What an arresting composition. You would think that the increasing size of the sails to the right would draw your eye out of the picture, but the orange buoy in the lower left prevents this and together with judging boat, balances the picture. This must have been a high contrast scene, as the sails are nicely exposed and not blown, but the sky and sea seem too dark. They cannot be brought up in the image presented due to noise and the shallow bit depth of jpg images. If a raw original is available, it may be possible to adjust the sky and sea and also to avoid saturating the red channel in the buoy. I think it would have been better to have shot at ISO 100 with an aperture of around f/4 as this would have produced less noise and also allowed a shorter exposure. Exposure bracketing and HDR processing might have been a way to address the problem of the high contrast of the scene.   Posted: 08/02/2019 12:35:13

Thanks for the insights. I noticed the speed was shown at 1/88 and was actually at 1/800. Storm clouds overhead and the sun coming in under the clouds as it was mid morning in Feb. You note on the red cast is right on and it also shows up in the sky over the Blue and white committee boad . I shoot at high speed and high f stops to get the entire or most of the main subject in focus and thind f/4 would limit the depth of fiels. Dealers choise. You have given me a lot to think about and thanks.   Posted: 08/03/2019 08:45:47

1/800 makes more sense. Check out hyperfocal length settings that allow you to have everything in focus from some depth to infinity that depends on the aperture and sensor size. By dropping your shutter speed to 1/400 and using the widest aperture possible that gives you everything in focus from some minimum distance to infinity, you can probably reduce your ISO to 100, which will then facilitate bringing up dark areas. Meanwhile, what file type is the original of your shot, raw, tif, or jpg? What happens when you work with your original? Can you bring up the sea and sky?   Posted: 08/04/2019 19:35:00

Interesting subject. A couple of things that work well with this image (in my opinion): the white sail on the far right is the largest, but this doesn't matter because the smaller sails closer to the center, have a pleasing bright golden color, drawing our eyes to them. I feel my eye goes from the large sail on the right, down the leading line of boats to the judging boat, then to the red buoy. What I would like to see: over all lighter sky and water. Not a lot, but it feels too dark for me. I would keep the buoy red, but possibly reduce the luminance. It's brightness overwhelms that of the subject boats for me.   Posted: 08/06/2019 13:50:19

I like composition, in my opinion the red buoy a little be too bright. the clouds are too noisy but larger image in the front created nice perspective.   Posted: 08/06/2019 14:54:36

I just now went in and played with your image. I decided, as it appears did Leonid, that the buoy is distracting so I removed it and brightened the image slightly.   Posted: 08/06/2019 15:49:23

I feel the buoy, suitably toned down, is important for the balance of this image. Otherwise, my eye just zips off the right edge.   Posted: 08/06/2019 18:28:15

Really dramatic composition. The sky is a little grainy, but that was probably based on camera settings. The buoy is bright, but I am not sure I would remove it. I like it as part of the composition. Maybe there is a way to tone down the color?   Posted: 08/10/2019 08:37:15

An interesting capture of the race.The sky looks like a storm is coming. I would like a little more canvas above the white sailed boat. I would leave the red buoy in. It makes a triangle with the motor boat and the white sailed boat that pulls my eye around the image   Posted: 08/10/2019 13:35:16

This is a great composition, Tom! The red boy in the foreground provides a corner of a triangle that leads my eye to make a jump to the matching red marker aboard the judging boat and then down the line of sails. I find attractive too the framing of the sails by the dark clouds in the sky. I wouldn't change anything.   Posted: 08/10/2019 14:18:53

Tom, are you reading the comments? I'm still interested to know what type of file is your original image and whether it permits bringing up the sky and sea.   Posted: 08/17/2019 15:45:02

The August submission has generated a wide variety of ocmments and I read each and every one. Valuable differences in perspectives are represented in the comments which is the value in critiquing and for this I thank you.
The marker bouys mark the starting line for a race and in my opinion important but the comments on their removal change the content but leave a lovely photo . The bouys over saturation calls attention to the starting line and marks the invisible start line. Note the small orange dot at the stern of the committee boat at the left end of the photo. That is the far end of the invisable starting line. Water was steel gray with intermittent showers, dehasing would remove some of the cloud cover and adding testure would add some definition to the clouds. Thanks for making me think more in the future before submitting a photo. The original photo was taken with a 15 MP camera and imported with Lightroom producing a 4752 x 3168 file size and was subnitted with a 1024 x 763 resolution. Look forward to more comments.   Posted: 08/18/2019 08:43:20

What file type was the original file, and does it or a tif derived from it permit bringing up the sea and sky without generating excessive noise and weird colored pixels?   Posted: 08/18/2019 12:27:58

Robert, the file should have been a dng file.   Posted: 08/18/2019 13:55:27

That's interesting, I hadn't known that any cameras used dng for the original file storage type. I'm still interested to know whether by using the original dng file you can bring up the sea and the sky without too much noise or weird colored pixels.   Posted: 08/19/2019 19:10:15