Comments

I agree that the thread has now become a little confusing. The discussion about Stephen's picture of Audley End was about composition. The technical quality of that image is not the issue. As regards its' composition, there are no absolute rights or wrongs, and as the posts show, we all have our own views.

Rod's recent comments (and mine) concerned the more general point of the technical quality of some of the images submitted to PoE. There have been quite a few submissions which are badly exposed or fuzzy, but still get  five-star reviews.  It is not necessary to have an expensive camera to get good technical results these days. Composition is more subtle, being the 'artistic' aspect of photography, and for me at least, is the most difficult part to get right.

I think perhaps five stars should be kept for those images which are both technically correct and compositionally striking in some way.      

Well said Edward. We can bang on all we like but the people who never read the forum posts will just carry on and, dare I say, some who do cannot see that some of their pictures are out of focus. 

When I see a really poor image I quickly move on to the next one, and have never put a comment like "out of focus" I suppose because it is just stating the obvious. From now on I will try to be more constructive in my selection of stars.  

It is good to see so much about photography being discussed. 

I'm interested in your opinion on some of my photos :

Image ID  1188325 , Image ID 1183167 , and recent one - Image ID 1188809

I can see you focussed on the near object in all these examples. The effect is pleasing and is not what I would call 'out-of-focus'. Your intention is clear in focussing on the near object, and selected a wide aperture to ensure the background was blurred.

I think what Rod and I were  worried about are some other images which have been submitted by others where everything in the frame is fuzzy. 

I think the poppy one works best. The castle seems too far away.

I would crop and clone the one with the daffs.  Tell me if I have got it all wrong but I think this looks much better. The daff in the middle is highlighted more  and the daffs  on the right which are not out have been cropped. I have cropped the left as well.  I've cloned  a couple which aren't out as well and removed some yellow from below the middle daff.  I could have done the cloning better if more time was taken but you get the general idea.

  http://wm58.inbox.com/thumbs/e_180e95_831a9f72_oJ.jpg.thumb

1188325: Scarborough Castle. I like the imaginative use of depth of field used here. The 50mm lens is a fine tool for such images and works very well here. I might have been tempted to slightly darken the foreground to bring out the detail, but that is just my taste and a subjective thought. It is your image and one I’m sure you are delighted to have taken. It would look good on a calendar page for March.  

1183167: Stamford. I love the rich saturation in this shot coupled with the very narrow depth of field afforded by the 50mm prime lens. This is a truly 5 star picture for me, encapsulating the sentiments of all that a poppy brings in this year and the next three especially.

1188809: "Thornhaugh". Again, the use of a flower is such a good idea with the church providing the background. Of the three pictures here I think it is the weakest, as the foreground is a bit soft, but it is still a very striking picture.

In 2012 I bought myself a 50mm f1.4 lens and walked around the corner from the shop into Matthew Street in Liverpool and took a picture using the new lens to take a “portrait” of John Lennon’s statue which looks across the street to where the old Cavern Club once stood. The picture id is 1156824. I also de-saturated the picture, but the one here is as it was when taken, to show how my new “toy” worked with a very shallow depth of field. The lens has proved me with great options at the odd wedding and when taking portraits. I love it.

In answer to John's comment about focus, there can only be one object in the frame which is exactly in focus. The appearance of all the objects in the frame being in focus is only achieved by setting the depth of field appropriately. This in turn depends on the actual focus point setting and the aperture setting. For precise control of depth of field, as in Zbigniew's examples, the camera must be set to Aperture Priority, and the focus point set manually. 

People using a camera on Auto need not worry, since most cameras will give a depth of field from around 1 metre to infinity in Auto, which is what most people seem to want. 

It is quite a complex subject, and is explained in greater detail here (Wikipedia Article) 

Thanks for your most kind comment John.

As to focus and apertures, don't forget to consider manual focus. It can really do a great job and raise the image. Manual exposure is also not only good fun but a fine way to get to grips with apertures and shutter speeds.