DSS #56 Unofficial Feedback Thread (Panning or Painting)

bf2015 · August 9, 2010

So, here is the official gallery to give your C&C for DSS#56

Gallery Here...

Once more into the fray. This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen.

Anyway, let's start feedback on DSS #56!!

This thread is:

a place to post a list of your top ten favorites. (be heard, and let everyone know what images moved you.)
a place to post your "the making of my image"
a place to ask someone "how did they do that?"(for us all to see )

Feedback is an important part of the photographic process. While those selected as finalists get feedback from the judges and those who vote, others are never quite sure where they stand. So share your thoughts both in this thread and with comments in the actual gallery. Constructive criticism should always be welcome.

It's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).

With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.

Example

Change this url

http://challenges.smugmug.com/Other/DSS-44/11173146_XPbWE#784726765_MXFDd

To this (minus the space in the IMG tags)

http://challenges.smugmug.com/photos/784726765_MXFDd-Th.jpg

Happy Feedbacking

JR303 · August 9, 2010

Thank God this one is over, it really kicked my butt.

My 2 favorites this time were to pool (ilbcnu - secret spot) with the palm trees (great idea, and man I wish I had been there to watch that process) and the lite brite. I know Johnrog - Lightness of being is the one you entered, and I like it, a lot actually, but that boat and moon was my wife's favorite, and a tie with the pool for tops in my mind.

Don't know why, but for some reason I seem to enjoy posting my failures on the feedback threads.

Here is one I tried, and yes, it may have been a margarita(s) induced idea, but I still liked it. Problem was after 139 attempts, I gave up. Yes, 139. I decided to pan the camera for letters instead of moving the subject. If you've never tried it, there is no description to let you know how difficult it is. Let me know if you have any idea what it says

Also, if you want to see others that I didn't submit, I have started a gallery to keep all of my challenge photos in (for me so I can link exif or get opinions as needed) and if interested, you can tell me what you like/hate/laugh at my sometimes feeble photography skills.

http://johnreed.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Challenge-Gallery/13263310_N2KEH#963281135_jbNnv

Okay, on to look for milk.

John

AndMan · August 9, 2010

Great work everyone, some great examples of both panning and painting.

My initial favourite example of each

Comments as always in the gallery (I'm still short about 5 but hopefully will finish them tonight.)

Angela Davis · August 9, 2010

What a great job everyone did in this challenge, Whewww some tuff choices to be made, as I like more than just 10

Awesome shots and so much talent, very cool

red_zone · August 9, 2010

I can see why they call them 'challenges' - wow was this one tough! I've only entered a few and this is my first time posting my favorites - but these are the photos that captured my eye this round: in order, in each group

Panning:

Painting:

I'm having trouble with the instructions for posting thumbnails. Dunce cap is coming out now.
edit: finally got it. yikes! more work than I'd expected!

CameraHappyAnnie · August 9, 2010

JR303 wrote: »

Thank God this one is over, it really kicked my butt.

My 2 favorites this time were to pool (ilbcnu - secret spot) with the palm trees (great idea, and man I wish I had been there to watch that process) and the lite brite. I know Johnrog - Lightness of being is the one you entered, and I like it, a lot actually, but that boat and moon was my wife's favorite, and a tie with the pool for tops in my mind.

Don't know why, but for some reason I seem to enjoy posting my failures on the feedback threads.

Here is one I tried, and yes, it may have been a margarita(s) induced idea, but I still liked it. Problem was after 139 attempts, I gave up. Yes, 139. I decided to pan the camera for letters instead of moving the subject. If you've never tried it, there is no description to let you know how difficult it is. Let me know if you have any idea what it says

Also, if you want to see others that I didn't submit, I have started a gallery to keep all of my challenge photos in (for me so I can link exif or get opinions as needed) and if interested, you can tell me what you like/hate/laugh at my sometimes feeble photography skills.

http://johnreed.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Challenge-Gallery/13263310_N2KEH#963281135_jbNnv

Okay, on to look for milk.

John

It looks like it says Fire:D

red_zone · August 9, 2010

JR303 wrote: »

Let me know if you have any idea what it says

John

yup. FIRE (all caps) ... how about cursive? might be some help with the ' E ' ane even the ' R ' but I don't have a clue how you'd dot the ' i '

JR303 · August 9, 2010

Yup, both correct. I tried cursive, all caps, lower case, front to back back to front, all kinds of different ways and it was almost impossible. I'm sure if I'd spent a day or two coming up with some kind of "jig" to stay within the bounds of the frame I could have done better, but I wanted to move the camera and not the tiki torch. I like the effect with the flame still being somewhat discernible on certain joints of the letters. All in all, it was fun. I might try it another time when I get the gumption, margaritas or not.

