comparion help please

[justkat]

Despite no top 10, this last contest tied in total votes for my best effort. Because of that, i feel like I might be able to handle constructive criticism about the two that did better (having already opened up the lower placing one to helpful shredding (it really was helpful!) lol).

the two remaining pictures are:

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close2_post.JPG

and

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close3_post.JPG

My only actual question is this: I expected bob’s eye to do better than her nose; and thoughts on why it didn’t turn out that way?

My own guesses: 1) there were more eyes posted than noses, so the nose stood out more; 2) people might have mistaken the right side of the photograph as being totally blown out bokeh, but he fur just goes white rigt there, so while the focus slides away after the focus on the eye, it’s not as extreme as it it might appear Since that picture is the entirety of the original there isn’t a lot i could do about that.

/also: a day late and a dollar short? caught this spider wrapping up his lunch lash night as the fly buzzed futily for hielp. gooooo spiders!!

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/mywork/090510_cocooning_spider_post.JPG

[staplermofo]

You can see cat boogers in the nose shot.
People are into some crazy things.

[justkat]

Despite no top 10, this last contest tied in total votes for my best effort. Because of that, i feel like I might be able to handle constructive criticism about the two that did better (having already opened up the lower placing one to helpful shredding (it really was helpful!) lol).

the two remaining pictures are:

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close2_post.JPG

and

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close3_post.JPG

My only actual question is this: I expected bob’s eye to do better than her nose; and thoughts on why it didn’t turn out that way?

My own guesses: 1) there were more eyes posted than noses, so the nose stood out more; 2) people might have mistaken the right side of the photograph as being totally blown out bokeh, but he fur just goes white rigt there, so while the focus slides away after the focus on the eye, it’s not as extreme as it it might appear Since that picture is the entirety of the original there isn’t a lot i could do about that.

/also: a day late and a dollar short? caught this spider wrapping up his lunch last night as the fly buzzed futily for hielp. gooooo spiders!!

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/mywork/090510_cocooning_spider_post.JPG

[3Horn]

I expected bob’s eye to do better than her nose; and thoughts on why it didn’t turn out that way?

Your female cat’s name is “Bob”? Black Adder fan?

[millera9]

For my money, the nose shot is simply a better shot. I can’t speak for anyone else, and I certainly won’t try to predict fark voting, but here’s how I usually judge a photo:

1) Subject: is it a good subject, is it unique or unusual, is it difficult to photograph, etc? 30%
2) Execution: is it a good photograph, technically, is the focus on, is the composition pleasing, etc? 60%
3) Extra-curricular: is it funny or ironic or clever in some other way, etc? 10%

The point is, a really good photo of a boring subject is much more likely to get a vote from me than a mediocre photo of a really excellent subject. I vote that way because otherwise this just turns into a “who can find the coolest thing, prettiest (most naked) girl, or cutest cat” contest – which would be fine except I wouldn’t be interested in participating.

So, to get back to your photos, the shot of Bob’s nose is unique, kinda funny (for reasons staplermofo has already covered), and technically proficient (good exposure, good focus, good composition). The photo of Bob’s eye is certainly a pretty subject but the composition is not great, the shadow across her eye is distracting, the focus isn’t dead on (though it’s pretty close) and – as you pointed out – it looks like the right side is blown-out even though it isn’t. Don’t be discouraged by any of that; photos of animal eyes are damn difficult.

As far as constructive criticism goes, my suggestions to improve the shot of Bob’s eye would be that it needs some foreground and a slightly different composition. You can kinda see her eyelashes/eyelid at the top, but the depth of field is so shallow that it doesn’t really work as foreground. If that were a bit clearer, it would be a stronger shot. Also, as covered before, the point of focus in the photo is dead center of the composition. That can work alright for eye shots, but all that empty white space on the right side could have been cropped out which would have moved her cornea to one side and probably would have helped a bit.

Hope that helps, and congratulations on tying your best effort! Keep up the good work and keep taking photos!

