PHOTO COMPETITION — COMMENTS THREAD

stickyfiddle

I'm locked down on the 42nd floor so it's cat pictures this month. I have a handful of candidates; I just need to process the best 3 or 4 and pick one.

skullfunkerry

Last day of entry today chaps...

ThePrettyDamned

westford said:

Gave up on trying to get a decent photo of my dog, she thought we were still doing close-ups this month...



I should really dig my old digital camera out, my iPhone pics can’t compete with you lot.

Plenty of phone shots have won - it's not a technical comp at all (I came second or third last month with a very technically good image, but the winner caught emotion and sentiment). 

Your blurry shot conveys a lively, happy dog amd his eyes are super focused on you. There is a lot to like! 

boogieman

I had a load of aggro with my newt photo. I’d followed a tutorial from a specialist photographer, Niall Benvie, and it all looked fairly straightforward. Of course, these things always do when the guy doing the tutorial has done it hundreds of times.   

First mistake: Niall recommends building your own glass tank to hold amphibians. I didn’t have the materials or the time so I just bought a small tank from Amazon. Bad idea. It’s got a faint orange tint, which looks horrible under flash, but also has rounded corners which distort when the newt got close to the corners. Which is of course, Sod’s law, where it spent 50% of its time. 

Second mistake. Niall has a glass separator in his tank, so the animal is pushed to the front. I didn’t have that so naturally the little bugger lurked at the back and screwed up all my carefully adjusted lighting. When I adjusted that again, naturally he’d then come to the front. Aaaargh, you little bastard!!! 

Third mistake. I should’ve filtered the water. I used the water from our garden pond (which is where the newt came from too) as I’d been advised that newts have very sensitive skin and can’t tolerate chlorinated tap water. I had to spend ages cloning out all the little dirt specks. 

I should’ve just gone with a cat pic. 

Snags

@boogieman all art requires sacrifice.

It's just that normally we try to sacrifice someone else

westford

@ThePrettyDamned just trying to get my excuses in early, ok?

westford

Had to rescue this from my house today, bit prettier than my entry subject.

LuttiS

Little chap came back this morning while I was hanging out the washing..

skullfunkerry

Last day of voting today. I'll count up tomorrow and announce the winner on Friday

skullfunkerry

...and the results are now up on the photo thread

skullfunkerry

I’ve just posted the new thread for June. Thought I’d give you all a day to think about it before entry opens

menamestom

Okay, my first entry, I have been meaning to get involved for a while so thought I'd give it a go!

skullfunkerry

menamestom said:

Okay, my first entry, I have been meaning to get involved for a while so thought I'd give it a go!

Nice picture! Welcome aboard

Fretwired

Actually shot on an iPhone and the sky really was that blue.

The Coronation Fountain in the town where I live - the area has been planted in honour of the NHS and every Thursday up until recently it was packed with local people showing their respect. There are benches were people can sit and in the hot weather small children were paddling.

Even the water in the fountain is blue.

skullfunkerry

Fretwired said:

Actually shot on an iPhone and the sky really was that blue.

The Coronation Fountain in the town where I live - the area has been planted in honour of the NHS and every Thursday up until recently it was packed with local people showing their respect. There are benches were people can sit and in the hot weather small children were paddling.

Even the water in the fountain is blue.

That’s really cool! Phone cameras are insanely good now aren’t they?

I went out with my camera today hoping to find a cool sign somewhere, but I didn’t see anything... might have to try again in a few days, or failing that it’ll be the “this might explode” MoD sign I took a photo of a couple of months ago...

skullfunkerry

Just had a sudden flash of inspiration... sadly though, it was another photo from a couple of months ago. Was really hoping to take a new one for this month.

Mine was taken with an iPhone too... followed by just a little bit of tweaking in Snapseed

Snags

I have a plan, just need to check the sign I'm thinking of is still there. Been desperately trying to think of a way to do "signs and wonders" for the other kind of sign, but am struggling with capturing the concept.

menamestom

skullfunkerry said:

That’s really cool! Phone cameras are insanely good now aren’t they?

Almost too good nowadays.  I'm getting better results in many scenarios than my (admittedly rather old) DSLR.  I wish they weren't as good in a way as it just makes it harder to justify a new camera!  Some recent examples from my iPhone 11:-

skullfunkerry

menamestom said:

skullfunkerry said:

That’s really cool! Phone cameras are insanely good now aren’t they?

Almost too good nowadays.  I'm getting better results in many scenarios than my (admittedly rather old) DSLR.  I wish they weren't as good in a way as it just makes it harder to justify a new camera!  Some recent examples from my iPhone 11:-

They're absolutely stunning!

skullfunkerry

Voting is now open in the competition thread