Challenge entries can sometimes not be very fun

For the fun of it, I enter challenges. I don't expect to win, but do expect to place fairly within the challenges that I enter. I don't think I will enter many more. I will never host, although I have been asked. Reason is that to many people vote images down to bring their images up. Example is this entry:





It is not the best image I have ever shot, but not a .5 .
Thoughtful comments welcome. Thanks in advance.

Speeler said:

but not a .5 .

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Unless it's a human themed portrait challenge

Yep the voting system/cheating sucks..........don't get all hung up on it. Focus on where the bulk of the votes are clustered.

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

Would you please explain why you use iso 6400 and 1/2000s? I like your pic especially the flows around the leaf. I definitely won't put a .5 for the pic.

I got a 289th out of 292 pics and proved that being the last is as difficult as being the first.

I have not been a member long (first post actually) but have been voting in challenges a bit already. I think its disappointing that people vote so negatively on essentially average photos. I like this photograph, but dont love it... depending on the challenge i would probably have voted it a 2.5 - my point is i think that there is not enough 'outside' voters to give a fair perspective. So my rule is... i wont vote on challenges i have an entry in and when i want to vote... because i like the challenge topic and want to look at peoples beautiful creative captures.. i vote on all the images.. to try and be fair

ps dont be disheartened, criticism makes you evaluate, evaluation makes you stronger and your best picture ever is only a click away

Thank-you for your comment{s}. As far as the ISO 6400 for this image is because of the low light of the subject under a maple tree. The ISO 6400 gave me the light I lacked. It was my challenge to capture the texture in the leaves. I knew that there would be some noise involved with the high ISO, which was an advantage to the subject challenge. The day was a bright sky at mid-day, no haze or clouds, so I chose a fast shutter speed to eliminate glare and capitalize on the water element. For me I think it worked and I like the image. Thanks for the question. Best your way... :-}

I think you have a decent image there. Although it is not unique in composition, it captures the cold, wet feel and color of autumn. Purples and reds are hard to reproduce accurately and they look pretty good on my calibrated monitor. For me the small spots of mold or dirt on the leaves detract a bit from the image... I'm not sure why. I could see a small print similar to your photo on the wall of a cabin in the woods.

Your not alone in your disappointment with the challenges here. As a learning critique tool they are useless. If that's what you're looking for, keep looking. From the ridiculous rules to the constant cheating the people involved are just too self absorbed to reach out in any honest way.

Verbal criticism without any kind of numbered rating system is really the only useful feedback that does not encourage "placement". Unfortunately numberless systems do not attract enough viewers or participants to be profitable. You usually have to pay for that type of education and you get what you pay for here. As others have responded here, you can choose to play or not to play, but do it with your eyes open.
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If it moves, shoot it.
Kevin

KRW01 said:

I think you have a decent image there. Although it is not unique in composition, it captures the cold, wet feel and color of autumn. Purples and reds are hard to reproduce accurately and they look pretty good on my calibrated monitor. For me the small spots of mold or dirt on the leaves detract a bit from the image... I'm not sure why. I could see a small print similar to your photo on the wall of a cabin in the woods.

Your not alone in your disappointment with the challenges here. As a learning critique tool they are useless. If that's what you're looking for, keep looking. From the ridiculous rules to the constant cheating the people involved are just too self absorbed to reach out in any honest way.

Verbal criticism without any kind of numbered rating system is really the only useful feedback that does not encourage "placement". Unfortunately numberless systems do not attract enough viewers or participants to be profitable. You usually have to pay for that type of education and you get what you pay for here. As others have responded here, you can choose to play or not to play, but do it with your eyes open.
--
If it moves, shoot it.
Kevin

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I have hosted the weekly landscape thread at the Canon slr lens forum for some time, picking it up from Bob Tullis.

It had a great run, but is dyeing for some reason. In its best day, we got good participation and meaningful critique. I am looking for a replacement.

