Well Groomed
by RulerZigzag

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

As mentioned in a few of the comments, your sky does appear overexposed. How do you deal with that? You can point your camera at the sky and hit the exposure lock button. Alternatively (and the way that I have found to work fairly well recently) is to go into full manual.

I have the D50 and while you have the D200 the process is the same. Point the camera at the sky as mentioned previously. The aperture you wanted (judging from the settings you provided) is F8 so dial that in 1st. Next you have to adjust your shutter speed. In your view finder you will see a series of bars at the bottom. Keep changing the shutter speed until they line up with the middle. (Bars will disappear as you get closer). You are now exposing for the sky.

With trees, you actually want to underexpose usually anyways. (Usually about -2/3 of a stop).

If your exposure if good then you won't need to get too carried away with saturation. Adjust the levels then curves and you'll end up with a really solid shot.

In hindsight I um...wish I would have done these steps myself.... :)

Croped
by Polar7

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I like the basic premise of this shot. Taking a bit more time would have helped. The division between the two sides of the field is likely what caught your eye in the first place. Great idea for a shot. Unfortunately the result was a little blah.

As mentioned in the comments, there is far too much road in this shot. Likely that isn't what attracted you to this shot. It does play into the shot.

I played with your shot quickly just to see what it would look like if:

The division between the two sides of the fields was centered.
The edge of the road was running along the bottom third of the frame
The tree line was running across the top third of the frame



I also bumped up the saturation a bit. (Probably too much but this was just a quick edit)

I would like to see this in landscape orientation as well. Show us the breadth of this field.

I also see you had a fairly wide aperture. I would try going with a smaller aperture (larger f/ number). Your shutter speed would slow down as well so you would likely need a tripod to get good sharpness.

As an alternate composition (one that just ocurred to me) is to have the division going diagonally through the frame. You would need to go down the road a bit but having the line going corner to corner would be cool or even if it just went off to a vanishing point in the distance it would like nice. Just a thought.

I hope I've provided some helpful info here.

C

Life Saver
by inshaala

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Well, a lot of sung praise to your submission so there isn't a lot I can say that hasn't already been said. At best I may end up summarizing what previous comments have already said.

Exposure: yes the skies are dark but that is quite effective here. It creates a nice ominous mood for the sky. It also helps create a strong contrast with the color of the life preserver. A light sky would weaken the effect considerably.

Composition: Simple but effective. Good negative space on the left but its got enough detail for the eye to see something interesting. The diagonal lines on the lighthouse effectively take your eye into the picture. The position of the life preserver is excellent: in a strong position without overpowering the shot.

Color: Great rich colors that are nicely saturated without going overboard.

The Challenge: Definitely meets the challenge. At 4th place the voters agree too.

Overall: Great image. Sadly DPC doesn't give ribbons for 4th place because this shot deserves one.

The Dichotomy of Desire and Ability
by jonfrommk

Comment:
Hmmm...desire and ability are not mutually exclusive. Sorry...DNMC

Earth and Sky
by drewhosick

Comment:
Nice but why portrait orientation? Why not landscape? Just wondering...

Mirror Image
by karenk

Comment:
Color and monochrome. I like the fact that you removed the color from the "real" side of the image.

Duty to Country Overrides Youthful Fun and Family
by boyd2000

Comment:
The title indicates the dichotomy but I need to SEE the dichotomy.

Sunrise from the Fish Pier
by whiterook

Comment:
Post-processing looks a little peculiar here. It almost looks like you dodged the image around the boats and the skyline.

The Chaser and the Chasee
by cca

Comment:
Either the ball or the dog need to be in good focus for this to work well. You have your focus kinda in the middle which isn't really one of the elements you need to focus on.

Aside from that? The DPC crowd doesn't vote well on pet shots. (I disagree with this since pets can portray such a broad range of emotions and it is something special to capture that). In terms of the challenge I like the approach. Its unique and well thought out. I guarantee there is going to be a lot of shoe horn entries in this challenge: this isn't one of them.

Lifeguard v. Swimmers
by kandykarml

Comment:
People at a pool
Can you be both? Not really...
This fits the challenge.

Interesting take. Quite unique and one that few people (if any?) would have thought of. I'd be curious how this would look if everything except the lifeguard and the water were desaturated. Lots of PP to do it but it might look cool.

Anyways...