Aquatic POTM April Discussion Thread

[paradise]

Our April POTM is over, so congratulations to Bjarne on his breathtaking photo.

http://aquatic-photography.com/forum/contests/0406a/06.jpg

Two notes:

1. Please PLEASE start submitting early for the May POTM, and remember the new image size limit is now 800 wide.

2. Let's have a discussion re: the contest below, not JUST congratulations to the winner(s).

[squidfish]

Congratualtions Bjarne you photo really stood out in this contest. Great colour, detail and exposure that set off well against the green background.

Another nice shot from Andreas which had a good exposure and detail. This photo had a slight orange cast to it to me which I assume is somestaining from all the organic matter in the tank.

Jennifer's shot was good with some great clarity and detail but to me the starkness of the substrate reduced the quality of the shot and gave it a somewhat unnatural feel. A more natural coloured substrate I think would have improved this.

Some great colour and subtle detail on John's shot but the crop was just too tight.

Interesting pose on Yu-Chia's tang shot but it felt to me like it a bit lonely in space. A good shot but some improvement possible on the composition. If there had been some reef structure up the right hand side of the photo then the fish's pose I think would have had more punch to it.

Laurie's Dendrophylla had some good lighting and colour but suffered a little from the lack of DOF that macro shots have. The front tentacles seemed to distract rather than add to the composition which I felt lacked a focal point to an extent.

John Wong's shot was a nice composition in terms of the fish line up but would have been improved by being at a lower angleas it well you were looking down on the fish a little. I also thought that it would benefit from some slight sharpening.

The top fish's pelvic fin going through the head of the lower fish let down Tobi's shot. I also found the colouring a little confusing with the top fish pink and the lower on blue.

Jay's Odessa Barb was a decent enough profile of the species but slightly soft to me leading to some detail loss in the fins.

Andres shot found the fish a little hot from flash on the mid-flank behnd the gill.

A similar problem was shown in Theresa's photo.

Nane's Fontosa photo was slightly soft and quite noisey. I think the shape of the fish was also somewhat distorted by the angle of the shot. Soft and nosie were also a feature of John Roberts Picture.

My picture? Well thanks for the votes. Could have been better but I would not expect much more shooting through the thick acrylic of a public aquarium tank.

Thanks all for entering some great shots in this months contest.

Cheers

Rich

[princer7]

Congratulations, Bjarne! This was by far my favorite shot.

[alanhill]

A good contest - I felt that the top three were easy to spot, but it wasn't easy to put them in order. I actually put Bjarne's shot first, then I changed my mind and gave top marks to Andreas, on the grounds that a double portrait must be harder to shoot than a single one. I have some Aphyosemion striatum, which have been teaching me how hard these species are to photograph, so I could easily appreciate their efforts.
I have to confess I recognised Rich's arapaima, because I was standing next to him when he shot it - I couldn't manage a decent shot of it at all so I had to mark it high, but as he has already said, he couldn't have very much control over lighting in a public aquarium - so the quality couldn't quite compare (although I'm still jealous - I'm going to have to go back and try again).
I also liked CDM's surgeonfish, which looks like a very successful public aquarium shot. There were some nice shots in the others too. Well done to all who took part!

Alan

[Bjarne]

Thank you for your votes on my killi :) I didn't expect my photo to win this round.

[Andreas Werth]

Hello Bjarne,
Congratulations on winning first place.

Rich, you did a very good job, i can imagine the shooting conditions at Blue Planet.
In this contest it was hard for me to find a clear favourite. Therefore i decided to give the same score to not less than 6 photos. Under those photos were the ones from John, Tobi and Jay, which should be placed at least 0.5 points higher imho. I hope for a better turnout next time, 25 voters are not much compared to all the users here. I wonder how this could be improved.
This photo had a slight orange cast to it to me which I assume is somestaining from all the organic matter in the tank.
Right, the turf leads to a yellow tint in this tank, normally i work with manual custom white balance here. In this specific case the pair was very near the front pane, therefore i did it without. However, i don´t find the tint distracting here, and the colours of both male and female are very accurate, what perhaps can be seen at the tips of the males fins.

@Alan: thank you for deciding otherwise ;-)
Do you show us your striatum in the near future?

[paradise]

I too was shocked about the voter turnout for this POTM. I did 2 reminders, and put the big letters RIGHT on the front page with the username, asking to vote. Participation and submissions both are going down a bit, dont know what else to do about it.

