle in the foreground.
The composition is not optimal in my personal opinion, I'd have liked to see the heart of the rear wheel a bit lower and a bit more to the left, also to fill the black gap in the lower left corner. I don't know if that was possible and to still get a good shooting angle for the foreground wheel.
The angle at which you have shot the foreground wheel is quite interesting. The eye is fooled though. Because you used a relative fast shutterspeed the wheel's lights in the upper part of your picture makes you feel that the wheel moves at very high speed (the light trails look like a Le Mans 24h race car cornering a tight bumpy lefthander at 140 mph). By using the flash, you have also frozen the wheel, I like that. Crack crack goes the brain. So that is a nice contrast in motion you portray there.
However, the way the lights are captured in the upper part of your image doesn't look so nice (on the other hand it does show the motion and gives the high-speed car in a bumpy corner feel). A 1 second shutterspeed would probably have made the lines of the lights connect, taking away the black streaks in between. On the other hand, the 1/2 second was already enough to almost blow out the clock on the big wheel.
I would have to see both the 1s and 1/2 second to determine what I would prefer.
Color is nice, but a bit monotone in the foreground/background relation. Ask the guys who run the wheels to use another color for the background one, blue or green. ;-)))

You could also try a tighter crop. Take off a piece of the bottom to just under the first or the second outer rim light on the background wheel.

Background
Big wheel in the background is slightly underexposed (except for the clock) and slightly blurred by the small aperture. This has the advantage that the viewer's focus quicly transfers to the foreground wheel. The clock is a bit distracting.
Now that I am thinking about it, how would this picture look just after sundown, when there is more light in the sky to give an extra touch to the background and better exposure for the background wheel.

From what side is this shot? Are we looking at the office buildings / mount Fuji side or at the bay rollercoaster side?

Camera Work (Technical)
No further comments. Focus and sharpness look good.

Digital Processing (technical)
For images with many sharp edges and small details it is important to save the image at the highest quality allowed on this site: 150kb
A higher jpeg quality saves edge sharpness, gives better color rendition and avoids jpeg cluttering of details.
Yours is only 80kb......
Not further comments.

My opinion
I like it, but I think the background could be better. It was a great idea to have both motion blur and to freeze it. I gives that extra touch that makes this picture different from normal motion blurred wheels.

One other note:
You are building up quite a collection of portrayal of Japanese (Tokio Bay area) live, country and culture here at dpc. Nice work!

Message edited by author 2002-12-23 10:04:27.

"21"
by autool

Comment:
Good, got me thinking.
Nice 'four' without a four. :-)

Thank You for calling Walt Disney World
by CreativeFlyPhoto

Comment:
This picture shure puts a smile on my face. :-)
Very clever.
This isn't a store is it? Looks like an office with a lot of toy's, you got me thinking you were in a store tough. :-)
(edit)Today I stumbled into your profile, it all becomes clear. :-))))