John

sherstone · August 9, 2010

red_zone wrote: »

P.S. is it bad mojo to post your own in your top 10? 'cause I like my photo in my personal top 10.

I wouldn't say its bad mojo, but it is kind of assumed you like your own image or you would not have entered it... right?

SeascapeS · August 9, 2010

My top 5:

Curious Camel - Balloon Chaser - I loved the abstract feel.
ilbcnu - Secret Spot - loved the depth of the pool.
jeepzj94 - Pure Delight - really liked the glow of the "drink" being poured.
johnrog - Lightness of Being - very cool outline - good job on that!
michswiss - I'm on the Way - loved the intensity of the BW and the driver.

It was very interesting to see what everyone came up with this time. I took 325 shots of the seahorse, dragging glow sticks behind it in the dark at 2 a.m.

kdotaylor · August 9, 2010

Good job, all! I didn't enter one in this contest...tried panning and couldn't. Tried painting and couldn't. I'm in awe of everyone who came up with an entry in this difficult challenge! There are some great photos here.

Erbeman · August 9, 2010

I am confused. Early last week I added a panning picture of a guy riding a dirt bike to the gallery. I just checked back and my pic is no longer in the gallery. What is the reason for this?

ghinson · August 9, 2010

Look at the last message here: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=1436700#post1436700

sherstone · August 9, 2010

Erbeman wrote: »

I am confused. Early last week I added a panning picture of a guy riding a dirt bike to the gallery. I just checked back and my pic is no longer in the gallery. What is the reason for this?

Please see here
The date taken is 06/05/2010 which is outside of the challenge time frame.

Sorry Erbeman

slpollett · August 9, 2010

I didn't enter this time either. :cry I tried painting & wasn't totally pleased with the results. I had intended to try again and I also wanted to try panning, but I just never had time to do it properly. I think I took about 125-150 images and hated them all. It sort of took the wind out of my sails so to speak.

I did look through the gallery and there are some awesome images in there. Everyone did a fantastic job. I'll have to think about my favorites a little more before I can narrow them down.

Sherry

Froch · August 9, 2010

Nice work this round.

My top (5) are:

ibcnu- secret spot-- This is such a great idea, and the execution is fantastic. I love the deep blue of the pool against the black. And the contrasting green on the trees. They're so well done!! I think the choice of composition of how the pool fit in the frame, really sets it off.

kidzmom- childhood Elation-- fitting title for such at great reaction from the subject. Great color, and excellent detail. Your execution is outstanding! It looks like an upcropped image, which again is terrific to get all the elements in the frame, to work, at the same time. Nice!

The Curious Camel-- Balloon Chaser-- for me, this one by far gave me the greatest sense of motion. What a great capture. But in addition, it prompts my mind to make up a story as I feel like I'm chasing the balloon from the road. Very nice!!

ghinson- Harbor Launch-- although I feel I wanted more from the image, it's SO well done. The pan, at 1/20 is right on. The reflection is amazing! Please, even if you have to lie, don't tell me you were handheld...or I'll go slit my wrists..

. I couldn't get clarity to save my life..... .But technique aside, you have this distinctive tone styling that is just gorgeous. It shows up on all your images, and makes each of them so special in their appearance. Just great work!

Johnrog-- Lightness of Being-- I love a great title! I also love that your wife helps you with these shots! She's a great subject. I really like how crisp the outline is. Looks like you edge lit her all the way around to avoid it blowing out? Great job!

JAG · August 9, 2010

I almost didn't make it into this round as time was very short for me to spend on an entry. I had lots of different sinarios in my mind but just no time to work on them. My first image that I had shot while at my lil one's horseshow were to say the least...technically correct but boring in comparison of the already fabulous horse shots already submitted. But I will show you them here just so you can see what I mean...

I have been involved with every challenge for the past couple years as either a photog or a judge and didn't want to loose out on keeping my personal record of entering every challenge. So that left me with trying one last idea in a ditch effort last night to come up with something from my studio. It became a whole family project intelling my hubby the software engineer who was in charge of the lazer penlight and mirror placements, my eldest 23 yr old son to be the pirotectnic (more like piro maniac) who's job was to light the candles then blow them out at the given moment...only to light them again because we had to do it all over again. My 22 yr old son whos job was to be the model and endless tormentor of my 11yr old lil one who was an official mirror stablizer. Then there was me the photog and person with a vision who was having a hard time controlling the monkeys I had to work with!..lol The image I ended up entering is not exactly what I had envisioned...but the natives were getting restless after countless amount of retakes and I finally just settled on what I entered. After all I just wanted to enter something!
So these first two image show the general set up...

