It a big country and not nearly enough people to fill it up

Mike, you've done a good job there of catching some action - the first two with the ball in shot are great. Th 3rd 4th & 5th may benefit from a bit tighter cropping I feel. Thanks for sharing some different sports!

Nicely put together, its a great subject and well captured. Couldn't you find any strange ladies in that park?

The panoramic shape has made it look a bit cramped at the top for me, the trees look a bit sliced off - and what is the POINT of black & white here ????

You've given us a real slice of spring there, and it was clearly a much quieter and sedate photographic day than you're usually used to!

The hang-glider and the two kissing ducks are the standouts for me.

Regarding the brightness, I actually think they are pretty close to what we would see in reality - the light is very intense and glaring in these conditions. However, I believe we as photographers have become accustomed to a 'what the meter saw' rendition of this type of scene - ie:, slight under-exposure, which is what most meters would come out with I think.

This is not always an issue, and indeed can benefit saturated subjects and those where high contrast is, well, high It would be interesting to know what your settings were - they look to me like slight over-exposure, maybe +0.3 - 0.5 ? But it depends on the camera of course.

In my opinion they could benefit from the smallest adjustment - I'd use a PS levels adjustment layer, give a small reduction on the middle input slider, and then set the blend mode of the layer to 'luminosity' - this will avoid losing the saturation. Be interested to see if it works.

That is quite amazing - incredible that its possible to get such an image from 'normal' camera equipment! Great work!

I thought about taking my 14mm, but decided to stick to the longer one due to the crowds and knew I would be wanting to chop a fair few of them out! Fisheye? Well, that's sure been done before as well, but don't let that stop you, I look forward to see your new take on it


I wasn't aware of a blue tone at the time, but actually on the PC when opening each shot in Sagelight (RAW converter plus) it was clearly there - green / blue. But I though I had got rid of it, by correcting with a bit of red / yellow as well as general de-saturation. Anyone else still seeing any blue / green cast?

I think you want a converter to do nothing more than extend the range - this new one clearly doesn't get in the way at all, its a great sharp shot!

Its all good advice, and 'Mr Pants' knows I love it all Truth is though the crops were all carefully considered, and the shots were all framed wider, just as per the advice. Here's an example, No4 with the cut off stairway side ..... here's my crop :






and the uncropped original as shot ....






Any wider and I'd have had overhanging roof in the corners, and here I didn't feel the people added to it, unlike the others. I wanted to show a range of shots with people & without so I chose to crop into this one to remove the people . Maybe cloning them out would have been better?

Love them all Jon, great graphic shapes and crystal clarity. The last one is special, you've clearly had to take firm control over the contrast there - perhaps I'd tone down the brightness over the far horizon a touch?

The mixed lighting of the interiors is beautifully reproduced.

That tele-zoom clearly does provide plenty of bang per buck! I like the silky smooth OOF backgrounds, and that tiny fly on the 1st looks so real, almost 3D. Its good to see brightly-lit flowers correctly exposed as well - ie: brightly!

Thanks very much - glad you like them, and thanks to John, Soran, Swarf & Smeggypants also for your comments

Re the cropping .... glad you like them Smeggy! The cropping is in fact very careful, and its the best of two 'evil's in some cases. If I hadn't cropped as they are, I bet you'd have been 'constructing' about something else ... edge distractions! Unfortunately there are some roof protrusions, underhangs from the balcony level, in shadow and of a different texture & colour which absolutely don't mix with the main body of the images, plus on the ground extra people and objects that would also be cut in half if included. So I've done what I could without cloning like mad.

But you can only respond to what you see, and fair enough - its just a judgement call really.