4 and lower? - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

07/21/2007 01:09:30 AM · #1

I might be beating a dead horse, let me know if I am and someone can lock the thread.

I'm just curious as to what the REAL voters (Not the trolls that vote down everything so they get higher scores) look at in a picture and say "That's not even worth a 5, that's a 4 or less" What is it about a picture that makes it worth less than even a 5?

I will say that 5's handed out by me are those that meet the challenge but are just poor in quality, unoriginal, or have things that distract from the subject of the image. From there, I'll give 6's and 7's. 8 and up are just great photos for different reasons.

As far as 4's. I give those out to people who may or may not have tried hard and just wanted something in the challenge. 3's go to people like 4's but have obviously put in less effort. I don't give out 1's or 2's anymore, I just skip them.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

07/21/2007 01:16:10 AM · #2

Unoriginal content
Poor lighting
Poor composition
Poor focus
Too much sharpening
Too much neatimage
No details in shadows
No details in highlights
Nebulous connection to the challenge
Lack of contrast

photokariangel

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L IS USM

07/21/2007 01:45:37 AM · #3

You pretty much summed it up Router.

jjusa

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM

07/21/2007 01:52:02 AM · #4

I give ones and twos to people who have not met the chalenge at all. Threes and fours go to photos that have clearly no or very little effort put into them. Fives and sixes go to average photos that have effort apparent, but are not great. Great photos will get a seven, eight, or nine, depending on the level of excellence. And I give tens to my personal favourites in a challenge.

As for the OP comment about not giving ones and twos...I think you should. Even though it feels bad doing, without giving ones and twos you are simply making the scale in which we can seperate the quality of photos to a lesser degree. In your system, you will divide all photos into 8 catagories, but giving ones and twos, you can generate further seperation; 10 catagories of quality.

Philos

Canon EOS-30D

07/21/2007 03:52:37 AM · #5

Originally posted by KelvinC:

I give ones and twos to people who have not met the chalenge at all.

Now that is what I find difficult, maybe you just dont get the link with the challenge, and then maybe it's you who just doesnt understand.

Giving out 1's is something I almost never do, what is DNMC in my mind can be a perfect fit in somebody else's mind....

Message edited by author 2007-07-21 03:53:14.

zxaar

07/21/2007 05:02:14 AM · #6

Originally posted by Philos:

Originally posted by KelvinC:
I give ones and twos to people who have not met the chalenge at all.

Giving out 1's is something I almost never do, what is DNMC in my mind can be a perfect fit in somebody else's mind....

Well many times its just objective.
For example in artificial light challenge, you can clearly see sun.

I also give 1s or 2s to images those are clearly DNMC.
And why do I do so, the reason is simple, the challenge topics are there for a reason and I hate to see a photo that DNMC scoring higher than that does meet the challenge (no matter how shabby that photo is).

Kavey

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon

07/21/2007 05:33:12 AM · #7

Originally posted by Philos:

Originally posted by KelvinC:
I give ones and twos to people who have not met the chalenge at all.

Now that is what I find difficult, maybe you just dont get the link with the challenge, and then maybe it's you who just doesnt understand.

Giving out 1's is something I almost never do, what is DNMC in my mind can be a perfect fit in somebody else's mind....

If the viewer can't percieve the way in which the image meets the challenge then the photographer has failed to communicate it to that segment of the audience.

If I shoot an image with the express intention of conveying a particular theme or message (as one does for DPC) then I want the feedback to reflect not only how good the image it technically and aesthetically but how successfully the theme has come across to the audience.

By marking low on meeting the challenge a voter isn't necessarily saying that the photographer ignored the theme but that it didn't come through to them as a viewer/ voter.

Images that are really poor technically will generally get a 4 or 5 from me if they meet the challenge. Images that really don't meet the challenge to my perception (doesn't happen too often but does sometimes in more specific challenges) but are technically good get a 4 or 5 from me. Images that fail on both accounts get a 2 or 3. I don't give out 1s very often but I have done on occasion.

Shadowi6

Nikon D200

Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX-DC HSM

07/21/2007 06:07:44 AM · #8

5 is just average, nothing more nothing less. Just average. So if you have a 4 it makes it just below average. Not terrible, not horrible, just below average.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

07/21/2007 10:17:57 AM · #9

OK...I'm kind of getting the idea of how SOME people are doing it.

As for my not giving out 1's and 2's...it's to images that are clearly just there with no purpose. Also, there might be something that I clearly do not understand. I do not DNMC an entry because I feel that perhaps there might be SOME connection that I just don't see and I have faith in voters with more of an idea of what is what in scoring those types of images.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

07/21/2007 10:21:16 AM · #10

There's 4 or 500 other posts on this same topic if you aren't happy with the sample size here heheh.

Panasonic LUMIX-DMC ZS100

07/21/2007 10:33:32 AM · #11

Nah...just wondering. As DPC members get used to things, they develop different ways of voting. I've changed the way I do it over the last 6 months. Just wondering how it's done by some now.

Prof_Fate

07/21/2007 11:21:39 AM · #12

Does it meet the challenge (if I have to think too hard then no, it doesn't)
Does it meet the basic technical issues - exposure, sharpness, focus, etc?
Composition - does it have any, or is it just a snapshot?

Every image starts with a 5. Miss one of the above, without being excellent in some other area, then you get a 4.

Creativity makes a bigger difference in raising the score, or effort - its usually pretty apparent when someone spent a great deal of effort to set up and design a shot, and often apparent when they just took a photo of their dog in the living room - a snapshot definitely loses points.

wheeledd

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

07/21/2007 12:38:54 PM · #13

I have a different way of thinking about the voting. I pretend that I am selecting images for coffee-table book or a gallery show on the theme of the challenge. I give 10s to the images that I think might go on the cover of the book or the poster for the show. I give 1s or 2s to the images that I wouldn't put in the book or show under any circumstances.

I've just finished voting on the Natural Light Portraits. There were four that I thought were great and I'd like to feature in the book/show. They got 10s. There were 24 images that I thought clearly did not belong in the book/show; these got 1s and 2s. This is more than usual.

Many of these don't seem to be natural light portraits. I don't like the term DNMC because an image may legally meet the challenge yet not seem to be the kind of work that would be appropriate for a book/show of natural light portraits. There are others in this group that I just think are poor photographs even if they are images of a person taken in natural light.

Each of us chooses to do the ratings in a way that makes sense to us. To me, using the full ten-point scale makes sense. I hope that those of you who don't use the lower numbers are making your votes count less than mine.

I also vote on every image in a challenge. The one strategy that does not make sense to me is to not vote on the images to which you would be inclined to give low votes. If you don't give the low votes, you are letting those images score higher in the ranking than they otherwise would.

--DanW