[phishphorphun]

Nice job and congratulations Bjarne. Nice to see your wonderful photos in the spotlight again. Also congrats to the other contestants.

I also had several photos with similar scores. However, I can't remember what the exact scores were. How come we can't see our scores after the results are posted? Can't "your score" be included in the results?

[paradise]

That is a good idea, bobby. Will ask andreas :)

[Ibn]

Just got back from another trip and didn't get to vote on these, but did get a chance to see them when Ed was putting these up. Some well deserved wins.

[Andreas Werth]

However, I can't remember what the exact scores were. How come we can't see our scores after the results are posted? Can't "your score" be included in the results?

Hi Bobby,
it´s already there, simply go to the detail page with the big version of the photo, there you will find your vote! You have to be logged in, of course. Anyway, i ask my friend for assistance to change it at the result page, too.

[phishphorphun]

Wait a minute. It wasn't there a little while ago. I didn't do anything different. Why is it there now? :confused:

[Andreas Werth]

Hi Bobby,
believe me: it was there since we started with Carstens software :-)
I also wrote it before: click (http://aquatic-photography.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4670), i´m sure you missed that. Of course you can´t see it if you are not logged in.

This is also working with all older contests.

[phishphorphun]

I believe you Andreas. What is weird is I remember seeing it before. But I thought with the recent changes it was accidentaly left out.

Okay. Now I feel better. I just pulled it up on my other computer. It's not there. It's there on this computer, but not on the other one. :-o

Before, I was viewing each photo on the other computer as I was typing my post on this one. It most have something to do with my internet settings on the other computer.

At least I'm not imagining things. :-D

[Andreas Werth]

Hi Bobby,
i´m quite sure it has something to do with cookies. From time too time i have to login twice or three times on apf, until i´m recocnized by both portal and forum. Didn´t found out yet why - perhaps a similar problem on your computer?

[paradise]

Andreas, that is weird, when you click on the photo you get a detail page, but it shows only "average vote" not Your vote.

[phishphorphun]

Andreas, that is weird, when you click on the photo you get a detail page, but it shows only "average vote" not Your vote.

Ed, on this computer it shows "your vote" on my other one it doesn't. Definitely something with how each computer's settings gets the right cookies.

[Andreas Werth]

Ed, if the forum recognizes you as paradise, you should see the votes from the account "paradise" on the detail page. Or did you vote with your technical admin account?
If the software would not regognize you, you wouldn´t be allowed to vote at all. But since you were able to do that, everything should be fine.

It should look like this:
http://home.arcor.de/schuppenfresser/ap/votes.jpg

[RazorBlade]

Congratulations to Bjarne on the win.

To be honest, none of the Top3 were my pick for the contest - I was actually leaning more towards CDM's entry and Jay's entry. Haha, guess we all have different taste. :P

And with squidfish's comments dead-on, I have nother further to add. ^_^

P.S. I too am surprised at the low voter turn-out. 23-27 votes is surprisingly low.

[Andreas Werth]

Do you show us your striatum in the near future?

Wow, this could lead to some misunderstanding.
In fact, i don´t want Alan to show us any part of his brain, but his killies ;-)
Just for the record.

[phishphorphun]

Btw, I figured out the mystery with the different cookies.

If you put the site in your "favorites" folder with a search engine, it doesn't recogize all the cookies. It may be a IE thing. But, I just saved all my favorites without using the Netscape search results window and everything is working like it should.

Sorry for hijacking this very important thread on such non-related information. However, this is where it started and I don't want to move it for this secondary conversation.

[alanhill]

Wow, this could lead to some misunderstanding.
In fact, i don´t want Alan to show us any part of his brain, but his killies ;-)
Just for the record.

:rolleyes:

Remember the wise words of Woody Allen, 'Don't mess with my brain, it's my second favourite organ!' :lol: :lol: :lol:
The striatum tank needs some work and some more plants before I point a camera at them again. The shots I have so far were just for practice - they don't bear any comparison with this month's POTM photos.

Alan

[Andreas Werth]

If you put the site in your "favorites" folder with a search engine, it doesn't recogize all the cookies. It may be a IE thing. But, I just saved all my favorites without using the Netscape search results window and everything is working like it should.
Sorry Bobby, i don´t understand this exactly. Sometimes i wonder, whether there are different cookies for portal and forum. I´m using firefox and have this problem at work and at home.

Remember the wise words of Woody Allen, 'Don't mess with my brain, it's my second favourite organ!'

:-)
Alan, i´m very glad you read my additional message before acting without due consideration!