Film Photographer of the Year 2017 - Discussion

Carl Hall said:
@Kevin Allan Flickr shows your photo as being taken in November 2015? FPOTY is for photos taken during this year since the start of FPOTY 2017, so it doesn't qualify unfortunately.
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I presume we should be happy for @Kevin Allan to replace that shot with another tree one? I know it's generally not allowed, but I would see that pic as "not an entry", so replaceable!

BTW Kevin, it's a lovely shot!
 
ChrisR said:
I presume we should be happy for @Kevin Allan to replace that shot with another tree one? I know it's generally not allowed, but I would see that pic as "not an entry", so replaceable!

BTW Kevin, it's a lovely shot!
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Yeah, definitely! I wouldn't stop someone entering. The rules are more to stop someone changing their mind after they post a valid entry. I assumed Kevin would enter another photo but I guess I should have made it clear and said, sorry :)
 
Woodsy said:
For next year, I'd seek to lobby that the scoring system be simplified such that the number of votes someone gets is the number of points they get in the ranking. In this instance, that would mean that @Carl Hall would get 10 points, myself, @RaglanSurf and @ChrisR would all get 7 points, @FishyFish would get 6 points, @Kevin Allan would get 5, etc etc. That way, it more accurately represents the overall quality of the images submitted, and eliminates the varying nature of the number of voters from the scoring system.
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(Thought I should respond here rather than in the monthly thread.)

Interesting idea! It could mean places in the latter part of the year , (with usually fewer entries and potentially therefore fewer voters) having less influence? An analysis of the numbers of votes cast each month would help. A real advantage would be that everyone would be somewhere in the ranking, rather than some people being stuck on =18th with no points, which is a fairly miserable place to be!

I had already had a couple of thoughts: first the current system of points per place (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 for 5th to 1st) is really no different than points of 1-5! I wondered about something that makes the higher places more valuable and the lower places less so, eg 1, 2, 4, 7, 10 for 5th to 1st again. Alternatively, the POTY in earlier years used to use the Formula 1 points system. I see here that has changed a lot, and perhaps the best for our purposes would be the 1991-2002 system: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 for 6th to 1st again. Obviously these two would be alternatives to @Woodsy's proposal.

Also, if we have 5 places for points each month, why not give us 5 votes each? That way we're all voting for the 5 shots we think deserve a place.
 
(Determined to drag significant discussion back here!)

Carl Hall said:
For that to work we'd need to maintain a high number of votes throughout the whole competition. I think the number of entries and votes falls as some people lose interest as the competition progresses. You'd probably find that people in the later months would be getting less points compared to those in the earlier months, for a reason they can't control. The number of voters has dropped for three months in a row now. In January we had 83 votes and this month it was 59. If the trend continues then we're looking at around 47 votes per month by December. I think it would be a good way of scoring points, but we'd need to keep the votes up through the year for it to be fair.
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Thinking about this, it's easy to avoid if we normalise the votes, eg by using the percentage that's already calculated. The top scores this year would have been 58.8, 50, 48.1, 37.5, 41.7, 37.5 and 47.6 for last month. Top place gets a lower score if the general field is better and points are spread more evenly, which is perhaps counter-intuitive (Jonathan's variant suffers from the same problem compounded, I think).
 
ChrisR said:
Interesting idea! It could mean places in the latter part of the year , (with usually fewer entries and potentially therefore fewer voters) having less influence? An analysis of the numbers of votes cast each month would help. A real advantage would be that everyone would be somewhere in the ranking, rather than some people being stuck on =18th with no points, which is a fairly miserable place to be!
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Jan - 83 votes
Feb - 72 votes
Mar - 65 votes
Apr - 94 votes
May - 67 votes
Jun - 63 votes
Jul - 59 votes

ChrisR said:
Also, if we have 5 places for points each month, why not give us 5 votes each? That way we're all voting for the 5 shots we think deserve a place.
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This was asked at the start of the comp as well (back in December)

Carl Hall said:
I decided to leave the number of votes at three, because I'm not certain how many people will actually enter yet... I think you need a lot of regular entries per month to make five votes a good idea. Don't want to vote for your favourite five when there are only six entries!
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Now that we're well into the competition and can see that we're consistently getting 15-20 entries a month, we can definitely increase it to 5 votes next year, or even 10

There are definitely better ways to award points than the current system which leaves a huge chunk of people on zero points each month. It will be easier going forward next year (if there is one next year) as we know roughly how many participants there will be. This year I had no idea if there would be 5 people entering or 25, so there was no way of knowing the best system.
 
Is it worth starting a thread for 2018 discussion now? I know we're barely halfway through the year, but it would be good to hammer out any changes or improvements and have plenty of time to come up with suggestions and debate them at leisure rather than trying to do it all over Christmas.

In my view it's all running pretty smoothly the way it is though and @Carl Hall is doing a great job at the helm, so hopefully any changes will be relatively minor anyway.
 
FishyFish said:
Is it worth starting a thread for 2018 discussion now? I know we're barely halfway through the year, but it would be good to hammer out any changes or improvements and have plenty of time to come up with suggestions and debate them at leisure rather than trying to do it all over Christmas.

