Thanks! I could tell you that I used a polarizer, but I would be lying. I need to go back to the RAW file to see if that dark sky was produced in PP. I seem to remember that it was fairly dark to start with (though it was emphasized with the contrast controls in SilkyPix and an S-curve).

niblue
Did you get fed up looking at the BoC tower or does it stand the test of times?

A few shots from my recent (well, November) trip to Hong Kong. Incidentally these are also all rejects from the PPG (of course they were submitted in the right size and without frame for that). I still like them...

All taken with the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro, except the first one (10-17 fisheye)

Bank of China tower (love that building)



The junk "Duk Ling" on a tourist harbour tour



Facade of the BoC tower



Reflection of the BoC tower in a facade (did I mention that I love the BoC tower?

Tall order
It's a bit too far for me. I would try to straighten the distortions and to darken the sky.
And perhaps make it a bit bigger so that all the detail that has been pulled out by the HDR (or at least some of it) becomes visible.
The left hand crop is difficult, either you have the frame of that doorway in the shot or you cut off part of the "blob". Needs a reshoot from a different angle, I think.

The longer I look at it the more I like it.

So you are 15? Right, I can see the pigs fly right over my head

Seriously though, I love this series. Even the first one I like. You certainly have a good eye for composition.
I think the noise in "KING" is not ruining the image (at least at that size). You probably could add some "film grain" to it.

This series certainly brings back fond memories of six years living in England...

Keep on shooting (but don't forget your GCSE's over it!)

That's a lot of watching you have to do aj!

That's two wrong decisions on his part him

Just to show what the "Keen photographer" (his name is Keen) from my entry was watching:



This was a special barber service on board R/V Charles Darwin and part of the equator crossing ceremonies (i.e. the candidates had to get a "special" haircut).

I agree with your verdict that the shot doesn't convey that "watching" feeling. Good judging and deserving winner.

Thanks for your hard work,
Prieni

*istD, Sigma 105/2.8 EX DG Macro, AF540FGZ, AF360FGZ, 1/125 s, A16, ISO200.


Seems like an odd idea to put peppercorn in a chocolate, but it doesn't taste bad at all...

Hi Claudio,

you are right that saving in tiff does make more sense than saving in jpg. This is especially true when you want to further process the image after development in SilkyPix. I almost always do that as well.

If you don't need to further work on the image before sending it off to the printer there is no problem with saving it as a jpg. (But make sure that either you took the shot in sRGB or converted it from AdobeRGB in Silkypix
unless the printer does use proper colour management).

You might ask: How is shooting RAW and saving in jpg different from saving in camera jpg in the first place?
Well, you can make a wealth of adjustments in SilkyPix. Let's take one example: Slightly blown highlights. If you have the jpg from the camera the highlights are blown already. If you have the RAW file you can recover quite a lot in SilkyPix. You then save the jpg from SP and the highlights are recovered.
So there is some point in developing in SP and saving in jpg.

Prieni