This is a typical score for me. I was influenced by the chatter on the forum about this challenge, both in what I chose to enter & in how I voted. I just read this thread & got influenced some more. I took "Missed Focus" to mean deliberately miss the focus on the subject, with some other part of the shot in focus as a result, & to make it look interesting or maybe even compelling, if I got lucky (I didn't). It was fun to try this, & gave me some new thoughts about composing a shot. I am still learning the difficult art of controlling shallow DOF, I learned some more with this challenge, I discovered the manual focus option on the FZ35 in the process, so all is not lost. What I learned from the discussion threads is that each person has their own understanding, deep or shallow, of the challenge & has fun getting the shot in their own way. Each person votes according to their understanding. From now on I will treat each challenge as a themed free study & vote according to what I like, mostly because I don't need the extra stress. However many people compare this to an assignment at work, this is not an assignment at work. It's a contest website with an empahsis on learning. I learn by entering challenges & also by voting. I would comment, too, for there is much to be learned by commenting, but I don't want to be attacked by an overprotective photog. Now, I'm going out to shoot for "DeepDOF."
Ouch. Take heart, I think this is going to be a tough challenge all around. Lots of different opinions and interpretations.
Yeah, I knew I was taking a chance, and plus it was hard to pick a good mis focused picture..I'm thinking to myself..."they look like crap"...lol...but I had to try... :)
the description says the 'subject' should be 'out of focus', so as long as that's true, for me as a voter, it doesn't matter if there's motion blur elsewhere, as well.
Actually...the description says "Use an out of focused subject in a compelling way."
The challenge subject is "Missed Focus".
So, did you "Miss" on your "Focus"? Another piece of the story is pertaining to the subject; can we tell what your "out of focused subject" is?
This is one of the most whacked challenges I've seen here in a long time, but nonetheless, certainly fun! :-)
To be fair, this was a toughy, but in voting, I've not given this many low scores in a really long time. I did manage to find one beautifully done 9 and some 7's, but given the directive, it just isn't that interesting to look at most of them. I think the key word was "compelling" and most are not. You brave souls who entered - good luck. I'm really curious what is going to win this one, as everyone's interpretation of it is so different.
You left me a nice comment; thanks :-))) I like my interpretation of the challenge and it's always gratifying to have someone else like it, too.
Doing pretty well considering some of the other scores posted!
People are casting very unhappy votes. Revenge voting? I have a good image, one of the better ones in the Challenge imho but it might not break a 6.
As lutchenko said, "If I then move that object within the plane of focus such that I get a motion blur in my resulting image, the object is still in focus it simply has a motion blur associated with it" as I said in the first thread where people were sorting this one out. It's a valid point and I tried to warn people because as you can see in this thread more people are coming out of the woodwork who see it the same way...AND there are more out there.
It's not about being narrow or pedantic but it's a special technique in itself that I use and I see it differently than motion blur because I'm consciously placing my subject out of focus with the ring or by choosing a shallow dof. Another thing, I did interpret the Challenge to be as a selectively chosen subject and not the entire image oof BUT that's a minor nit that I'll ignore if I decide to vote.
Eta: Ultimately, if I vote I'll look more for the "compelling" part of the description or for the blur to be meaningful and not something gratuitous. Like why did they use the technique and how does it add or enrich the subject. That's more important than any of the other bullshit.
I'll look more for the "compelling" part of the description or for the blur to be meaningful and not something gratuitous. Like why did they use the technique and how does it add or enrich the subject.
And that is what truly makes this challenge challenging. It was not easy to come up with something that it worked for and I feel lucky to even be in the mid 5's for this subject.
This is a typical score for me. I was influenced by the chatter on the forum about this challenge, both in what I chose to enter & in how I voted. I just read this thread & got influenced some more. I took "Missed Focus" to mean deliberately miss the focus on the subject, with some other part of the shot in focus as a result, & to make it look interesting or maybe even compelling, if I got lucky (I didn't). It was fun to try this, & gave me some new thoughts about composing a shot. I am still learning the difficult art of controlling shallow DOF, I learned some more with this challenge, I discovered the manual focus option on the FZ35 in the process, so all is not lost. What I learned from the discussion threads is that each person has their own understanding, deep or shallow, of the challenge & has fun getting the shot in their own way. Each person votes according to their understanding. From now on I will treat each challenge as a themed free study & vote according to what I like, mostly because I don't need the extra stress. However many people compare this to an assignment at work, this is not an assignment at work. It's a contest website with an empahsis on learning. I learn by entering challenges & also by voting. I would comment, too, for there is much to be learned by commenting, but I don't want to be attacked by an overprotective photog. Now, I'm going out to shoot for "DeepDOF."
You've got the right attitude - have fun!! Keep shooting and seeing and, while voting, don't be afraid to comment (if you get a response to something you say, that may also help the learning curve)!
well, my interpretation and understanding of the challenge was along the lines of what lutchenko said. but whatever the case, mine is still doing horribly. i predicted it being in the upper 5's but i'll be lucky if it even breaks into the 5's
Either I totally missed the point of 'missed focus' or the majority of the entries did. We have had Out of Focus (OOF) challenges before - where nothing was intended to be in focus. It appears that folks took this to be the same. I took it to mean that the subject itself was not in focus, but at least one other part of the image was in focus. Can't say I was too thrilled with many of the images. Seems those who felt the entire image should be out of focus are letting me know their views too:
OK, I haven't read the rest of the thread, but how is anyone supposed to know this unless they've been here for those challenges?! That's assuming a lot of knowledge that we don't have. If you look at the title and the definition, neither says that there must be some other thing in focus. It says subject out of focus. not subject out of focus and something else in focus.
Please people, don't be adding things to the challenge because of other challenge topics that we know nothing about! (ok, I'm tired, and I spent part of the week finding out that motion blur wasn't focus in some people's minds, but there was absolutely no way of finding this one out unless you've been here for a couple of years, and that is frustrating. Ok, I'm done with my rant.
My apologies for my earlier outburst (read it here if you missed it!) Believe me, it wasn't about score (it's not great, but not horrible either). Sometimes it's just difficult to understand the challenge when you don't have a lot of past history with DPC. I'm fine with whatever score I get, since this is way out of my comfort range (and actually quite fun because of it!) But it's hard when you don't understand if your score sucks because of the photo or because of interpretations that would never occur to someone who's been here less than a year.
No comments but definitely one of my favorite pics! Interpretation is a key factor I assume as why it isn't scoring higher. Hopefully voters realize that they should be open to all interpretations. Mine definitely falls into a specific category.
I did a quick look last night, but won't vote for awhile. I'm thinking that I'll vote, and then if I didn't give any 10s, I'll go back and raise everyone's score by a point for being brave enough to enter the challenge!
