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 05/09/2004 08:56:56 AM · #1
I'm not a member, so this is only really speaking to the open challenges. I don't know if this is a factor in member challenges.

There are a lot of people who enter submissions that are out of focus. I'm not talking about depth of field or 'soft focus'. I'm talking about pictures that have focused on the wrong element within the frame or have nothing in focus at all. I'm not going to point out examples, because I'm sure this has happened to all of us. I just want to suggest that people who are entering contests make sure their entry is in focus.

PLEASE DON'T ENTER PHOTOS THAT ARE OUT OF FOCUS!

I know that some people will never vote an 'out of challenge' photo above a five. For my part I am never going to vote an out of focus photo above a five. I'll score it on other merits, then cut that score in half to get a final vote. This leads to low votes on otherwise strong photos, but to me an out of focus picture can in no way be considered a success.

There is some loss of quality when a large file is shrunk to the required dimensions for this site, but this is not problematic enough to use as en excuse. You should know if you have an out of focus shot well before entering it in a contest.

Some reasons for a camera to give poor focus are 1)not enough lighting (use additional lights, or flash), 2)low batteries (keep a second set charged at all times), 3)camera shake (use a tripod whenever possible), 4) Subject is too close or too far away (see if you have a macro or supermacro function or use manual focus if possible).

Many digital cameras have a manual focus feature that can be used if you are having trouble getting crisp focus. I use a Olympus, on which the manual focus was extremely hard to find, but once I found it I was able to use it without much trouble. Each camera brand may be different so I can't tell you how to use your manual focus, or if you have one. Please find out and figure out how to use it if you are consistantly having troubles with auto focus.

This has probably been brought up many times before, but I just finished voting on 400 entries and had to get this off my chest before attempting to comment on them.

Thanks you for listening,
Lanica

EDIT: mathmatical error. Thanks Jacko.

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 11:47:13.
 05/09/2004 09:03:20 AM · #2
Maybe this is for the rant forum????
 05/09/2004 09:05:00 AM · #3
Ditto to that :) I totally agree with Bibliophile!.

Edit: typo

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 09:05:29.
 05/09/2004 09:14:12 AM · #4
Some good tips - thanks for making your rant constructive ;). I can say that my entry in abstract has received some comments about the lack of focus. What's ironic is that the original is crisply in focus, but I took the Gaussian Blur filter out for a spin thinking it might lend a more abstract quality by softening. Luckily I had some great feedback that taught me folks like to see their abstracts sharp. Oh, and I've got some work to do before mastering that filter. Shoot and learn!
 05/09/2004 09:15:57 AM · #5
In the abstract challenge having nothing in focus can work. It just has to be presented well. For rusted it may not work, but there are times where it can.

edit: I meant in focus -- I appologize for any confusion

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 09:46:12.
 05/09/2004 09:23:14 AM · #6
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
In the abstract challenge having nothing out of focus can work. It just has to be presented well. For rusted it may not work, but there are times where it can.


I agree! After reading the comments and going through the voting, I had a very different perspective on what an abstract image should be. It's amazing how much you can learn in the voting process. When I did that first round of submissions I hadn't really learned the unsharpen mask either - that lesson alone was worth the sunscription price for DPC.
 05/09/2004 09:35:41 AM · #7
Originally posted by cghubbell:
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
In the abstract challenge having nothing out of focus can work. It just has to be presented well. For rusted it may not work, but there are times where it can.


I agree! After reading the comments and going through the voting, I had a very different perspective on what an abstract image should be. It's amazing how much you can learn in the voting process. When I did that first round of submissions I hadn't really learned the unsharpen mask either - that lesson alone was worth the sunscription price for DPC.


edit: I meant in focus -- I appologize for any confusion -- cghubbell, you may not still agree

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 09:37:30.
 05/09/2004 10:08:18 AM · #8
Proper focus is fundamental to good photography. In most cases that means a sharp, clear image... but not always.

With digital, oversharpening is a problem resulting in the "jaggies", artificial haloing and excessively contrasty small detail. That is just as bad as an out of focus image.
 05/09/2004 10:12:26 AM · #9
Divide by .5 to penalize?

5 / .5 = 10. Nice.
 05/09/2004 10:34:50 AM · #10
Originally posted by Jacko:
Divide by .5 to penalize?

5 / .5 = 10. Nice.


