I can't really tell much difference between the sharpness of these shots. There are two main problems with the test, AFAICS.

The first is that the paper doesn't appear to be flat, so although the parts of it that are further away may be within the depth of focus, it's not possible really to tell.

The second is that the enlargement is nowhere near enough.

It's perfectly possible to sensibly compare sharpnesses with a simple technique like this, but to see the differences reliably on a computer screen, the enlargement needs to be much bigger (crop a single word, or two or three words, maybe, from the newspaper article), so that differences in resolution of the lens are made much bigger than any screen resolution issues.

I'd also suggest that the test shots should be exposed a bit more - so that lack of sharpness cannot be confused with lack of contrast.

Take a shot of something you know is sharp (and magazine text tends to be sharper than newspaper text), make sure it is flat (no creases), and positioned in a plane at right angles to the axis of the lens.

Expose so that the whites are white, and the blacks black.

Then crop exactly the same small part of the frame, and enlarge it a lot.

If the camera is in focus, and there's no camera shake, then any difference in sharpness will then easily be seen on a computer screen.

It's a qualitative result; obviously you can't measure lines per inch with this technique, but you can establish differences, which is presumably the intention.

Indeed. My thanks for that.
It's good to see that such dynamic range is possible, certainly. Considering the intensity of the sun, the flare is surprisingly inoffensive too.

Would you guys kindly explain what exactly you mean by "impressive", please, and (if it's not then obvious) why you found them so?

I was impressed by the abundance of colour in the one shot straight into the sun; normally with such a huge contrast I'd expect the scene generally to be underexposed, but apart from that I didn't like them at all, mostly because of the distortion.

But I would like to at least understand what it is that makes people be impressed by such shots. My reaction was "well I won't bother getting a 10-17 mm lens then".

No offence intended at all - I'm genuinely trying to understand what people like about photographs like that.

Fair play to you, then - as I said, I wasn't sure.

I guess the torch was playing on the left hand side, so getting all the movement there during the 10 seconds... and the flash lit the wires on the right, so getting them not moving. Although when I cranked up the brightness there's a second, much less bright line from the right hand wires.

Which was when I gave up trying to work it out!

As I said, I guess the main bright stripe on the right looks funny because a different part of the ball is being lit as it goes past the torch.

Interesting. As John says, though, I think the flash has frozen the motion a bit too much for it to instantly make you think movement. I mean, we all know what the thing's doing, and it's interesting to work out how the image was produced. But it doesn't quite hit the spot for me.

Is the second one real too?

If so, nice work.

I'm intrigued, especially by the first one.

The trajectory of the bright one at the end seems very strange to me, but I could just about imagine that a fixed light could illuminate a different part of the ball as it swung, thus giving the impression of a different path through space than it actually took. So I'm not sure.

I'm also puzzled that the amount of apparent motion from the left hand set of wires is hugely more than from the right hand set of wires, despite the fact that the right hand ones are much more brightly lit than the left hand set.

Knowing your track record, you can guess my suspicions. You're among friends, here, Pete. To what extent is it real, and to what extent is it fake? I won't grass you up... promise.

Joking apart, I know it's not, but I do think it spoils the effect.

Interesting. But perhaps a little extra editing might be in order to remove the appearance of a hairy chest.

Not that I was looking at her cleavage or anything...

You have.

And I don't think I've ever come across anyone who can take the slagging you've received on here, and stay so nice (mostly...)

I sometimes wonder if you're either an alien, or Ben Kanarek playing a huge joke on the rest of us.

These ones, I realise this, although I didn't like the black and white version, since as someone else mentioned, all the life went out of the photo.

The rest, though, you've messed with incessantly, often making them worse, in my view.

And until you remove this shockingly ugly edit* from your website:

http://www.petedavis-photography.com/photo_931606.html

, which, after all, is the way you advertise your talents, I'm afraid I just can't take your "I try to keep things original" seriously.

Sorry if this sounds blunt, but I really think you have the potential to be way better than you come across.

I do really like the one you posted at the beginning of the thread, though. By far your best yet.


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* it's the edit that's ugly, not the model, in case that wasn't completely clear.

I don't agree.

I think people are being fooled into thinking that it's better because the subject is slightly sharper.

However, the bright green background on the left, and the large expanse of out-of-focus tree on the right, in my view are now big distractions, whereas they weren't before.

I grant you, the expression captured in the last one is good (although I don't think it's as spontaneously and naturally happy as the first), but overall I think the photograph is a less good portrait than the first.

What I want to know is, when is Pete going to learn when to stop mucking about with his photographs.