Basically the thought was to reflect the penlight lazor into the longer mirror then to the top smaller mirror...and back to the bigger mirror and so on in an infinate pattern. However I felt that it wasn't enough to just have the lazor and as always felt that adding a human element to it would perk it up (only because the flying chihuahua thing just didn't pan out...lol). So about the 10 time doing it I had my son get into the frame and move his head back and forth. I had to prefocus on manual to get him in a general sharpeness mode. The camera was set on bulb setting and when the candles were blown out I held the shutter open (camera on tripod) and used a flashlight to randomly paint my son's head with light as he moved back and forth. I think the shutter was open for about 15 seconds. When we couldn't see the lazor light beams anymore we stopped. So this was how the making of this image came out...

I want to thank my family for their help.
PS...no chihuahuas were harmed in the making of this image!

ilbcnu · August 9, 2010

Thank you so much to those that have my pool & palms in thier top picks!!! I had a hard time reaching that image. At first I didn't think I was going to participate as my initial tries of just writing in the air didn't go well. Then I went in a total different way with my "possessed barn" shown in the thread using static light painting. I walked around our property at least 10 times just looking for something that would look interesting with light - something I could paint and something that would use the static light I was having fun trying and liked the look of. Finally it dawned on me to use the pool --

I also found out from this challenge that I have multiple definitions of painting but not so many of panning. My panning definition is a strong focus with strong movement in a pleasing image. Painting was alot harder to define as lightning fit my description as well as the static lighting and the laser pointer lighting so it is tough to narrow down to only a couple, but here are some of my favorites-
sgonen - <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Del</st1:place></st1:State> Mar
Kidzmom - Childhood Elation
Johnrog - Lightness of being
ghinson - Harbor Launch
Froch - D80 LightPaint

Great job by all and tough challenge!

JohnRog · August 10, 2010

There's really a lot of great stuff in this challenge, and I'm flattered for my entry to be included among some people's favorites... I'm sure I'll keep second guessing my choice, but it was nice to have too many ideas for a challenge for once... there were a few we didn't get a chance to try, but it was a lot of fun. This was the second time my wife and I experimented with light painting... I'll post some of the earlier images (from New Year's Eve) just for the heck of it after my picks from the challenge...

Some of my favorites from the challenge (in no particular order...I really liked several more...) are:

red_zone - wind on fire... I like the whole series a lot, and your post helped us decide to try the Lite-Brite pics by leaving everything static for half of the exposure and then moving the picture for the second half (kind of like you did with your camera)

ilbcnu - secret spot... Nicely done... Froch said it exactly the way I would have put it!

ghinson - Harbor Launch... I liked this one a lot from the beginning... definitely one of my favorite panning shots!

The Curious Camel - Balloon Chaser... it almost looks like a painting... I like that the subject is behind the trees so that the blur is in the foreground instead of the background.

Froch - D80 LightPaint... I like this one a lot. It looks like it should be in a magazine ad... I also really liked the evian bottle you had posted earlier. As for my wife, I obviously like her as a subject too, but she's also an incredible creative force. In addition to the creative jewelry and purses she makes, the shots for the last challenge were her idea as well as the lite-brites and table settings for this one... I'm happy we're on the same team!

WhatSheSaw - Electric Kitty... I like the way this image came out... I agree with Peter about how it looks like the cat isn't too happy about it. It looks almost like you were trying to get him/her to chase the light to begin with and when he/she didn't go for it, you just scribbled on him/her for spite..

Here are a few of the painting shots we did last new years...

#1

#2

#3

#4

Froch · August 10, 2010

ilbcnu wrote: »

Thank you so much to those that have my pool & palms in thier top picks!!! I had a hard time reaching that image. At first I didn't think I was going to participate as my initial tries of just writing in the air didn't go well. Then I went in a total different way with my "possessed barn" shown in the thread using static light painting. I walked around our property at least 10 times just looking for something that would look interesting with light - something I could paint and something that would use the static light I was having fun trying and liked the look of. Finally it dawned on me to use the pool --

I also found out from this challenge that I have multiple definitions of painting but not so many of panning. My panning definition is a strong focus with strong movement in a pleasing image. Painting was alot harder to define as lightning fit my description as well as the static lighting and the laser pointer lighting so it is tough to narrow down to only a couple, but here are some of my favorites-
sgonen - <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Del</st1:place></st1:State> Mar
Kidzmom - Childhood Elation
Johnrog - Lightness of being
ghinson - Harbor Launch
Froch - D80 LightPaint

Great job by all and tough challenge!

