*** This Week Through Your Eyes 2024.01.24 ***

Thanks, I was quite happy with last week's set, it was good to be back out on what felt like a proper mountain (even if it was a relatively tiny one). The Z7 seemed pretty happy with the drizzly conditions too, with no obvious signs of water ingress when I checked it upon returning home.

To really appreciate the detail in that shot, here's a full res crop from the centre, exported directly from C1.

This shot was taken with the 45-100 (roughly 35-80 equivalent) which is one of the better zoom lenses in the system. I still think I could eke a bit more out of it with a more substantial tripod than my lightweight carbon fibre Benro jobby, which seems a bit prone to resonance in even the slightest wind. Mind you, that thing is over 2KG, so unless someone's making sturdier tripods that are no heavier I'll be sticking with it.

Thank you sir! Glad you like it.

2Tone reflection.

My picks. The ceiling fresco is amazing as ever. I always think of the artists stuck up there for weeks on end on flimsy scaffolding. Not a job for me!

All nicely done, I really do miss the image stabilisation of Olympus cameras. I found my E-M1 MKII quite remarkable in that regard and carrying a tripod everywhere is no fun at all.

This is such a really unusual, organic looking building. I like the symmetry.

It's "The Santa Cruz de Tenerife Auditorio for ants!" (To paraphrase Derek Zoolander, which will mean nothing if you've never seen the movie).

I actually prefer full shot better. It gives us tremendous view of the sunset in all its glory. It must have been very mesmerizing to witness this moment in time.

I totally concur. These 2 shots are really demonstrating the full aspect of architectural achievement this site has. Excellent

Bag man extraordinary. Well seen.

Very intriguing shot. Like it alot.

I agree that removing it and leaving it more balanced is better than just cropping it out. I was just making the point about what distracted me when looking at the photo. I'm surprised to hear that a landscape photography competition would prohibit that kind of modification. It is encouraged in our camera club critiques.

I like this one a WHOLE lot better than either your initial post or the modified second version! Seeing the houses more prominently enhances it greatly.

A nice shot but you posted a very low resolution version so I couldn't enjoy it full screen.

Glorious shots!
All of them, but if I have to choose...

That's fair and I appreciate the initial comment, I was just replying with my thoughts on your suggestion and the thinking behind the image in general. It's always interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on an image I've made and often surprising. When I post a larger set, I often get the most positive feedback about images I nearly didn't include because I didn't really think they were strong enough and hear nothing about the ones I really liked, so it's always interesting to hear a spread of other people's opinions, although I will enter into a discussion about it if I think there's more to be said or disagree with the suggestion.

I believe it's very common. My only experience of this is Landscape Photographer of The Year. From what I remember when I entered a few years ago they allow light manipulation in line with what you can do in a darkroom, i.e. cropping, local dodging / burning / colour balance and so on, but wholesale removal of objects from a scene is considered a no no. Finalists must agree to submit raw files so that the extent of modification can be verified.

I guess the idea is you're supposed to be capturing a representation of the natural world, so adding or removing things isn't really true to that, so I suppose you've got to draw the line somewhere.

I guess at some point, after a certain amount of manipulation the image stops being a representation of reality and becomes art, which is a much broader canvas.

I think Thomas Heaton recently did a video on what's considered "cheating" in competitions. Some are really strict, others less so, but also some of the examples he shows really did deserve to be disqualified.

Just to clarify, this is a small full res crop from the centre of the wide image i posted earlier. I only posted this to show the amount of detail the GFX100S captures without posting the full res version of the complete image. The full wide image posted earlier has exactly the same amount of detail.

Here are the two crops side by side...

That said, if I'd brought a longer lens along on this walk, I might have also shot something like this too, but as it was, it was just a short walk up a steep hill and I didn't want to pack (or carry) a full kit, so I only brought along the 45-100 (35-80-ish in 35mm terms) which is a good general purpose lens.

Walk in old town day after snowfall.

Wrong thread, should go to "Lonely benches" instead?

Olde Hansa, one of most "authentic" medieval restaurants in town

Selling sweet almonds

Gates of Babylon

Nice place but nobody wants to sit there with such cold

Main street in old town, connecting city center with town hall

St. Catherine's passage

Western part of old town with best preserved city wall

Some fab shots you have here. Thanks for the tour. My fave...Classic wins.

I have the exact same experience.

The view of our judges is that we are creating art. We have a separate category called altered reality. You must enter it as that if you "add" anything to the photo that wasn't there. However, removing distracting elements, even people, is considered fair game.

I enjoy these kinds of discussions. Sharing diverse opinions. I wish there was more of that in this weekly thread.