In my view it's all running pretty smoothly the way it is though and @Carl Hall is doing a great job at the helm, so hopefully any changes will be relatively minor anyway.
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Here here!
 
FishyFish said:
Is it worth starting a thread for 2018 discussion now? I know we're barely halfway through the year, but it would be good to hammer out any changes or improvements and have plenty of time to come up with suggestions and debate them at leisure rather than trying to do it all over Christmas.
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It's a good idea to iron out the details and changes early like you said, but I think August might be a bit early? I know I'll forget it all by January :D I'll get something up around October time? Then we still have 2-3 months to discuss it all.

FishyFish said:
In my view it's all running pretty smoothly the way it is though and @Carl Hall is doing a great job at the helm, so hopefully any changes will be relatively minor anyway.
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Woodsy said:
Here here!
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Thank you chaps, I'm happy that you're happy with it. No sign of a coup anytime soon then! :D
 
Carl Hall said:
Thank you chaps, I'm happy that you're happy with it. No sign of a coup anytime soon then! :D
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Not at all fella. The point is, there will never be a time when everyone is happy, and I feel that the undertone of these sorts of discussions is really just the desire to converge on a state where the fewest people are unhappy :D
 
Proportional representation of votes to allocate position and points?...so fishyfish would have came 3rd?
 
I vote for only voting for me... probably my only chance of ever winning the damn thing. :D
 
Woodsy said:
Not at all fella. The point is, there will never be a time when everyone is happy, and I feel that the undertone of these sorts of discussions is really just the desire to converge on a state where the fewest people are unhappy :D
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Or even simpler, just a desire to make it a little bit better?
 
Andysnap said:
I vote for only voting for me... probably my only chance of ever winning the damn thing. :D
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... says the guy whose avatar strap line is "POTY (Film) 2015" in bright blue!:D:p
 
ChrisR said:
... says the guy whose avatar strap line is "POTY (Film) 2015" in bright blue!:D:p
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A fluke result, I am the Leicester City of the film world. :D
 
So, yesterday evening I went out to Queensferry hoping for a nice sunset against the bridges (but realising as I drove that there was almost certainly too little cloud). Got a few shots, walked on the track away from Queensferry to try to get the rail bridge against the sun, went down to the rocks, decided to walk further along the beach to get the sunset more central, didn't notice a small stream had made some rocks wet and mossy, and went down with a crash! I went one way, tripod and camera the other. Lens seems OK, but I think I've comprehensively bent the viewfinder on my Pentax LX (replaceable, I hope), and also apparently unseated the mirror. I think it had better go off for a CLA! Also appear to have bent one of the legs of my tripod, as it won't fully close. Not a huge financial loss as it only cost me £5 in Oxfam, but a replacement will certainly cost a lot more. :(

I got off fairly lightly, egg-shaped lump on my arm and some grazes. I was a bit worried at first that 'd broken my arm again, but happily not.

As @srichards said on twitter, at least I didn't get marooned on an island! Everything has a silver lining... :)
 
ChrisR said:
So, yesterday evening I went out to Queensferry hoping for a nice sunset against the bridges (but realising as I drove that there was almost certainly too little cloud). Got a few shots, walked on the track away from Queensferry to try to get the rail bridge against the sun, went down to the rocks, decided to walk further along the beach to get the sunset more central, didn't notice a small stream had made some rocks wet and mossy, and went down with a crash! I went one way, tripod and camera the other. Lens seems OK, but I think I've comprehensively bent the viewfinder on my Pentax LX (replaceable, I hope), and also apparently unseated the mirror. I think it had better go off for a CLA! Also appear to have bent one of the legs of my tripod, as it won't fully close. Not a huge financial loss as it only cost me £5 in Oxfam, but a replacement will certainly cost a lot more. :(

I got off fairly lightly, egg-shaped lump on my arm and some grazes. I was a bit worried at first that 'd broken my arm again, but happily not.

As @srichards said on twitter, at least I didn't get marooned on an island! Everything has a silver lining... :)
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Only daft gibbons would get marooned on an island.... I hear.

Glad you're ok chap, and sorry to hear about the kit! This is a sign... I can hear it. It's saying.... "ellllllll effffffff".

What more excuse do you need to go large format now? :D
 
ChrisR said:
So, yesterday evening I went out to Queensferry hoping for a nice sunset against the bridges (but realising as I drove that there was almost certainly too little cloud). Got a few shots, walked on the track away from Queensferry to try to get the rail bridge against the sun, went down to the rocks, decided to walk further along the beach to get the sunset more central, didn't notice a small stream had made some rocks wet and mossy, and went down with a crash! I went one way, tripod and camera the other. Lens seems OK, but I think I've comprehensively bent the viewfinder on my Pentax LX (replaceable, I hope), and also apparently unseated the mirror. I think it had better go off for a CLA! Also appear to have bent one of the legs of my tripod, as it won't fully close. Not a huge financial loss as it only cost me £5 in Oxfam, but a replacement will certainly cost a lot more. :(

I got off fairly lightly, egg-shaped lump on my arm and some grazes. I was a bit worried at first that 'd broken my arm again, but happily not.

