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bubeltrubelComment by Artifacts: Positives:
Nice composition of two well positioned insects standing on a folded over grass blade. The curve of the grass blade adds pleasant visual interest to the image.
Technicals:
Like most images in the challenge it has center framing which is understandable. There are several major technical flaws in this image. 1-The noise in the soft background is a major distraction. 2-The yellow blob to the upper right that is slightly overexposed distracts from the insects and draws the eye away. 3-The sharpening haloing around the insects is another major distraction.
The Challenge:
Meets the challenge well with multiple insects.
It scored 5.92 in a challenge that averaged a score given of 5.7. Both are significantly above the average score given at DPC which is just under 5.4. The higher average is likely because voters were rewarding minimal editing compositions with higher than normal scores. In addition to that, voters felt yours was even better.
This is unusual for me but I scored your image lower than the group. I gave your image a 5. That is bad. It means I would be failing it if it were an assigment that I graded. Under normal conditions it is HIGHLY unusual for me to score an image lower than the group. My norm is to score 2 or more points HIGHER than the group average.
Because I only take about 1/2 second to vote I can and do make mistakes sometimes. However, after a much closer review, I find the vote I gave was not a mistake this time.
Suggestions:
Addressing the three main technical issues I identified above would improve it dramatically. Because it is minimal editing no sharpening and/or applying less in-camera sharpening would take care of most of the noise and haloing issues. You would have to reshoot to remove the yellow blob. If you could compose the image off center it would also be an improvement, perhaps by rotating the camera slightly to the right to have the grass blade coming into the frame even moreso that it already is.
Photographer found comment helpful.