[justkat]

3horn – ha! yes i am, but that’s not where she got her name. we were dithering about naming her and a friend came over and said without hesitation “Bob. everything can be named bob” and it stuck. 😀

millera9 – i don’t know if i could run the numbers in my own head, but those sound good to me. as i told a friend of mine, i’m trying to learn to take pretty pictures, not just pictures of pretty things. although that’s a huge over simplification, since i take pix of things most people wouldn’t find beautiful at all! we’re putting together a gallery (pix to share, not just an organizing tool, so it only has a few hundred pix and olav hasn’t done his keywords yet lol) and if you search for rust you get 7 pix. if you search for bug you get 29. =P (and one of those is a dead ladybug hahaha) but i’m babbling here…

this ‘constructive criticism’ has really helped me… not that i always agree with the every single detail of the critiques, but it really is helping me with the areas that i’m personally most concerned about right now, which are framing and lighting, in that order. not that i think that one is more important than the other, i just started on framing first, so i’m giving it slightly more emphasis in my learning curve at the moment.

for some of my pix that have done poorly, though, and even some that have done really well, all i can do is stratch my head and say ‘no accounting for taste!’ 😀

[justkat]

oh nice. just noticed my headline typo. =P

and when did i quote myself and say nothing, hmmmmm? i dunno, i’ve been pretty out of it lately. all the fucking drugs. i hate this. but farktography (and photography in general) helps me forget for a while.

[justkat]

if anyone comes back to this… another thing i seem to be having trouble with, obviously, is where, exactly, is the actual point of focus. if anyone could look at this one (warning, spider)

http://65.78.140.207/gallery2/main.php/v/Kat_Galleries/faves/090510_cocooning_spider.JPG.html

and tell me if it’s got a good point of focus, i’d sure appreciate it. i don’t have any plans for submitting it — not that there’s any contest it would be suitable for anyway — i just took it because it was too cool to not photograph. but now that i have, i’d appreciate comments on this issue. thanks!

[linguine]

I think a little bit sharper focus would help, a narrower aperture might help with this. I have no clue what your lens is like but the autofocus on mine isn’t all that great so for a shot like that I would always use manual focus rather autofocus because I know my lens isn’t going to figure out where to focus on a small subject like that on its own. The other thing I would do would be in photoshop/gimp use the levels tools to lighten the background to increase the contrast in the photo.

[sleeping]

One thing to be aware of is that while AF tends to get you to think about focusing in terms of a small specific spot, that’s not necessarily an ideal way of thinking for close up/macro work. You may find you can get better results by thinking carefully about the angle of your camera in relationship to the subject, and how to keep as much of the subject as you can parallel to the camera so it’s in the plane of focus (and if you are using AF, it’s quite dangerous to move the camera to recompose after focusing, as that’s very difficult to do without changing the angle of the camera.)

[justkat]

response to you both – i never use AF with macro now that i have the option not to lol. (my p&s obviously didn’t let me MF) which means the problem is me. *sigh* actually, the problem is probably a combination of me and olav… i believe he had it set to his vision (not good) and i need to re-set it to my own (better than his, but far from perfect) … although i think that only applies to AF?

sadly i already did those things in Gimp. that spider was moving fast, i only got maybe two or three pix out of like 12 that were even remotely in focus and the lighting sucked…. but i have to say that i didn’t think to go to AV on that one. still learning…..

olav got me two photography books for our anniversary and while i’ve pretty much read them both cover to cover, i know i’ll have to do so again a few more times before i’ll have gotten the stuff all the way into my head… and from there it still has to make it to my eyes and hands! 🙂 however, i have learned a few things and occasionally i remember them and try them. took a picture of a bit of fence overkill today and when i popped it into my computer i found that the shallow depth of field (I hadn’t even been using a macro lens!) killed the shot. but i remembered there was something i could do about that! with the help of this ridiculous little tripod (a gorilla would have been *much* better) i cranked up the fs and tried again, with much better results. after all that, i don’t know if the photos are useful, but i was proud of myself for making it work… or at least making it work *better* 😀

/really really really really out of it. i hope i’m speaking english. if anything isn’t clear, it’s me, not you, please feel free to ask for clarification.

[sleeping]

response to you both – *sigh* actually, the problem is probably a combination of me and olav… i believe he had it set to his vision (not good) and i need to re-set it to my own (better than his, but far from perfect) … although i think that only applies to AF?

No, it’s quite the opposite – if the diopter correction in the camera isn’t set correctly for you it will be quite difficult to accurately focus manually, but the camera’s autofocus isn’t affected by that at all, it will work fine.

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