If you've got lots of light, which you probably do, relatively speaking, living where you do, then stopped down this lens is ok. Pull it back from 400mm, ideally to <300 when stopped down to between f/8 and f/16 and it becomes very good indeed for the money.

My experience of this lens in the gloom of Northern Europe wide open on full zoom is less than enthusiastic. But then, it's not a huge amount of cash either so it's not as though I paid for DA* performance and didn't get it.

Duncan

I agree with John's generalisation. My wife is teaching me why that thing that I thought of as foreground interest is really just a load of clutter, and I'm teaching her why her technique of press and hope isn't making the best of her artistic eye. We're both learning and spending quality time together. It's fun.

Baboon is great, pose, expression, tone, crop, all super.

No, not nobody at all. If I'd set the theme, been the judge, seen that as an entry, I'd have been very hard pressed not to have given it a top 3 in one way or another. I don't care who took it, I find the mix of shapes, patterns and textures with their particular shapes balanced within the composition quite mesmerising. The blur of man on the bicycle is just the icing on the cake, a final surprise as your eye explores the picture.

There's some HCB I don't really get, but not much. Likewise with Kertesz, flashes of greatness though some of his is very much "snapshot" at times I think. Weegee has a certain voyeuristic pull, though this is usually teasing the viewer by being out of shot, and this appeals to me. Diane Arbus leaves me completely cold. A working hack portrait snapper that just happenend to have contacts in high places and the ear of influential people/friends who did a good job of promoting her as an artist.

As has been discussed, art is very much a personal opinion. The winner takes all format of the weekly comp is both simultaneously its greatest strength and probably its greatest weakness. Judging is going to be solely the opinion of the previous winner, we all have to accept it and hopefully learn something from it.

Also agree with an earlier post that mentioned expectations of certain images being bound to crop up for a given theme and entrants go and confound you by putting in a whole bunch of interpretations that you'd have never imagined.

Duncan

This discussion reminds me of this thread:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366/

Congratulations to Gully and many thanks to gartmore for some well thought out judging.

Lerici, Liguria, Italy




K10D, Tamron 24-135

Thanks for the continued interest. I've tried a variety of edits based on your input. Cropping out the sun completely really unbalances the composition to my eye, editing it to make it look smaller is very difficult without making it blindingly obvious that it's been edited, it simply doesn't look natural.

I tried adding grain as one of my very 1st edits before I ended up with this result. The grain kills the texture in the clouds and the bit of spindrift over the waves. The whole scene loses its 3D effect with grain, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this suggestion, been there before, tried it, hated it.

Lightening up the sea improves things, but as xbow suggests, it's easy to overdo it. I could play around for ages with this and still not be entirely happy with it.

Thanks anyway for the suggestions. I'll keep trying.

Duncan

Thanks for the feedback folks, much appreciated.

Opinions and constructive critique welcomed. Specifically, is the underexposure in the sea on the left too much, would it be better for a bit of dodging in this area? Any other suggestions for improvement also considered. Remove the contrails or not?




Duncan