I love it when people tell their stories of their submissions (also see JAG above). I'm not sure if anyone else does it, but I make it a point to speak to my submissions within my smug acct. If anyone else is doing this same thing, I'd love to see and read about your image.

http://paulfrocchi.smugmug.com/2010/Contest-Submissions/11343112_HpHom#963199720_RnbHX

JohnRog · August 10, 2010

Froch wrote: »

I love it when people tell their stories of their submissions (also see JAG above). I'm not sure if anyone else does it, but I make it a point to speak to my submissions within my smug acct. If anyone else is doing this same thing, I'd love to see and read about your image.

http://paulfrocchi.smugmug.com/2010/Contest-Submissions/11343112_HpHom#963199720_RnbHX

I like this idea too... I haven't been recording my setup in my smug account, but for The Lightness of Being, (with the room completely dark) I set up the camera on my tripod and used a flashlight to allow me to focus on my wife. Then I set the af drive to 10sec timer mode (20-30second exposure at f13 and ISO100) and then got behind her and when the shutter opened I traced her outline with a single AAA cell mini-maglite.

WhatSheSaw · August 10, 2010

JohnRog wrote: »

WhatSheSaw - Electric Kitty... I like the way this image came out... I agree with Peter about how it looks like the cat isn't too happy about it. It looks almost like you were trying to get him/her to chase the light to begin with and when he/she didn't go for it, you just scribbled on him/her for spite..

!!!

You nailed it, although I wouldn't call it spite - more curiosity. She had burned out on chasing the light and I decided to see what it would look like if I painted her all over.

Thanks for including mine in your faves.

kidzmom · August 10, 2010

Froch wrote: »

Nice work this round.

My top (5) are:

"kidzmom- childhood Elation-- fitting title for such at great reaction from the subject. Great color, and excellent detail. Your execution is outstanding! It looks like an upcropped image, which again is terrific to get all the elements in the frame, to work, at the same time. Nice!"

Froch, thank you for your kind comment. I value your opinion and am very honored to be included in your tops. You are 100% correct that this is an uncropped image. How can you tell that? It was the first time using my new lens 70-200 2.8 IS *(although I had IS turned on). I would push the swing as high as I could, then sprint over and lie on my stomach. The panning, rather than being a horzontal pan, is from corner to corner..following the movment the best I could of the swing. I appreciate your comments! Still wondering how you can SEE it hasn't been cropped. Pretty cool!

Froch · August 10, 2010

kidzmom wrote: »

You are 100% correct that this is an uncropped image. How can you tell that?

Hi Kelly,
I assumed you didn't go into PS and bump the rez, so it was a bit of an educated guess from the info in the metadata. the rez of your image was roughly 4700x2800, which I assumed is the max rez image size for the camera. (or 15megapixels, if you multiply them together)
I mentioned it because you filled the frame, on a moving subject, while moving the camera, got a GREAT reaction from your subject, AND didn't cut off any body parts. Which I think it pretty cool.
And although you weren't on the long end of the lens, 70mm is not a wide FOV to track a subject that close with.
Nice job!!

)

kidzmom · August 10, 2010

Froch wrote: »

Hi Kelly,
I assumed you didn't go into PS and bump the rez, so it was a bit of an educated guess from the info in the metadata. the rez of your image was roughly 4700x2800, which I assumed is the max rez image size for the camera. (or 15megapixels, if you multiply them together)
I mentioned it because you filled the frame, on a moving subject, while moving the camera, got a GREAT reaction from your subject, AND didn't cut off any body parts. Which I think it pretty cool.
And although you weren't on the long end of the lens, 70mm is not a wide FOV to track a subject that close with.
Nice job!! )

Yup, you are SPOT on! My camera is indeed 15 mp! I think I need to give a lot of credit to the lens here *and I do think the IS helped focus my main subject a lot. Thanks for the nice input Froch!

Here's hoping we both make it into the voting round (fingers crossed!)

sunflowerstudio · August 10, 2010

I also very much enjoy hearing feedback on how people made their pictures, and the thought processes behind them.

My kids (my photography assistants) and I had a lot of fun with this challenge. We're living in northern latitudes, and have no where in the house that's dark enough and still big enough to set up a tripod, so doing light painting at all was a challenge. We have a large collection of light emitting devices (yo-yos, balls, hula hoops, jump ropes) and played with those while taking pictures. We all learned something about how to make the pictures.

My picture got DQ'd ('cause I must have somehow stripped the exif, and forgot to check), but we had a lot of fun playing.

(Next year, we'll try some new year's shots -- it'll be dark enough then to actually take pictures)

red_zone · August 10, 2010

I had a campfire, my camera, a bunch of friends, time, and a challenge to meet!
I think it might have been different had I had a tripod. I'd hold my breath while trying to keep the camera still, then try to guess when to start moving it - wait too late and the flames from the campfire just look normal. Too early and it didn't have the effect of wispy flames coming off the fire like I wanted. Moving the camera fast produced wispier flames, and slowly produced bolder flame streaks... Some I tried sitting on the ground with my camera on my knees - it kept it a little more stable.

I was looking around the other sub-forums and found this photo by DavidTO:

here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=174896

His whole series - WOW. I know there are some really great ones entered in the competition, but I'd like to be able to do something like David some day.