Oh the things you see while at a nearby duck pond.
There they were. Invaders from another planet all gathered on a small bridge on a duck pond. I grabbed my camera to seize the opportunity for my candid!
I think these girls were going to some kind of rally for their sports team, but I have no clue what that is. I just asked them if I could take their photo, and they all screamed "YES!". And then they posed. BUT, I then told them it was for an assignment of a CANDID, so for them to go on talking and pay me no nevermind. LOL...They said, OH, ok, and started talking again, but thought it was comical to keep talking and not posing. :)
Well, at least I got in my candid! It was definately by happenstance that it happened to be this time of year and not halloween that aliens were roaming the park. :)
Statistics
Place: 64 out of 109 Avg (all users): 5.2862 Avg (commenters): 4.9091 Avg (participants): 4.9844 Avg (non-participants): 5.3805 Views since voting: 1492 Views during voting: 411 Votes: 269 Comments: 33 Favorites: 0
Man this is gunna come of mean, and its really not just constructive...
The fence is way in focus, the effect going for failed. You can post process the heck outta of it and just isn't a cowbell formula. Only trying to help...
Rose
It doesn't matter a hill of beans how many sites, books, papers you have read on shallow DOF since you clearly have not understood fully the quality of the blurred areas of a shallow-DOF image. You can throw terminology such as confusion line and bokeh out all you like but you simply have not made a good job of producing a realistic shallow-DOF effect using PP.
You can insist if you want to that Konador's comments were made out of spite but it's clear to pretty much everyone who reads them that his comments are not only spot on in regards to your entry but politely and generously given.
Clearly you prefer to assume the worst in people and to blame any responses you don't like on personal animosity, abuse of SC powers or any number of other conspiracy theories you currently believe in.
Questioning the status quo isn't a bad thing to do per se but you seem to be unable to do so without getting angry and personal, especially if the majority fails to see things your way.
The nature of this site is mutual support and learning. If you don't think you can learn anything from comments given, why are you here and not somewhere else?
Look, here is the deal. On "this" entry, I only chose the complimentary ones as what I feel were helpful. On my shallow dof approach, I feel I approached it properly given my indepth research. There is bokeh, dof, and shallow dof. I used shallow, in which there are two confusion lines, and not bokeh or just dof. So did others find I did it properly. One even said "you nailed it!". I dont, by the way, see ANY of you agreeing with them now do I? How ironic.
Second of all, I am not INTERESTED in ANY critique on my entries. I wish there was a button to turn it off permantly to me and to others, personally. The Good, and the Bad, and the Ugly, but since no option is available, it is really NO ones business what I click as helpful or not. Actually, I only click some at all as helpful becuase "I was instsructed to do so".
AS for Konador, it is not that you left your "helpful" comment that bothers me as much as it bothers me that you deliberately SOUGHT out my entry using your "powers that be" to do so, just as clubjungle did in that thread in order to post direct quotes from my comments section given me by other members. AGAINST the rules for ME to do though, isn't it.
I do not and will never think that is fair play, and your critique had NOTHING to do with helping me understand my "wrongs" on the thread or wrongs on my entry. The thread was not ABOUT THAT, but about the use of ANY ANY ANY PP for this challenge, and not in HOW HOW HOW I used it, where I went wrong in "your" eyes, or how I could have made it better.
Using advanced editing rules was allowed, period. MANY agreed on another thread it was good to use for cameras like mine that could not capture shallow dof with crowds due to low apertures. To say using it is against the spirit of a challenge is WRONG, period. IF there is going to be a challenge where an in camera effect is to be the focus, then DON'T ALLOW for advanced editing to achieve that effect. Make it basic editing, or give a special rule that PP cannot be used TO achieve that effect. The spirit of the challenge was lost in the allowance of advanced editing, by description, and by threads that occured during voting period, and it was not lost in that PP WAS used at all.
Case and piont: In Wildlife, many will enter photos not in actual natural environments and pass them off as if they are using their own definition of a natural environment. Semantics. Will they be going against the spirit of the challenge? AND how many of YOU are entering just that? In Tribute, many will enter a free study photo and tribute it to no one in particular by title or name. Is that going against the spirit of the challenge? If a challenge was called "Vintage", and you used a sepia "effect" on your entry to achieve a vintage effect, is that going against the spririt of the challenge? NO, NO, AND NO in my opinion. So why is this any different that editing was used to achieve an effect, and why have it called an unspirited move?
So my problem is not in HOW I used my PP and if you agree or disagree that it was done badly. My problem is saying it was unspirited to use the effect at all.
I feel Konador, KNOWING others would flock to this entry afterwards, made his "comments" for that purpose. The comments were not to help me, but were to help his stance on that thread.
End of story. End of challenge. This entry did NOT brown as bad as you all think the PP was and could have been done better, or even due to being unspirited when I spent three days searching out crowds to get off my shot. Mostly 5's and above? So where is the DNMC scoring? LOL...No, I am happy with its standing considering, and its over. Move on to the next challenge, as I am.
