Just curious what an average score would be for someone's first time entry. Did you wait to entry till you had a great shot or did you jump right in with both feet to learn as much as you could?
Well my first challenge just ended and I finished dead last LOL, oh well, I guess somebody had too. And I will be the first to admit that it was a horrible shot and deserved to be dead last (no point agreeing with me on that :-) I decided to enter with not much time left in the challenge and entered the first picture I had, but I am hoping to do much better this time, and so far I am. Is everybody else as compulsive about checking there scores as I am???
Well my first challenge just ended and I finished dead last LOL, oh well, I guess somebody had too. And I will be the first to admit that it was a horrible shot and deserved to be dead last (no point agreeing with me on that :-) I decided to enter with not much time left in the challenge and entered the first picture I had, but I am hoping to do much better this time, and so far I am. Is everybody else as compulsive about checking there scores as I am???
Yes, we all are. By the way, your portfolio has some great shots. I love the train shots.
I got a 4.9, jumped right in. I started improving in score; but it seems I'm on a downward spiral =(
I thought this week's would do so much better, since I'm sure many here can relate to it.
I jumped right in and didn't do too well. A few short months later...I'm still not doing great. Improved, though!
Me too! This is the first week (other than when traveling) in over a year I skipped both challenges. For me, part of the idea was to come up with SOMETHING every week. To me it makes no sense to expect most people to come up with a completely "finished" work on a week's notice, but they might come up with a good "manuscript" version which can be evaluated for its content, and finished up later if appropriate.
I pretty much jumped right in, but spent the full week working on an entry (it was From Above). I had had my camera about a month or so, and was still pretty much fumbling around with anything beyond the Auto mode. I managed to stumble on a pretty interesting subject and did a decent job of capturing it, I thought. I ended up at about 5.2, and was well within the top 50%, which I considered a great success.
Since then... It's a roller coaster. Some weeks I'm on, others... not so much.
I jumped right in and ended up with a 5.3 in the Right Angles challenge. That was on a borrowed camera that I'd never really shot with before that.
Since then I've been all over the place. I just came off my worst photo so far (score wise) at 4.1. My insect challenge is holding steady in the low 6 range and that was a first for me, I'd never shot insects before (or been in the 6s for that matter lol)
I can tell I'm getting better...My 4.1 shot was a stretch for me in many ways. I understand why people didn't like it but it took a lot for me to overcome my fears and take the shot. I also didn't have a good angle at the actual accident scene as the cops were all over the place doing their investigation. I personally really liked how everyone else was staring at the scene. I was going for subtlty but it didn't quite work out. (It worked much better at a bigger resolution)
Anyhow the point is that I learned more from my worst shot than my best one...so score is only one factor.
Of course I still hit the update button like a maniac all day long.
I think it probably depends more on how long you've been taking pictures and had your camera before you enter.
I found this site shortly after I first got my digital so I was still really new to it. I got lucky with a 5.8 on the first submission, but my second was a 4.7. I'm not really sure that I've improved all that much since then. It still seems to be a lot about luck with me.
I got 4.96 with my first entry. the next was even worse but have been below 80th on the three entries since then. one even got 25th. but I still cant crack a high rating pic. :-(
I'm with Indi. I got lucky on my first shot, which was a spur-of-the-moment snapshot (5.0, but almost right in the middle of the pack for the challenge), then my second shot, one I really tried to think about and compose, tanked with a 4.6. It's been my lowest score yet.
I think that would be really frustrating to have your first pic ever be at the top of your list. LOL. Sorry, Scab.
My challenge to myself is to keep bumping photos off of my top 5 in my profile. I've gotten 2 in the last few weeks so I consider myself doing pretty well.
Hope to improve more as time passes - no make that as I get more time to take more photographs and hopefully be able to buy a 5MP camera instead of my present 1.3MP
I waited a while before my first submission, but it didn't help. The real learning doesn't begin until you start getting anonymous feedback on your work.
1st was 5.637
2nd was 4.879 - learned that you must meet challenge in a obvious way to avoid the 1's
Lets hope the third reverses the downward trend....
My first entry, about 5 months ago scored 4.2, my current insects shot is at 6.8. And while I have scored lots in between there, I feel I can usually tell which shots are going to do well and which are not now. And not necessarily because the shot is good or bad but because I have caught on a little to what dpc voters seem to like.
For my first entry, I got a 5.4 and placed around the 50% range.
After that, I improved on the next two entries, and then went on a landslide for the last two. For me the landslide came because I was emotionally down after loosing a dog who I was really close too. I took photos for fun and I didn't concentrate like I do otherwise.
Then I got decided to get back on my feet after placing third from the bottom -- OUCH! -- and now this time -- my 1st entry after bottoming out -- I am getting my highest rating to date with the Insect challenge. I am at 6.47. I am THRILLED. I had to go double-check I really had a 6.47...WHEW! I do!!! So far so good.
Jump in! It's a lot of fun, you learn a lot -- and can only grow from whatever score you get...
I got a 4.7 -- a decent photo, but weakly met the challenge. My goal was to just get better each challenge and I thought this a good starting point. All worked well for about 3 weeks, then a step down -- then near basement with a 3.991. The 3.99 wasn't that bad of a photo (in my opinion), most people just didn't get how it met the challenge. This is a VERY BIG factor in the click of the DPC voter, I've come to discover. My best to date is Oops, where I got 9th place with a 6.1. Unfortunately, that is a short-lived victory. My Nostalgia is only clicking in at 5.3 or so.
I've had some great ideas for submissions, but just not the time to execute, so I go with what I can get done in the timeframe. My Nostalgia is probably ranking as low as it is because I generated it from set-up to posting in less than 10 minutes.
I still keep plugging away. This is tremendous fun. I enjoy it more when I have the time to set up the shot I really want to take. It is a bummer that the shot I took the 2nd longest to set up got the lowest rating -- so far.
