Tilt-Shift Astrophotography

[MarkS]

A tilt-shift image was the winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-54105085

Whatever next!?

Mark

[Carole]

What the????

Some of those images are awful, except for the "Painting the Sky" image, and Lukasz image of the Moon and Jupiter a damn insult to the excellent images that must have been submitted.
The Prison of Technology, by Rafael Schmall tells a sorry tale and the aurora are pretty.

But as for the others. Speechless.

I think I submitted a few, too long ago to remember, but won't bother in future.

Carole

[RobertM]

I saw that and thought the same - just goes to prove how ludicrous the 'hobby' is getting.  If anywhere it needs to be in the Tate gallery where it can be taken more seriously !

I'll check out the others later.

Robert

[Carole]

.......and there is a starless image - give me strength.

Mark, Roberto, Duncan and myself have just spent the best part of the last week choosing images for the OAS Calendar 2021, I think we did a better job than these so called judges did.

Carole

[Hugh]

Well, as you know I'm not into astrophotography but do enjoy looking at all your efforts and have to agree that the judges here must have had a real 'off day' to make that pretty average pic of the Andromeda Galaxy the overall winner!  Some of the other winners do also seem to have been extremely lucky or has there been a bit of 'photo-shopping' going on ~ or am I just pessimistic?

I can only say to the usual contributors to this Forum that, for me, many of your efforts exceed what I have seen via the web link above.  Don't be disheartened by what seems to be acceptable as quality elsewhere ~ here it remains high!!

"Illegitimum non carborundum" ~ seems appropriate!

Keep them coming you 'all-nighters'!

Clear Skies

Hugh

[Carole]

I decided to take a look at who the judges were, and looking at this lot, there is only one out of 10 of them that has a clue about Astrophotography.  They should have people who know what they are talking about such as Nyk Syzmanek , Rob Gendler, or Adam Block etc  to judge such a competition.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory/insight-astronomy-photographer-year/competition/judges

[Roy]

I had thought about starting a thread about those images but very quickly realised that whatever I would say would probably considered libellous, but I'll say it now, other than the image of the moon and Jupiter, in my opinion they are rubbish and certainly not worthy of being winners! I think the underlying problem is the difference between 'Astro-Imaging' and 'Astro-Art', and Carole you hit the nail on the head by saying the judging panel are not imagers and so what criteria did they use? Along similar lines there is a very interesting video by Dylan O'Donnell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBWwAvKvMD0

Roy

[Carole]

They should change the title of the competition, to an Astroart competition, as it is clearly not an Astrophotography competition, and then serious Astrophotographers can stop wasting their time submitting good images.

Carole

[The Thing]

What tripe. Just seen the Andromeda tilt-shi.t image on the Mail Online. If my stars were like that I'd put a hammer to my scope! Horrendous. And now many many more will be convinced the heavens are just a Photoshop creation.

[Carole]

Oh Duncan that really made me laugh, sums it up perfectly.

I tell you what, I have submitted the odd image to this competition, over the last 2 or 3 years, and never got short listed.  The submission method itself is a right PITA.

After this I will never ever bother again now I know it's not serious AP they are looking for.   Not that I even expect to get shortlisted, but one would like to feel it is a fair competition and may the best image win, but it's far from that. 

Carole 

[MarkS]

I decided to take a look at who the judges were, and looking at this lot, there is only one out of 10 of them that has a clue about Astrophotography.  They should have people who know what they are talking about such as Nyk Syzmanek , Rob Gendler, or Adam Block etc  to judge such a competition.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory/insight-astronomy-photographer-year/competition/judges

Look at paragraph 10.3 here https://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory/insight-astronomy-photographer-year/competition/adult-competition-rules:

"The judges come from a range of disciplines; they will be considering images according to criteria comprising technical skills, artistic merit and originality"

[Fay]

I agree could not believe the awful "winner" looks like a first attempt with a failure to get the stars in focus!

Fay