Waters Edge
by Firsty

Comment:
I think your border is going to hurt you. This would have been a beautiful shot at the full 640.

Sipping from a drop of water
by silverscreen

Comment:
This is very grainy, but not a bad photo. The colors are nice and the focus is nice. You just need a couple passes through a program like Neat Image.

The Long Walk Home
by mk

Comment:
I think this needs a tighter crop. I also think it would make a great black and white. Under Advanced you could do some neat Dodge and Burn effects to a photo like this.

silky rose
by shoggy

Comment:
People say that brighter colors would have made them like this photo more. To me brighter colors would have made this cliche. It's the colors that really make this photo. It's very soothing. Very Silky Smooth.

=)

blueberry milk shake
by IreneM

Comment:

Originally posted by IreneM: Originally posted by skylen: Congrats on the red! Also, I disagree with the commenters who said that the DOF is too shallow. IMO, having the far side of the splash slightly out of focus is fine given that the nearer half of the splash is quite sharp. The near part keeps the viewer's eye, since it's brighter, in focus, and has a closer view of the most interesting details (the small round droplets around the outside of the ring). I like your DOF, and given that you shot at f/16, I wouldn't have gone any smaller with the aperture either. Nicely done! I'm glad you mentioned this, Colin. High speed photography has it’s own rules and you take what you get. There is no aperture I haven’t tried, no light variations I haven’t tried in the tens of thousands of experimental images I’ve done trying to get good splash images. Getting the focus perfect is practically impossible because the photographer has no perfect control over exactly where and if the drops will meet. Under the circumstances, not only was I completely satisfied with the focus, I was thankful to get such an unusual capture.

While I was a little off with my comment during the challenge, I still stand by my feeling that something wasn't right. It's over-sharpened, and when I see over-sharpened I think out of focus and motion blur. The center pillar looks all kinds of funky.

Don't get me wrong.. if I had taken the shot I would be thrilled with myself, but I wouldn't expect it to score well. Now that I know it was you, I know you've done better. The colors are blah, and I still don't like the lighting. This just isn't your best even though it managed to score so high.

silky rose
by shoggy

Comment:
I love the cool colors. I have a feeling this photo will be overlooked by many. I hope I'm wrong. You're in my top 3.

Gentle
by goc

Comment:
There's a lot of grain in the petals. A run through Neat Image would make this photo outstanding.

Sweet Dreams
by HeiSch

Comment:
Awesome red. I want to see some of the person under the covers though. An arm.. part of the head.. something..

the way to drop
by thefisherking

Comment:
I like the composition and DOF of this. It lacks color personality though.

Woman in Silk
by heavyj

Comment:
You missed your focus on this and your whites are blown out. Nice composition though.