As @srichards said on twitter, at least I didn't get marooned on an island! Everything has a silver lining... :)
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Oof! Glad you're not too badly injured, and hope the damage to your gear (and wallet!) isn't too great either.

It's a dangerous game this photography lark!
 
Blimey Chris, glad you're okay. Surely nobody would be daft enough to get stranded on an island?? :thinking::LOL:
 
Why? Why do I always get dragged into every conversation every time someone does something daft....... Oh, hang on, I know why :(

Sorry to hear about your fall Chris, hope you haven't done any serious damage to yourself or your kit. Us older gents need to be a bit more careful I think. :D
 
Thanks everyone. Injured pride more than anything else. However, I've been looking at the prices for LX finders on the evil bay, and they are indeed evil, more than I paid for the whole camera in some cases.

I suppose, @Woodsy, an advantage of LF is that I would never have ventured onto the beach in the first place... hang on, there's good and bad bits to that!
 
ChrisR said:
I suppose, @Woodsy, an advantage of LF is that I would never have ventured onto the beach in the first place... hang on, there's good and bad bits to that!
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Alternatively, if you'd got one of those clunky great wooden LF cameras and had been cut off by the tide you could have probably rowed back to the beach on it using your tripod as a paddle! ;) Anyway, sorry to hear about your small fight with gravity and hope you're soon fully recovered. (y)
 
RaglanSurf said:
It might be time to hang up those cameras Chris and leave the dangerous photography to @Andysnap
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Hang up those cameras? Sorry Nick, no can do!

On a slightly more serious note, I do have to remind myself from time to time that I'm fairly advanced into middle age... OTOH I keep on thinking, there's another shot over there, maybe...? One shot I want involves a sunset view of Tantallon Castle from the water's edge below. It involves either scrambling round from North Berwick over the rocks, or down the bank from the road... and of course potentially back again in the increasing dark. I'm revising these plans... :)
 
So, £89 plus postage for a new finder from ffordes, £75 plus postage plus VAT as an estimated repair from Miles... the camera cost £169 from WYC, though that admittedly was a bargain. There are lots of high priced ones on the bay, plus a couple in the £210 range. But I don't like to give up on a camera...

Theoretically I could claim on my house insurance, but I suspect with excess and potentially raised premiums next year that's a bit pointless.
 
ChrisR said:
So, £89 plus postage for a new finder from ffordes, £75 plus postage plus VAT as an estimated repair from Miles... the camera cost £169 from WYC, though that admittedly was a bargain. There are lots of high priced ones on the bay, plus a couple in the £210 range. But I don't like to give up on a camera...

Theoretically I could claim on my house insurance, but I suspect with excess and potentially raised premiums next year that's a bit pointless.
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The way I look at it when something like that happens is that it's still an economical hobby, compared to a lot of popular outdoor related hobbies these days, plus, you'll have a freshly serviced camera when it comes back from 'Uncle Miles'. As long as there's no lasting damage to you, that's the main thing. (y)
 
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Aw Chris, sorry to hear about your offroading mishap! Might it be worth waiting for a cheap finder to appear on ebay? Or is it your main/favourite 35mm?

I'm leaving my entry down to the last minute this month - going away to the Peak District this weekend, and there's bound to be some trees. Can't remember when I had a month so full of photos for a while!
 
I've been out tonight and actually shot a roll of film, specifically for the theme, which is the first time this year (as my points tally shows...). I fired off a roll of Pan F 50 in my Yashica 635 and even included a couple of entirely deliberate multiple exposures (of course I didn't forget to wind on between shots..).
 
mothdust said:
Aw Chris, sorry to hear about your offroading mishap! Might it be worth waiting for a cheap finder to appear on ebay? Or is it your main/favourite 35mm?
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I have two MXs as well (although only one of them with us in Edinburgh), which do most things really well, and I love them. However the LX is particularly good for low light stuff in A mode, as it meters off the film to -6.5 EV. If it was metering for 10 seconds and a flash went off at 5 it would end the exposure if enough light hit the film! That's brilliant for an idiot like me who has done very little low light work.
 
stevelmx5 said:
I've been out tonight and actually shot a roll of film, specifically for the theme, which is the first time this year (as my points tally shows...). I fired off a roll of Pan F 50 in my Yashica 635 and even included a couple of entirely deliberate multiple exposures (of course I didn't forget to wind on between shots..).
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I have yet to get the hang of multi-exposures! Though I do keep looking at examples to try to work out the compositional techniques...
 
ChrisR said:
I have yet to get the hang of multi-exposures! Though I do keep looking at examples to try to work out the compositional techniques...
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Funnily enough, I haven't got the hang of them either. It's been that long since I shot anything with my Yashica that I forgot to wind it on a few times as the shutter/wind aren't connected!
 
Minolta dynax has it built in as well. I've never used it. Only multi exposure things I've ever done involved doing them in the dark room and using two negs to superimpose things.
 
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