Yeah, but after factoring in the "fails to meet the challenge" factor it still drops down to 2. :)
 05/09/2004 10:55:18 AM · #11
just an opinion, but jovi, to agree with an issue such as focus so blindly ("Ditto to that :) I totally agree with Bibliophile!.") as to predetermine your voting method it would seem that you might want to change up your sig a bit or leave it out completely :)

focus is all about the statement of the shot. if nothing is in focus i can understand the urge to quickly dismiss it, but if the "wrong element" is in focus, i would recommend taking the time to think through all the possibilities that might justify the focus technique. i say this only because i entered a photo in the "serendipity" challenge that would appear to have the "wrong" element in focus. however, the point of the shot was to be serendipitous - "to find something unexpected". to achieve this, i simply walked around with my camera hanging loosely at my side and hit the shutter button at random intervals. only when i got home did i review what the lens had captured. alot of the shots were crap, i admit, but a few had some interesting and unexpected results. the one i submitted:

"From the Hip"

had nice framing (i loathe cropping an image), and the sharp focus of the background suggested that the shot was not planned or set-up, but rather was a spontaneous "moment" captured without my knowledge. for this reason i think the shot was a good example of serendipity. but to think of focus strictly in a preset manner i think is detrimental to appreciating a photograph.

and that, is MHO

(note the comments on the photo as well :)

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 10:59:19.
 05/09/2004 11:20:56 AM · #12
Originally posted by Bibliophile:

PLEASE DON'T ENTER PHOTOS THAT ARE OUT OF FOCUS!


Many interesting and successfull contemporary photographers (Sarah Moon for example) have based their work on unfocused material.

Introducing "good focus" as an absolute dogma seems to me as a little "dépassé".
Composition, balance, interest and emotion are areas that should be way higher on our improvement list, as photographers and critics of photographs as well. .
 05/09/2004 11:27:59 AM · #13
Freeman Patterson, in his book Photography and the Art of Seeing, provides several exercises in breaking the rules of which one is keeping everything in sharp focus. For example, when taking a picture jump up and down while pressing the shutter. You may be surprised at the results.

//www.freemanpatterson.ca -- check out the prints gallery
 05/09/2004 11:35:20 AM · #14
Lot of people have problem using the resizing software.Many of very good focused photos become pixelized and soft after resizing and overcompresing.There are lot of photos which are only 20-50 KB and that is severe JPEG compression and loss of quality.
 05/09/2004 11:39:30 AM · #15
a 20-50KB file can still be quite high quality.

05/09/2004 11:44:34 AM · #16
I agree - sometimes you can compress one image down to 150kb and it'll lose loads of quality. Othertimes you can compress a different image down below 100 and it won't look too bad. I guess it depends on the size of the original file and the nature of the picture.

Edit: typo

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 11:45:21.
 05/09/2004 11:45:52 AM · #17
PSP 7 does horrible job of downsizing,Adobe is much better.

150 kb
25 kb

Message edited by author 2004-05-09 11:51:18.
 05/09/2004 11:55:00 AM · #18
Originally posted by jjbeguin:

Many interesting and successfull contemporary photographers (Sarah Moon for example) have based their work on unfocused material.

Introducing "good focus" as an absolute dogma seems to me as a little "dépassé".
Composition, balance, interest and emotion are areas that should be way higher on our improvement list, as photographers and critics of photographs as well.


I agree totally.

On the other hand, there are a lot fewer Sarah Moons submitting images to DPC than there are folks submitting images with focusing mistakes. :)
 05/09/2004 12:02:06 PM · #19
I agree with those of you who pointed out that there are times when out of focus can work. Those are not the photographs I'm trying to call attention to. There are many photos that get entered in every contest that are, to my (admittedly amature) eye, mistakes. There are always exceptions to the rule, but I believe that one should first know the rules and be able to follow them regularly before breaking them.

Vince - I considered that, but thought that since this would have a few 'helpful tips' it would fit just as well here. It was a 50/50 toss up.

Jacko - Thanks for catching that. I melded together two trains of thought and came up with something completely wrong.

the-O-ster, I gave your shot a high score, I thought it was ingenious. It's an excellent example of creatively and successfully breaking the rules. ;-)
 05/09/2004 12:45:03 PM · #20
In the Orange challenge i got lots of comments regarding bad focus. I tend to agree, but was trying to 'fix' another problem withint hte basic editing rules and, well, made a decision that got me my lowest score ever. I learned!

I see the same 'mistakes' over and over. Hopefully they are not by the same folks every time! I think people are learning from the comments they get and don't repeat mistakes (intentionally).

The best thing to do is to use UnSharp Mask AFTER resixing to you final size. Resizing can indeed soften an image. Too sharp seems to hurt scores too. (I don't mean over sharpened - halo'd)
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