And Mega, your post has been reported. Stop your silly little quips where I am concerned. You are not in the least bit amusing - anymore.
OH and Jorr, KiwiPix and echoman? I guess your opinions aren't worth a hill O' beans on my entry. I am sorry your opinions were so dissed by this crowd. And Kiwi, if your watching, have a lovely safari!
After reading your thread, I've been eagerly waiting to see your photo. To be completely honest, I have to agree with the commenters and I hope you'll read why:
Firstly, blurring is not the same as shallow depth of field. Shallow depth of field uses a wide aperture to achieve an image with a very short bit of the distance from the camera in focus. Blurring to make one part of your image in focus and the rest not is not shallow depth of field, it's just blurring things as it has nothing to do with how far those things were from the camera when the image was taken. For that reason, I agree that trying to fake a shallow depth of field in post (using any method) does not meet the challenge. The key word here is depth.
Secondly, the challenge and the rules are two separate things (which is exactly why "does not meet challenge" is not grounds for DQ). Just because something is allowed does not mean it should be used to great extents, i.e. to the extent of creating the challenge subject. I could use duotone to create a green and red image of a blueberry, but people might not think that it met the challenge in that complimentary colors challenge we had a while back.
Third, it is possible to fake shallow depth of field well in photoshop or other programs. I don't think it's really a spirited way to go about meeting the challenge, but if someone can fake a shallow depth of field well enough that no one knows, I think it's a little sneaky and not really in the spirit of learning that prevails on this site, but more power to them. However, if someone fakes shallow depth of field badly OR uses post to create something that isn't shallow depth of field, I would certainly vote them lower in a challenge about shallow depth of field.
Fourth, even after reading all our arguments, you obviously disagree about what meets the challenge here. That's fine, but everyone, both you and the rest of us, is entitled to their interpretation of the challenge. When submitting on DPC you have to understand that not everybody will interpret things the way you do. The photos that fair best are usually those that follow what one might call the majority interpretation. You can't be upset because your interpretation does not fall into the majority interpretation. You just have to accept that you're out of the box and take the lower score in interest of art, or you have to buck up and do something that appeals to the masses. Why do you think scores are generally bell curves with a normal distribution? Because no two people have the exact same opinion of a photo, but the majority tend toward something similar.
Fifth, you state below that "The reason for advanced editing rules in this specific challenge was due to camera's like my own in which aperture only opens so far, and minimal dof is near impossible to acsertain." How do you know why this challenge was run under advanced editing? All member challenges are advanced editing. And by the way, your camera opens up to F/2.8, which is plenty wide.
Lastly, I don't mean to be rude here, but I find it rather pathetic that you marked only compliments as helpful below. You even said in your rant thread that you had no problem with people thinking the blur was done badly. If eight people told me I had done a bad job with the blur tool, I would certainly find that helpful. If you can't handle constructive criticism, you need to reevaluate your participation here.
All that said, below is the comment you would have gotten from me if I had voted on this challenge (I would have made no assumptions about post, but worked from the definition of shallow depth of field):
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This doesn't look like a shallow depth of field to me. You've got objects in focus at a range of distances from the camera (tree, fence, girl in red, pointy silver thing). A shallow depth of field isolates subjects at a specific distance from the camera. Additionally, I find that the silver pointy thing, particularly the bit in focus distracts from the girl who is the main subject, because the silver thing is so very bright and much of the girl's head is in shadow.
I feel the need to defend myself here, against the false allogations made about me.
I had never commented on ANY shot in the singled out challenge, nor voted, and I'm sure drew or lang could back me up on that. I'm only working on commenting on every shot in the Best of 2006 challenge - where I have left Rose a "nice comment" which has not been edited in any way.
I read Rose's thread, and I went to look at what comments she had recieved to better understand her point, so I could start a discussion, in the same way Terry did. After a long time on that thread, I thought I would be helpful and go back to her shot and give her some information that I thought would help.
I never changed any comment, and it is in fact the only comment I left in this challenge. It took a long time to write, but I don't think I'll bother being helpful in the future. I did nothing rash or out of order, and my comment isnt rude or mean in any way. It's supposed to be helpful. I don't know why Rose took it so badly, we even ended up somewhat agreeing about some things in the thread so I do not understand why Rose would think my comment was made out of spite.
Anyway, that's all I have to say to defend myself. Believe who you might.
After reading a thread recently that the Energizer Bunny would be proud of, I specifically looked for your entry. Afterall, you called for attention. I see what most commenters are referring to and I quote my reply, the last remark made by a non-site council member in the thread that you referred to: "It looks to me that you got special treatment here. Everybody wants detailed, constructive criticism, and Konador seems to have gone out of his way to amend his comments to give it to you. I certainly would appreciate this kind of attention, I'm just not nearly about to go to the lengths that some people do to get it."