Like others in this thread, I am not interested in winning anything, contests are juvinile. But I will enter a few challanges just to retain some involvement with photgraphy in the off season.

I have wonderd if I could move the weekly landscape to this forum? I am not sure what the rules are or where they may be located if there are any.

Any thoughts on this? Is this strictly a challange forum? Is there a critique forum anywhere here? I don't think retouching qualifies.

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When you can't focus, nothing else matters
Once you can, everything else does.

http://ben-egbert.smugmug.com/

Ben

An F-U vote is a 0.5 on an otherwise decent image that meets the challenge requirements. Most good images get them - I pretty much count on one or two per challenge.

That said, for the most part the best images do the best in the challenges. Even the winning shot in the ISO6400 challenge got an F-U vote. And you still finished in the top 25% - nothing to sneeze at there.

I personally don't like challenges where the subject is unspecified, such as the ISO6400 challenge. People will vote for the type of images they like (Ie someone who likes street photography may vote unfavorably toward a landscape image).

Keep at it - don't let the F-U votes get you down.

Speeler said:

For the fun of it, I enter challenges. I don't expect to win, but do expect to place fairly within the challenges that I enter. I don't think I will enter many more. I will never host, although I have been asked. Reason is that to many people vote images down to bring their images up. Example is this entry:





It is not the best image I have ever shot, but not a .5 .
Thoughtful comments welcome. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

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Even if you can't donate, please help spread the word.

iMac said:

An F-U vote is a 0.5 on an otherwise decent image that meets the challenge requirements. Most good images get them - I pretty much count on one or two per challenge.

That said, for the most part the best images do the best in the challenges. Even the winning shot in the ISO6400 challenge got an F-U vote. And you still finished in the top 25% - nothing to sneeze at there.

I personally don't like challenges where the subject is unspecified, such as the ISO6400 challenge. People will vote for the type of images they like (Ie someone who likes street photography may vote unfavorably toward a landscape image).

Keep at it - don't let the F-U votes get you down.

Speeler said:

For the fun of it, I enter challenges. I don't expect to win, but do expect to place fairly within the challenges that I enter. I don't think I will enter many more. I will never host, although I have been asked. Reason is that to many people vote images down to bring their images up. Example is this entry:





It is not the best image I have ever shot, but not a .5 .
Thoughtful comments welcome. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

--
Some cool cats that can use your help
http://www.wildlife-sanctuary.org

Even if you can't donate, please help spread the word.

Click to expand...

I am new to challanges so this is great info.

I never thought of this in the light you gave. I have given a few low scores to images with bad processing OOF or other clear photography errors. I would have been glad to have made comments under my own name, so I did nto feel sneaky.

In general, I did not vote for images of a type I have no interest in like people for example. They may be good, but how would I know? Reading the rules, a no vote does not mess up the score.

I think in the future, I will only vote for images that I like and subjects where I feel competent to judge.

I tend to vote around 3-4, on the theory that there are very few perfects. If I have one thats better, it will get around a 3, because I doubt I have any 5's

--
When you can't focus, nothing else matters
Once you can, everything else does.

http://ben-egbert.smugmug.com/

Ben

Ben_Egbert said:

I have hosted the weekly landscape thread at the Canon slr lens forum for some time, picking it up from Bob Tullis.

It had a great run, but is dyeing for some reason. In its best day, we got good participation and meaningful critique. I am looking for a replacement.

I have wonderd if I could move the weekly landscape to this forum? I am not sure what the rules are or where they may be located if there are any.

Any thoughts on this? Is this strictly a challange forum? Is there a critique forum anywhere here? I don't think retouching qualifies.

Ben

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You can start a thread on Landscapes and invite people to join in and comment.
However I am quite sure it will quickly suffer the same fate as your Canon one.
You could contribute to the Panorama thread here that is suffering a slow death.

Why not become a challenge host ? Yours will be on Landscapes only with perhaps a time restriction , or with/without water/mountains/trees etc.

