[Banded Drake]

Irma and G? Its been a while .

........ Shawn

[Toad]

Mostly posting at Flickr these days, I'm afraid...

[Banded Drake]

Well i hope they decide to comeback and visit . I hate that they arent posting . And Zig too ...

... Shawn

[Russt]

Well i hope they decide to comeback and visit . I hate that they arent posting . And Zig too ...

I agree BD I think we have lost quite a few...........

Maybe what happens is if you don't contribute on a regular basis you end up feeling on the outside and it can be hard to get back.

People will always come and go in forums as we all have lives outside the net, it can get busy and you can only spend so much time online. When its like this you put your time in where you feel its best.

Sorry to go on but I have to say you only get out what you put in..............with that said if you put in and still don't get anything back well you tend to lose interest! I have seen a few cases of this here.

I would like to also say that we all give at least as many posts to other members as we post on our own topics. Not to point the finger but I do see some people who never comment or give little comment yet post their own pics.

sorry again to go but this maybe part of lthe problem

best intentions...........

[Banded Drake]

I see what you are sayiing Russt , i have been guilt of this . Here lately i try soo hard to comment on photos , But i have a hard time with critiques ( giving them ) so i do not citique much at all. I just dont have the terms down that would make sence to the reader . I am working on that .



......... Shawn

[Russt]

G'day Shawn, i just want to say that in no way was my comments directed to you..........I think you give plenty.

I am like you I sometimes find it hard to citique or its all been said........but like there is no stupid questions, I feel if you tell it how you see it there is no stupid comments. We can not comment on all posts but we can give as much time to others as we do ourselves on the boards..........just a general comment!!

I would hate to see more people drop off...........

regards Russ

[Banded Drake]

I didnt feel like you were pointing at me . Its all good.

I would hate to see more people drop off

we had some great photogs drop off here and i would hate more to leave too .


.......... Shawn

[Wedding Shooter]

Yes - I miss some of these people as well.

I have to agree with Russt though.

Shawn - you contribute heaps mate.

[NT73]

The other forum I use has lost a lot of quality photographers over 12 months but other newcomers replace them. Maybe not as good but some improve quickly. I suppose it's life really. Although I think if I am gonna go off into the sunset I will say goodbye first, Like Rufus.

[Petographer]

It may seem like I have disappeared but I still poke my head in the door from time to time.

[Banded Drake]

It may seem like I have disappeared but I still poke my head in the door from time to time.

Glad to see you still around Peto



.......... Shawn

[guerito]

Hello Everybody!

I haven't been here for some time, that's true... I saw this thread this morning, and it got me thinking about why I'm not here more often. It has nothing to do with the "commenting behaviour" of the group or single members, and there is no one to blame, really. It's also true that I'm posting my pictures in flickr exclusively these days.

Mainly, I think, it boils down to what Microsoft and others call the "User Experience". It is text vs graphical user interface. Those of you who are my age (50!!) and in the computer business will remember the editor "vi" - text oriented, extremely capable for the expert and a complete mystery (and even dangerous) for newbies. If you compare vi to any modern text editor, you know what I mean.

This is a forum, in other words, a bulletin board system, a BBS. I have known these since the time before the WWW made its appearance. These BBS were very useful in times of expensive disk space and low bandwidth connections. Text oriented, they used very little capacity on both, you downloaded the message titles only and only went on to download the body of a message if the title was promising. BBS are still useful for discussions, but not really for pictures, IMO. The message titles are not too meaningful, sometimes. Today, with cheap disk space and high bandwidth connections, graphical user interfaces are possible - and a much better way to deal with graphical content. In flickr, I can see thumbnails - I click on the ones that I think are interesting to get the full picture. This is, for me, the natural way to see pictures.

Another problem (but related) is the organisation. In Shuttertalk, the main picture forums are split into "Snapshots", "Showcase" and "Critique". There are no categories for different subjects, only for the comments I'm expected to make. This is a bit like an art gallery with three rooms, or actually corridors. In each corridor you see picture after picture in a wild mix of landscapes, macros, abstracts, portraits, you name it. If you are in a mood for landscapes, it can be tiring to have to view lots of baby pictures, macros and flowers without knowing if there even is a landscape hidden somewhere towards the end of the corridor, and even more tiring if you are morally obliged to leave a comment on every picture you didn't even want to see.

Compare that to flickr. There you have a gallery with a room for each artist, and rooms inside the artists room for the artists own classifications, called sets. You also have groups, dedicated to certain aspects, and/or subjects, and/or commenting styles, and these groups (and their respective rules) are managed by the users themselves. Also, you have a tagging system that gives you another way of finding pictures you're interested in. Another way to find pictures is a popularity index, called "interestingness". You can suibscribe to certain artists work. Uploading pictures is easy, too. With the uploader program installed, there is even a "Send to flickr" entry in the explorers context menu. I upload the maximum size I want to publish and flickr does the resizing and the whole general presentation malarkey for me. No resizing needed to conform to specific rules. The whole "User Experience" (here it is again!) is intuitiv and extremely suited to the subject of digital pictures. This is exactly what a lazy bone like me needs.

I am aware that this comparision is extremely unfair. After all, flickr is a payed service (although you can have a free account with limited functionality). Shuttertalk is still the friendliest forum I know, and it is completely free. It's just that I only have limited time available for photographic activities. The most part of this time I spend shooting and doing things with my pictures in PS, and a minor part of this time I spend publishing my pictures and commenting on others. As this last part is so much easier in flickr, I do it mostly there.

Julian, if you read this post: You're doing a splendid job with Shuttertalk, and I'm really grateful for the time, effort and money you put into this forum. I know very well that something like flickr can't be set up within the limitations of a free service. In no way I meant to critizise what you have implemented here. Shuttertalk and the community is great. Keep up the great work.