Rose,
You dont appreciate Ben's comments because they were after you had a conversation in your thread. Because he went back and looked at your photo and tried to tell you what was could be done different with it doesnt mean he is wrong. Your subject is interesting, it has a standing out in a crowd feel and the colors are great, but the bluring is off. How else can one say it. What really stands out is the fence behind her which should be blured and the thing in her hair which is half blured and her hand which is half blured. That stands out to someone voting especially those that think the dof should have been in camera (which I am not one of to clarify). One thing to ask is if you could go back and do this again could you do it better.
why are you so upset by anyone who gives you fantastic critique. Konador did just that.. if you look at it from someone who is trying to learn. He gave critique on what he saw.. you should be so lucky.
Agreed. There is nothing inappropriate about Konador's in-depth comment, in fact, it is surely the best one this image received.
Your response to such a wonderful critique, given in what I'm sure was a spirit of helpfulness, is quite startling given your statements here in this thread.
Actually, if any comment was in the spirit of this site it was Konador's. I wish I could have said I went into that much detail with my response. It's a pity a helpful comment was lost on you, perhaps others will read it and gain something.
Rose, that's a load of nonsense. Ben's comments are VERY to-the-point; he has exposed the weakness of your treatment of this image. It's an image that uses a lot of blur rather arbitrarily and does not in any way convince the viewer that the shallow DOF is natural. You can argue all you want, but this is a fact. Perhaps if you spent less time slamming people who are really trying to help and more time studying what they have to say, things would go more smoothly.
why are you so upset by anyone who gives you fantastic critique. Konador did just that.. if you look at it from someone who is trying to learn. He gave critique on what he saw.. you should be so lucky.
This challenge allowed for advanced editing. Advanced editing allowed for the dof creation. The dof creation was "shallow dof" using confusion lines in front and behind the subject. This was NOT for entire b/g OOF based on what others perceive to be dof, but was done specifically on what I read on shallow dof on over 5 websites - graphs and all, and those are the rules I followed in my photo.
As for Konador's book, I just want to say that there was NO need for Konador to actually seek out my entry to give such critique on my photo, and this was done purposely and due to a thread I started in forum since moved to rant and locked, and I feel this comment by Konador was made for no other reason. I do not find the comment helpful AT all, and think it was unethical to use SC advantage to seek out my entry purposely to address my usage of PP. The thread I started had nothing do with how I used my PP, but about just THE usage of PP on an advanced editing challenge. Therefore the comment, not having been removed as requested, shall remain, but will also remain with my words here.
I also have the same statement for others here who had comments about my dof, and especially for Pug-h, who stated it was not within the spirit of the challenge to use the PP. IF that were ever to be true, then any photo ever PP'ed on this site would also be against the spirit of a challenge. The reason for advanced editing rules in this specific challenge was due to camera's like my own in which aperture only opens so far, and minimal dof is near impossible to acsertain. If you want to crab about the spirit of the challenge, then crab about the rules allowed in an "in camera effect" challenge.
For the others who "got it" and enjoyed it, thank you so much. I really appreciated your taking the time for the purposes of seeing the photo as is, and not the photo that is not there.
this is a good crowd and an interesting subject, but the DoF is off. the nose of the woman in front of the subject and the fence and the tree behind the head of the subject are all sharp. it's very apparent that a blur tool was used here.
Blurring out the other people with your software somewhat goes against the spirit of the challenge which called for USE OF MINIMAL DEPTH OF FIELD to single out the person. You obviously didn't do this, as there are unblurred bits of tree which are way in the background.
I think the DoF looks very unnatural here. If you are going to fake blur in post processing, you should study the basic principles.
The further something is away from the focal plane, the more it should be out of focus.
Therefore the person closest to the camera should be more blurred than the person between them and the person in focus.
Equally, the guy in green should be more out of focus than the people in blue cos he is further away from the girl in focus.
Since you have created so much blur in such a small physical area, the background, which is much further away in comparison, should be completely out of focus and extremely blurred, so detail is hardly seen. This is one of the main things that gives away your blur is fake. The background is just as blurred as the other people, no more.
Also, there seems to be very sloppy selection around the person in focus, since the trees in the background above her head are perfectly in focus! Also, some bits of her hat are out of focus despite being in the same focal plane as her.
If you use Photoshop CS for editing there is a "Lens Blur" effect which will blur different amounts based on an alpha mask you can create. Basically, in focus things are white, and everything else is darker, with black being the most out of focus. You can paint gradients and objects in different shades of grey depending on how far away from the focal plane they are. Then the tool does all the blurring for you, and also can apply lens aperture effects to highlights, which does give a very different appearance to "Gaussian Blur".
To sum up, blur is a gradual effect, not an "on and off" effect. You should try to experiment in photoshop to get the effect looking realistic before entering a shot here, or you will get a lot of people voting you down for bad editing.
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