I am not knowledgeable enough to critique pictures and those who are able are probably too busy earning their living to critique stranger's photos on a regular basis.

FNG303 said:

Ben_Egbert said:

I have hosted the weekly landscape thread at the Canon slr lens forum for some time, picking it up from Bob Tullis.

It had a great run, but is dyeing for some reason. In its best day, we got good participation and meaningful critique. I am looking for a replacement.

I have wonderd if I could move the weekly landscape to this forum? I am not sure what the rules are or where they may be located if there are any.

Any thoughts on this? Is this strictly a challange forum? Is there a critique forum anywhere here? I don't think retouching qualifies.

Ben

Click to expand...

You can start a thread on Landscapes and invite people to join in and comment.
However I am quite sure it will quickly suffer the same fate as your Canon one.
You could contribute to the Panorama thread here that is suffering a slow death.

Why not become a challenge host ? Yours will be on Landscapes only with perhaps a time restriction , or with/without water/mountains/trees etc.

I am not knowledgeable enough to critique pictures and those who are able are probably too busy earning their living to critique stranger's photos on a regular basis.

Click to expand...

The problem with challanges is that it is a contest and not a written critique format.

I think a lot of the old participants of the weekly series have moved to challanges.

--
When you can't focus, nothing else matters
Once you can, everything else does.

http://ben-egbert.smugmug.com/

Ben

Ben_Egbert said:

I tend to vote around 3-4, on the theory that there are very few perfects. If I have one thats better, it will get around a 3, because I doubt I have any 5's

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It doesn't have to be perfect to get a 5 just the best in that challenge at that time. And there can be more than one 5 in the same challenge. Don't vote as if it's a popularity contest with you selecting just one winner, the total vote score kinda does that.

The scale is 0.5 - 5 why not use it all. Reward the best with good scores as that helps negate the cheating.

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

One eyed Bart said:

Ben_Egbert said:

I tend to vote around 3-4, on the theory that there are very few perfects. If I have one thats better, it will get around a 3, because I doubt I have any 5's

Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be perfect to get a 5 just the best in that challenge at that time. And there can be more than one 5 in the same challenge. Don't vote as if it's a popularity contest with you selecting just one winner, the total vote score kinda does that.

The scale is 0.5 - 5 why not use it all. Reward the best with good scores as that helps negate the cheating.

Click to expand...

I will consider it. I was viewing is as I would a camera club judging. That is an absolute value on the image relative to what it could be in any setting. Like I said, I would not expect any 5's for my work.

I did go back and remove all my low scores however. If I did not like the image (quality or subject) I just did not vote.

One eyed Bart said:

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

Click to expand...

--
When you can't focus, nothing else matters
Once you can, everything else does.

http://ben-egbert.smugmug.com/

Ben

One eyed Bart said:

It doesn't have to be perfect to get a 5 just the best in that challenge at that time. And there can be more than one 5 in the same challenge. Don't vote as if it's a popularity contest with you selecting just one winner, the total vote score kinda does that.

The scale is 0.5 - 5 why not use it all. Reward the best with good scores as that helps negate the cheating.

Click to expand...

This approach is surely going to create chaos isn't it? The rating system is just that! If you get ten bad photos in a challenge, you rate them all low, not grade them from .5 to 10 just because you can.

However the success of the rating system depends on people actually voting, they don't have to vote on all photos in a challenge, just the ones they have time to look at - if that's all of them - well, fine.

Only voting for the ones you like, and ignoring the others won't work, neither will trying to defeat the cheaters by giving out loads of 5 stars to the photos you think should win.

There are precious few voters, as it is, there might be 150 entries to a challenge but rarely does a photo get more than about 20 votes.

Michael.

Michael73 said:

This approach is surely going to create chaos isn't it? The rating system is just that! If you get ten bad photos in a challenge, you rate them all low, not grade them from .5 to 10 just because you can.

