Understanding Voters

Hi, I've just been placed 42nd out of 43 entrants in the Indoor Panoramas challenge - http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Challenge.aspx?ID=3673

No complaints; whilst it's nice to receive compliments, I want to improve my photography & I've no inflated ego about my efforts especially when comparing my results with some of the artists on this site. There were (IMO) some excellent entrants in this particular challenge as there are in most others.

What does bemuse me however is the number of 0.5 votes that I received in this challenge (4) & the frequency that 0.5 is dished out in general.

I'm not taliking about the use of 0.5 to influence the voting against a likely winner (mine was never in the category, surely? ) but I would like to ask the 4 who gave it 0.5, why, given that DPR say 0.5 is for a photo that is a "Poor image that doesn't fit theme or rules"?

That you think it is a poor image is fair enough but why do you think it doesn't fit the theme or rules? Just curious, not annoyed or upset.

Thanks in anticipation, Paul

A620er said:

What does bemuse me however is the number of 0.5 votes that I received in this challenge (4) & the frequency that 0.5 is dished out in general.

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You probably got low marks because you didn't follow the theme rules :

A620er said:

A620er said:

A620er said:

Any panorama of 3 or more images where the camera was indoors. Please provide a description of location, how many photos, and any other techniques or equipment you would like to tell us you used

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There was no description of the location and no mention of how many images created the panorama. Some voters give automatic 0.5's because of oversights like this.

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Arrrrrrh !

Bart.

Bart,

This advice is an aspect of the voting system that I must confess I had not fully appreciated in my condemnation of low votes. I agree that, although perhaps rather harsh, it is perfectly in order to judge entries in this fashion assuming it is applied evenly across the board.

Entrants are responsible for ensuring that they fully comply with the 'Rules' and it is obvious that I and many others need to pay more attention and take this into account if we are to try to avoid being given any otherwise avoidable low scores.

Thank you, I am off to stand out in the corridor now. ( With a glass of Whisky of course ! )

Cheers.

One eyed Bart said:

There was no description of the location and no mention of how many images created the panorama. Some voters give automatic 0.5's because of oversights like this.

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Well I did say it was in a caravan in France & made the point that I used one bear in different positions (there being 4 bears I presumed it was reasonable to assume 4 photos). But next time I'll be more specific.

Thanks for your comments

Paul

The 'like to tell us' bit in the 'Rules' is a bit open to interpretation I would agree. I think you did provide all the details which were appropriate but 'how long is a bit of string?' It is all a bit of a lottery. Just treat it as a bit of fun although a lot of people are obviously dead serious about it all.

It does show, as stated by 'Bart', that it pays to avoid such disappointments by making sure that we try to include all the information expected with an entry.

I note from your other pictures you are a bit of an 'all rounder' and will tackle any subject, much more interesting than a lot of the 'style specific' approaches.

Trust you enjoyed your holiday in France,

Cheers.

A620er said:

One eyed Bart said:

There was no description of the location and no mention of how many images created the panorama. Some voters give automatic 0.5's because of oversights like this.

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Well I did say it was in a caravan in France & made the point that I used one bear in different positions (there being 4 bears I presumed it was reasonable to assume 4 photos). But next time I'll be more specific.

Thanks for your comments

Paul

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The image looks out of focus in the smaller sizes. Only at the highest resolution can we see that the image is sharp. Most voters don't even bother to look at the slide show, let alone go to see the highest resolution.

Saying all of that, it doesn't deserve any .5's, and I would be hard pressed to justify a 1. On the other hand, I would not have given it more than a 1.5 or 2

Dave

whisky said:

Trust you enjoyed your holiday in France,

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We did, thank you

Hi Dave, thanks for your comments about how you would rate the photo. Also I'm especially interested in your other comment

Chato said:

The image looks out of focus in the smaller sizes. Only at the highest resolution can we see that the image is sharp.

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What causes a sharp image to look otherwise in smaller sizes & how can I avoid this?

Cheers,

Paul

A620er said:

Hi Dave, thanks for your comments about how you would rate the photo. Also I'm especially interested in your other comment

Chato said:

The image looks out of focus in the smaller sizes. Only at the highest resolution can we see that the image is sharp.

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What causes a sharp image to look otherwise in smaller sizes & how can I avoid this?

Cheers,

Paul

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Do you see what I'm talking about? If so, then make sure your images look sharp at the smaller sizes.

With this particular image, the thumbnail looked boring. Not much anyone can do about that problem.

The slide show version, and the first larger version simply look out of focus. Only when I expanded the iimage to max did I see that it was sharp.

If you agree, then test your images on yourself. If you disagree, give me a .5 on any thing I enter...

Dave

A620er said:

What causes a sharp image to look otherwise in smaller sizes & how can I avoid this?

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It's caused by on-the-fly downsampling by the DPR software. Whenever an image is downsampled, even with a good algorithm, sharpening is required to bring it back to crispy. So if you submit, say, a 1000x1500 pixel photo, it will only be shown as you intended when it's expanded to full size, and in all other instances it will appear soft.

Unfortunately you have no control over the downsampling done by the gallery software, so the only thing that would help would be to submit a photo with exactly the same pixel dimensions as the default gallery view, but then viewers wouldn't have access to a larger version and your image in the slideshow would be rather small.

i have been, like you, mystified by .5 and 1.0 votes. when i vote an entry at 1.0 i am saying it is absolutely terrible. and a 0.5 means that i can't even understand why they would let anybody know they had taken the pic, much less offered it in a competitive venue. but it has become apparent to me that others have far different ideas about scoring challenges. since someone may give your pic very low votes and not even vote on others, your finishing place may or may not reflect it's quality it would be best to feel good if you finish well and not worry much if you don't.

olmail said:

i have been, like you, mystified by .5 and 1.0 votes. when i vote an entry at 1.0 i am saying it is absolutely terrible. and a 0.5 means that i can't even understand why they would let anybody know they had taken the pic, much less offered it in a competitive venue. but it has become apparent to me that others have far different ideas about scoring challenges. since someone may give your pic very low votes and not even vote on others, your finishing place may or may not reflect it's quality it would be best to feel good if you finish well and not worry much if you don't.

