Thanks for your excellent judging mecrox, you had quite a task, on top of the builders coming. The remarks you've posted so far demonstrate a very sensitive approach to the subject.
Jaromir's winning shot had a haunting beauty for me and was a worthy winner.

Red white and blue - patriotic for British, French and USA citizens. Our Scots friends would no doubt vote for a tartan version.
david

Martin, I take your point about some sort of filtering entries if the numbers get too high for a judge to cope with them. But I don't know how you would go about it.
david

I've entered many weekly competitions and judged several others in The Gallery since I joined PU in July last year so I feel I'm qualified to join this debate even though I don't enter pics in the Forum. However I do comment on some other people's pictures in the Forum.
I want to make a few of points:
* Yes it's hard work judging all the entries (the last one I did had 48 competitors) but I think the judge should comment on every entry. The person entering deserves some feedback.
* Commenting on other people's pictures makes you look more closely at photographs to form a critical judgement and that in turn leads you to improve your own photography.
* If entries get too numerous the judge might then be expected to make only a brief assesment on each with a more detailed comment on the top placings.
* The judge can't be expected to check what camera gear every entrant uses. I certainly don't. the EXIF isn't reliable. My own pictures rarely have full EXIF details listed and the when they are they are quite often inaccurate. So it's down to the honesty and common sense of entrants to make sure they only submit pictures taken with Pentax or Samsung gear.
* I agree with Martin about feedback after the competition. Regulars often post comments to thank the judge, a common courtesy, congratulate the winners, another courtesy and to express their views on the choice of winners, a welcome point of view. But many people don't bother with any form of come back leaving you wondering whether they really care.
* Unlike Martin I'm against having tighter rules for the weekly competitions, its a fun pastime with no prizes, just kudos. Too many rules could discourage newer members from entering.
david

Hope you wore gloves for this enterprise Paul, and that you wiped those fag ends before you smoked them. It all makes a disturbing statement on the stuff lying around our streets.
david

I can't understand the 'free' bit either but many of my friends in Durham Photographic Society have been using Faststone for years without any complaints. I certainly use it all the time for editting, retitling, sorting pictures into folders etc.
davidt

Terje says our beloved Pentaxes shoot in 12 bit. I've just gone into Faststone and pulled up one of my RAW images to check. The EXIF says it's 24 bit. Now I'm confused.
david

Who can say Hyram? The way I interpret this is that one person's Yun may not be another's. Far from being a very specific theme it is one open to the widest possible interpretation and one that ought to encourage great photos. As for me I'm still searching for my inner Yun.
david

Faststone is a browser a friend of mine downloaded for me. And it was free. It's great for viewing the pictures and also carrying out some basic tasks like resizing images. Some computer wiz on here will be able to tell you how to download it.
david

Don't let it get to you Ted. The people in the car have the problemn rather than you. Its disturbing but it could have been just some brain dead teenagers having a laugh.
david