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Not what I said or I've ever suggested.

Crap I give 0.5's, average photos get average marks, better get better marks up to a max of 5. If there can be multiple 0.5 images there can just as well be multiple 5's

Michael73 said:

Only voting for the ones you like, and ignoring the others won't work, neither will trying to defeat the cheaters by giving out loads of 5 stars to the photos you think should win.

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Not suggesting that you give loads of 5's just the appropriate amount. If there are three really great images they can all get 5's. Three really bad ones would get 0.5's and I bet more people do that than the other.

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

One eyed Bart said:

Michael73 said:

This approach is surely going to create chaos isn't it? The rating system is just that! If you get ten bad photos in a challenge, you rate them all low, not grade them from .5 to 10 just because you can.

Click to expand...

Not what I said or I've ever suggested.

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This is your sentence I picked up on:

One eyed Bart said:

"It doesn't have to be perfect to get a 5 just the best in that challenge at that time."

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Which, to me, sounds like: "if there are only ten photos in a challenge, the best of them would get a five, perfect or not."

If the way I read it wasn't the way you intended, then I misunderstood.

One eyed Bart said:

One eyed Bart said:

Only voting for the ones you like, and ignoring the others won't work, neither will trying to defeat the cheaters by giving out loads of 5 stars to the photos you think should win.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Here I was generalising; nothing personal Bart.

Regards, Michael.

Michael73 said:

Which, to me, sounds like: "if there are only ten photos in a challenge, the best of them would get a five, perfect or not."

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Sure why not........I don't have to rank the 10 shots in a 1st to 10th place fashion using O.5 to 5 scale.

My least favourite might be worth a 2.5, it could be technically well done but doesn't push all the buttons as far as fulfilling the theme another image may push all the right buttons on theme content and be technically flawed so I might give that 2.5 also. Good images don't deserve 0.5s just because they are the least favourite of the 10 I'm judging. Two other images might hit all the criteria so I wouldn't hesitate to give those 5's.

There could be only 1 stand out image and 9 exceptionally poor ones........1 image worth 5 and 9 others considerably lower. If they are crap, obvious snaps with no photographic technique or skill involved and don't convey the theme, all nine could get 0.5's

Personally I award marks based on the content of the whole challenge and the entries. I judge and score all the entries when I vote. Each challenge and it's entries are separate from every other challenge and I score images accordingly. The best image in the challenge gets the best score I think it deserves, generally that's a 5. It could get a 5 in one challenge and I might give that same image a 4 in another challenge if there is something I like better. I don't think back to the last challenge and judge if the image I gave 5 in one challenge is as good as the image I'm considering giving 5 to in the next challenge.

And I'll never just pick my favourite 10 and award my favourite the 5 and the least favourite the 0.5 and so on. That is just plain wrong.

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

Ben_Egbert said:

The problem with challanges is that it is a contest and not a written critique format.

I think a lot of the old participants of the weekly series have moved to challanges.

Click to expand...

Why do you expect from others to write critique for strangers when you cannot be
bothered to write a title to your challenge entries ?

FNG303 said:

Ben_Egbert said:

The problem with challanges is that it is a contest and not a written critique format.

I think a lot of the old participants of the weekly series have moved to challanges.

Click to expand...

Why do you expect from others to write critique for strangers when you cannot be
bothered to write a title to your challenge entries ?

Click to expand...

Why do you think that? It never occured to me that titles are important. Its pure ignorance or blindness on my part.

I will probably never understand the importance, its got to be a left versus right brain deal. But I am willing to go along.

I dislike lower case letters and vowels and punctuations and seat belts, but I use them anyway.

--
When you can't focus, nothing else matters
Once you can, everything else does.

http://ben-egbert.smugmug.com/

Ben

Check out how one of my entries scored. How many photos have you seen of the Typhoon with nothing but ground in the background?

http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Entry.aspx?ID=296790





There's a fairly hefty number of arseholes on this site!!

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