For those who are in planted tanks, there is always an urge to participate in the ADA competition. Just to have fun and something for us to look forward.
Beside coming up with a nice scape, healthy plants, happy fish, one of the most important criteria is to take good photo.
actually taking good photo is not part of the criteria. If you see the 2008 grand prize winner is probably only using point and shoot digital camera. You can clearly see windows/door reflection and still rank number 1.
Oh, is it? I did not really notice it... From past booklets, most of the top rankings were very well photo. A clearer picture would show the condition of the plants/scape better. I think lighting is more important than the camera, if tank's light not so power and no external flash is employed, quite tough to achieve a good result.
I also thought the same until I saw 2008 winner. See the attached picture, I circled the reflection on right hand side.
wow...Maybe this superb scape overpower the photo defects...Such large tanks would require more setup to take good photo, very challenging. Judges may have take that into considerations?
Reflection does not mean that the person uses point and shoot camera. The picture is still very clear despite the reflection. I think they won't minus points if there's reflection but your picture still need a certain degree of clarity to impress them. Just my 2 cents.
OK, I admitted that point and shoot is a wild guess . It does not look to be taken by person who knows about photography nor care much about photo. He can easily remove those reflection by taking the photo at night for example.