Excessive perfection?

Camera Club judges are supposed to do the same cabstar, but only some of them do. Others fall into various traps and this can apply to the ones who should be at the top of the game.

As examples of good judging I would put forward Gordon Jenkins and Christine Widdall, who are at the top of their game.

it didn't look like a technical defect to me, it looked like a growth in the tree.

Interesting questions posed in this thread.

Rather than cloning out imperfections, my preferred approach is to avoid them in the first place, but this isn't always possible. Especially with macro work in uncontrolled conditions, i.e. outside on a breezy day (which it always seems to be in the UK). There's always a stray blade of grass, a coloured splodge in the OOF background or something else that tries to spoil things! I will occasionally remove some minor imperfections, but usually this extends only to dirt spots on the sensor.

Instead I'll move to a different position to try and avoid getting unwanted things in shot, but this can cause me to miss opportunities. If I do end up with images that have unwanted distractions, I'll usually not bother processing them. It's only when I think that I have an image that is exceptional, will I bother to spend time trying to get rid of an unwanted element.

With Senn's Dragonfly, I still think the shot is excellent, but if I had taken it I think I may have moved to one side a little to avoid the purple area being in line with the insect.

Regards
David

The management at work would always sandwich a kick up the backside.

"You have all worked really hard but we are 50% off target and it is not acceptable. Thank you for your efforts"

Maybe my glass is half empty but I only saw the negative. Management were taught that was the approach to keep people happy with a rollicking.

People are strange, everyone's different.

Who ever thought you could quantify a pic with any sort of consistency between differing opinions?

I think any critique needs to have elements of the subjective and objective. Having said that...these are just the opinions of one person and should always be taken as such.

Anyway...are you a chicken or egg person? Why are we here? How longs a piece of string? Keep tuned for all the impossible answers

Apart from the odd PU competition, I haven't entered (or been judged) in any photo competitions (apart from one in 2003 - I think). I'm strict with my images, I don't clone anything out (or in), I only apply contrast/colour/exposure changes across the whole image and rarely crop. I'm completely against 'pimping' a boring sky into one that looks like a huge thunderstorm is on the way. I'd use filters when shooting if necessary, but the image contents stay as they were when I tripped the shutter.

With scans from film transparencies, I try to maintain the look of the trannie on my lightbox. My biggest problem with digital shots is getting my monitor calibration correct/consistent as I don't have a good 'original' non-digital reference to work from.

That said, there's no reason why 'excessive perfection' can't still be an issue - but if I have to work too hard for an image, I usually decide it's not really there and look for something else. Afterwards I'll often castigate myself for slightly sloppy composition (things cut off or framed too tightly), slightly OOF or shots with shake.

EDIT: I've taken one in-camera HDR shot with my K-5 which probably contradicts being strict with my images, I also use sharpening and noise reduction for high ISO shooting in post, but again across the whole image.