Ice
by codfish709

Comment by PennyStreet:
wonderful macro, wild colors and shapes. I like this one alot.

Ice
by codfish709

Comment by klstover:
Really nice dreamy feel, and I like the colors.

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by Phil:
Critique Club

Good concept. Can't add much about the compression that hasn't already been said.

Lighting is good. The capsules are overall a little soft as 2.8 is a bit much for this shot. Keeping the 100 ISO you might want to try f8-f11 and a tripod.

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by KarenNfld:
I saw this on Flickr and it looks much better there, no compression artifacts at all. Like Yo_Spiff said, 58k is a small file size, you can go to 200k in member challenges. I think if there were no compression artifacts this would have scored a lot higher, it's a cool photo.

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by bvlindalou:
great comp and color

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by Yo_Spiff:
Tons of JPEG compression showing here. Red is also a bad color for compression artifacts. Does not hide it well. Your 58k file size shows you had plenty of additional overhead to avoid the artifacts. Always use the least compression you can and still slip in under the challenge limit.

Snailfan
by codfish709

Comment by codfish709:
These are excellent suggestions and comments. I will use them in the future. This is a great place to learn and be challenged.

Mike

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by mindbottling:
There appear to be some strange artifacts? around the edges of the pills

Snailfan
by codfish709

Comment by PGerst:
** Hello from the Critique Club **

Cute fellow. You must have had a lot of patience waiting for him to get in the right spot.

Composition
Although I will discuss the technical aspects of this photo in a minute, the compositional aspect is the one which weighs heavily. This is a very busy photo; there is a lot for the viewer to look at, and it is not clear where the intended focus is. Let me explain that a little. It is clear by the title that the snail is your main subject. However, the eye is easily drawn away from the subject by the coral, the castle, and the large negative yellow space. If you look at the other animal subjects in the challenge, you will find that what surrounds the subject is simple and uniform. Take SandyP by Lutchenko for example. The subject is surrounded by blank space, which forces the eye to concentrate on the Sandy Pea.

For fun, take the snail and place him on a mirror (as in SandyP). Illuminate it with nice soft light and you will have one interesting shot! Try it out and submit in the Free Study!

Technical
There is not too much I have to say about the technical aspects as the composition drives most of it. Were you using the ambient light from the tank? At an ISO of 800 and 1/40 of a second (f7.1) I can imagine that you didn't have too much light. Try supplementing with a bounce flash, or a light bounced of the ceiling. Especially if you take the suggestion for composition above.

So, finally, this is a nice close up shot of the snail. There is a lot you can do with him...experiment.

Heart (Fish) Oil
by codfish709

Comment by aliqui:
The composition, lighting, and colors are wonderful, but you lost a lot of image quality somewhere. Definitely some compression issues or something going on.