I agree with Ami on the cropping but only in respect of loosing that awful blown out sky at the top! If you exclude that, you are loosing a lot of head room and cramping the person making the bowls and I think that lessens the effectiveness of the picture. However, down to business!
1/ I think the film is not doing you any favours here, I'm assuming that it is run of the mill kodak. The colour saturation is not great and the contrast is weak. I strongly recommend trying a pro film (personnally I like fuji NPS 160 for everything that is in full light and not moving much, but try a few and see what you like). Always remember to use it and process it quickly and store it out of the camera in the fridge, otherwise you get a lovely colour cast to the highlights
2/ I think the scan is letting the image down, the res looks a bit low and the screen/ccd/print has a few imperfections.
3/ The Vivitar has TTl and not a lot else, where did you meter? The bowls look to give a nie even 18% grey surface to meter off but I'm not sure if the Viv has a very narrow spot meter, centre wweighted or whatever. I t looks like it could have taken a stop down.
4/ The focus is a little indistinct. Part of this is the aperture at 3.5. are you sure about this as this looks like an EV 11-13 scene and I would have guessed 1/250 at f4 for this.However, this is giving you a very short depth of focus (though the shot doesn't suggest the aperture was that wide). i would suggest at F11 1/30 or F8 1/60 depending on how steady your hand is and what the focal length of the lens was when the shot was taken. Both of these would increase the DOF and give more clarity across the field of view.
5/ Okay, now this gets confusing and I'd bore everyone to tears if I started rambling about it here....Hyperfocal Distance. This basically gives you the maximum clarity across the focal length selected. if you point your browser to http://dfleming.ameranet.com/hyperfocal.html there is a very good easy to understand explanation. I think there is a calculator there if your lens does not have the little scale under a plastic cover (ahhhh, thats whats its for!) which you can print and put in your camera bag.
Now that the criticisim is out of the way can I just end by saying that the technique used to capture the shot needs work but the eye that saw and composed it needs no help whatsoever. The composition, the recognition of a subject that is interesting anthropologically, works as a travelogue, and is just easy on the eye with that wonderful pattern, shows real talent.
have look around the forum, dammit, look in my portfolio! You'll find lots of shots perfectly exposed, composed, focussed and processed yet what they are of are as dull as dishwater, mainly because they lack any originality. A lot of people have a concept of what a classic 'arty' photo should be and simply recreate it, stuff like that is worthless (and I'm guilty so I can't cast the first stone). I'm actually convinced that Hasselblads only shoot two shots; nude on rock and long exposure beach/cliff with 0.9ND filter!
I think its very telling that you are one of the few people on the forum that have equal Charisma and Karma ratings, how many old hands do you see with a charisma of 100 and karma of 20,000? I think your rating speaks volumes.
I'm not aware of the local market for cameras and I applaud you for using an almost fully manual camera. However, if they are available, its worth looking for second hand stuff at this price point. In this country a Viv 3800n is about £150 (I think) and I recently saw a very nice canon F1 for less, a camera that is all but indestructable (not leica indestructable but not far off) and was once arguably one of the best cameras in the world.
To cut a long story short (too late!) its a great picture and I shall be adding you to my friends list so I make sure I see all your new posts as soon as they are available.
Very nice image but the scene had a lot more potential IMO. A lower viewpoint might have added drama. Also, too bad the main figure is not too sharp. Cropping out the sky in camera might have improved overall exposure as well.
I've tried a little cropping and AutoBalance in MS PhotoEditor (don't have access to PS right now). See how you like it.
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{K:15402} 10/15/2003