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I have been at the bottom of the heap in several challenges, and the challenge I did best in was "your worst picture ever". I too have been perplexed to understand the range of vote values and why people give 0.5 to pictures which look pretty good to me (both mine and other people's).

In my voting I give very few 0.5's (I have never understood why the voting system isn't just 1-10 by integers). As olmail, my 0.5's are for really awful pictures that I would have deleted. I would like to see more comments attached to the pictures. That way if everyone thought one of my pix was really bad, I might get some advice on why it was bad so I could improve. Otherwise I'm just shooting in the dark (pardon the pun).

Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? Thanks to taking part in the challenges I have learned that I'm a lousy photographer, but I have no idea what I can do to improve. Without feedback I'm not actually learning anything.

Worse is that the shots that I consider to be pretty good, tend to be the ones that get marked down the most. My one winning entry was a photo that I personally don't like at all, and only entered upon the recommendation of a friend:





It's bland and boring - and apparently worthy of a number one spot.

On the other hand: I love this photo (the clouds are perfect, and the bright sunlight on the yellow cranes gives a gorgeous effect, as if the whole thing was a painting instead of a photo), but it received some extremely low votes:





I honestly do not understand that.

I'm less clear what's wrong here:





Is it the slight overexposure? Or is it just a shitty photo all round?

Just some questions... But the challenges are basically useless if you want to improve your photography.

HansJN said:

It's bland and boring - and apparently worthy of a number one spot.

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I like it.

It is an unusual scene, almost sureal, and yet totally believable.

HansJN said:

On the other hand: I love this photo (the clouds are perfect, and the bright sunlight on the yellow cranes gives a gorgeous effect, as if the whole thing was a painting instead of a photo), but it received some extremely low votes:

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I find it "bland and boring. If it is possible to close crop it to make those distant objects resolve into something interesting, I might change my mind.

HansJN said:

I'm less clear what's wrong here: Is it the slight overexposure? Or is it just a shitty photo all round?

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While blowing the highlights around the main subject can be very interesting, blowing the highlights on the main subject would cause me to give the image a low rating.

HansJN said:

Just some questions... But the challenges are basically useless if you want to improve your photography.

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I agree...

Dave

I tend to agree with Chato Hans, but there are other factors other than simply the image. It has to fit the theme, it helps (sadly) to submit a shot that looks good in the thumbnail view and at least until recently, you don't want to antagonize other voters (not suggesting that you have).

Your Pool challenge shot really works for the challenge and IMO, it is a great shot. The reflection on the glass like pool surface is perfect. You also nicely used the entire dynamic range of your sensor. Nice symmetrical composition and excellent color too.

The harbor shot is a nice shot, but IMO, not "One in a Million." You are right about the clouds, but relative to the theme, the shot likely just doesn't work for most voters. You have many nice challenge shots which, IMO are significantly better.

The tigers shot has to be compared to the competition in that challenge. The blown exposure on the subjects was the kiss of death, but animal shots from the rear likely don't gather a lot of high votes either unless it's something really unusual.

Wins are hard to come by for a lot of reasons. You have one and will likely get more. Keep up the good work.
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AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

I agree with the looking at thumbnails issue. I myself noticed my pics often seen maybe 4 times and then getting 20 votes, sometimes "starred" 0.5 though they were not out of focus and I try to stick to the rules. So, people, look at pictures, not at thumbnails!

I just do not understand the basis of voting, maybe someone could help by answering a few of my queries

1). If you do not vote for a particularly entry is it assigned a 0 (zero) vote from you? - and will this entry rank lower than an entry that you have voted 0.5 for?

2). If an entry receives no votes at all - how is it ranked - with so few voters I am sure that this happens - but I have not found an entry with no votes marked against it.

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Cheers

Bill
France

BillNUK said:

1). If you do not vote for a particularly entry is it assigned a 0 (zero) vote from you? - and will this entry rank lower than an entry that you have voted 0.5 for?

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If you don't vote for an entry, the entry isn't given a zero. There is a small adjustment in results in order to bring entries with fewer votes closer to the mean result, but it is generally very small - nothing like handing out a 0.5.

BillNUK said:

2). If an entry receives no votes at all - how is it ranked - with so few voters I am sure that this happens - but I have not found an entry with no votes marked against it.

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I don't know. I've never seen that happen. I've seen some pretty strange results where there were only two or three votes, but even then, the entries still finished close in the ranking to where they would have if unadjusted by dpreview's algorithm.

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AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

Thanks

so if you do not like an image at all is it better to not vote at all for that image or give it 0.5 - the lowest mark that I have ever given an image is 0.5 - I always mark all images within the Challenge - but if not voting is a worse score than giving 0.5 I'd like to do that for some images - can you clarify

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Cheers

Bill
France

BillNUK said:

Thanks

so if you do not like an image at all is it better to not vote at all for that image or give it 0.5 - the lowest mark that I have ever given an image is 0.5 - I always mark all images within the Challenge - but if not voting is a worse score than giving 0.5 I'd like to do that for some images - can you clarify

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Giving a 0.5 drags down the image's average, not voting doesn't. It's ok to vote only on some images in a challenge, it doesn't really disadvantage the rest because everyone goes through them in a random order, so in the end it should balance out even if everyone votes only on, say, the first 1/4 of the images.