Also I wanted to add that I'm not unsubscribing from Shuttertalk. I will be back, and more often when I have more time on my hands. Except if I'm banned from ST for this post, of course.

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Good to hear from ya Guerito! Say hello to Irma for me!

Dont be strangers.

Colin Belive me when i say i love to see your head poking thru that door.

/Paul L.

[Banded Drake]

Great to see you again Colin ( and Irma i know your lookin over Colins shoulder LOL ) . I think i know what you mean , but we all miss yall around here . Please keep stopping by and saying hi .

...... Shawn

[wulinka]

Hey everyone,

I'm afraid I'm one of the near-strangers. There were times when I posted daily, and I certainly got a lot out of ST!
Now we moved to Germany for a while, and in a few weeks will move on to China - so for the time we didn't bother to get a proper internet conection set up.
Meanwhile, I seem to notice whenever I get a chance to log on for a bit, that ST has become quiet alltogether! It seems to me there was a lot more going on a few months ago, when several treads would be practiacally ongoing, almost chats, over days, and you could see some of the same people online every day. Now, the latest post is often from a few days ago, some topics are "hibernating" over weeks.

I guess, sometimes, you just don't have much to say or to show, whereas at other times, one is very active and excited about what one produces, and then the urge is there to feed company and feedback.
I love shuttertalk for what it is, and I do hope that we all find each other and together every now and then, and that everybody always feels welcome to join, come back, or stay away for while as they feel is right for them!

Not much I can do but promise that I'll be back as soon as we are back on line, hopefully with some exciting shots from China!

Uli

[Toad]

Hmm. Interesting discussion, G. I do find that Flickr is a great place to see a ton of inspiring work, and to meet photographers that share your world-view and can help you develop.

But, I also have some counter points to make. I also post at Flickr (as you know), and have a few criticisms of its organization as well, even though everything you say is quite true.


- It is very hard to have a discussion like this one in Flickr. The discussion threads are based on groups, and tend to be overlooked. I don't really feel that there is much meaningful conversation there - outside of in the context of photo comments. If you didn't look at that particular photo - you miss the discussion.

- Presentation of individual photos is not as good as on Pbase or on Shuttertalk. I don't really care for the photos being restricted to the left side of the page only, and having to explicitely download a larger size to properly see a photo in full page width mode. At the other sites it is simple to see the photo taking up the whole width of the page. On PBase, the black (or user choosable) background is a much nicer artistic presentation.

- Like any large site, the realtive anonyminity attracts its fair share of idiots. Whereas almost all the people I have met on Flickr are great, there is a small minority who, well...you know....

- I see a lot of groups - where it seems the mode is "write once, read never". You post a shot, the volume of new posted shots quickly buries your shot in a wave of new thumbnails - and no comments get generated.

- The volume of posts makes it hard to look beyond the photos marked as interesting or much beyond the photos of your contacts, or a few chosen groups. Almost all of the comments I get there are from contacts - not from groups. If you have a lot of contacts, you get a lot of comments - and your photos regularly get branded "interesting". While I believe it is correct to get out of a site what you put into it - i.e. spend time commenting, and developing a lot of contacts, many people have limited time - and so by extension are not very interesting. Interesting really is a popularity index as you say. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with that, other than that it is totally self-perpetuating, and I see a lot of supposedly highly interesting photos that just make me scratch my head.

Overall: great source of inspiration, and fine community feeling if you can afford to spend a LOT of time on it - but it is not a very good place for a newbie or casual surfer to get much feedback.

Reminds me of PhotoSig but without the built-in structural requirment to be nasty by giving you points for critiques.

Just my $.02

[guerito]

I agree with most of what you said, T. Although you can have discussions in flickr. Have you seen the Utata group yet? There are a lot of discussions going on, and not only about photography.

This whole group thing takes some time to explore. I've had quite some comments from group postings, but only from a few select ones. Irma spends a lot of time exploring the processes and forces in flickr - she can probably tell you a lot more.

[Irma]

Hi all ...

Sorry I haven’t been participative in Shuttertalk, but there have been things that have happened ...

I posted some HDR pictures that were well received in flickr and I was working a bit in some HDR groups ... to learn more about the technique...

Then there was a challenge of Bokeh and I participated and won!! J I had to help with the organization of the next challenge and I was there all the time...

The other thing that took me a lot of time was that I have upgraded my photo gear... It was very difficult to take a decision... read a lot, consider pros and cons... probably this would be the only time in my life I could make an investment as I did to get what I really need/want...

My new gear is a 5D and three lenses.... 24-105 mm f4 EF-L, 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 L, and 180mm f3.5 L Macro...

also, I went to the sea for 3 days...

Shawn... thanks a lot for asking...

[shuttertalk]

Hey, really good to hear from you G and Irma! You're all banned by the way!

Just kidding... thanks very much for the comments and feedback - they're all really good points. I was considering at one point, to split up the showcase forum according to subject matter, but that idea never seemed to go anywhere... may be worth revisiting.

But yeah, I appreciate the honest feedback ... we're not dpreview forums or photosig or flickr, but we definitely want to keep improving and catering to the needs of our members. So feel free to let us know if you think anything can be changed for the better.


Irma... 5D? I'm so jealous! Interesting that you went over to the Canon camp after you had a D70...

[Petographer]

Thanks Shawn and Paul. I appreciate your comments. It's members like yourselves that keep me coming back.

[Wedding Shooter]

Good to hear from Irma and Collin.

Personally I really see Shuttertalk more as a discussion forum with picture posting - rather than a major picture posting place like Flickr.

I like forums to have a good friendly discussion and that is what I like about Shuttertalk.