[roentarre]

After some daunting 3 months on my career, study and LBA draining out of my bank account balance. The site finally had the final touch on photo blog!

Tell me what you think and any feedback is definitely welcomed!!


My photo blog page

[-=JoN=-]

i dont even know whaty you did... (sorry james, but this is the first time i'm seeing this...)


if it's that border leather looking like thing..I think..it's distracting, until you get to the photos....

[roentarre]

Thanks, Jon.

I am more of old book style and love things more out dated.

I think I might have spent too much time in my website lately as well. Time to concentrate on other bits in life.

p.s. I did not know you were from NYC! I remembered the green papaya and hot dogs I ate each day for saving a bit of money studying over there. I want to do some street shootings in Soho and would love to need a bit of hand when I visit. Deciding between Canada vs US.

[clawhammer]

That looks really good, and I love that picture of the rose!

[dantuyhoa]

James

Looks very cool to me . That BLACK border is distracting to me , though it's just my personal reference .

Man you're bokeh nuts . And I mean it with respect .

Tran

PS Now I'm hungry after see that food shot !

[mattdm]

Looks fine, but takes way too long to load. (And I'm on a relatively fast link.)

[clawhammer]

you're right, it does take some time to load all the pictures. what sort of hosting do you have going- is it on a ISP's website, a small server at your house, a coloc center?

[OniFactor]

looks good.. didn't take too long to load on mine.

i like the contrast of the old leatherbound notebook look and the more modern navbar, at the top

[Pentaxtic]

Maybe a nice banner long picture where you have this black space with the word Blog at the top of the leather part.

[Venturi]

Well I voted distracting, but it's not exactly that to me. The leather and tan just doesn't quite fit in with the aesthetic of the rest of the site. Your other pages are very crisp and clean and the black/gray theme really works well and accentuates your photos. By the way you really do have some great photos. The rest of the site possesses an air of professionalism and competence and pride in what you do with your camera. Honestly, until I saw the picture of you on your about page I had guessed you to be chronologically quite a bit older - that is a compliment btw.
But when I go to the blog page it kind of falls apart a bit. The leather background detracts from the quality of the content rather than complimenting it. The background image for the body of the blog also subdues the text making it difficult to read and that is counter productive. Your site is there to showcase your work, not compete with it.

So there you have my $0.02, which in todays market is becoming less and less valuable all the time.

[-=JoN=-]

Thanks, Jon.

I am more of old book style and love things more out dated.

I think I might have spent too much time in my website lately as well. Time to concentrate on other bits in life.

p.s. I did not know you were from NYC! I remembered the green papaya and hot dogs I ate each day for saving a bit of money studying over there. I want to do some street shootings in Soho and would love to need a bit of hand when I visit. Deciding between Canada vs US.

NJ now, but I still work in NYC. if and when you do decide to come visit...let me know....

[Peter Zack]

James, I voted yes. it loaded quickly for me a couple of times. I like the "old book" look to the blog and like that it's different from the photo pages. The rest of the site is a presentation of your work and the blog is a personal log, so those to me are quite different.

Well done and great site overall. I've been there a few times and always enjoyed your pictures.

Btw I noticed you have (or had?) the Sigma 150mm Macro and of course have the VL125. How would you compare the 2 lenses? The Sigma looked pretty good. VL's are impossible to find any more and pretty expensive if you can.

[Mikhail]

I think a nice simple banner would add to the page, the old book style its quite nice and easy on the eye and finally im on a quite fast connection but the front page took nearly 20 maybe 30 seconds to fully load.. which is way longer than any other page I ever visit has loaded.. but thats nit picking!
Nice site and keep it up!

Thanks

[roentarre]

you're right, it does take some time to load all the pictures. what sort of hosting do you have going- is it on a ISP's website, a small server at your house, a coloc center?

I join a webhosting site and it is kind of a cool package in deed. So maybe it is time to change company. Thanks for letting me know!

looks good.. didn't take too long to load on mine.

i like the contrast of the old leatherbound notebook look and the more modern navbar, at the top

I am a bit of fan of old book style and afraid that it might mix well with the rest of the site

Maybe a nice banner long picture where you have this black space with the word Blog at the top of the leather part.

Ahhh, perhaps. You mean off centre?

Well I voted distracting, but it's not exactly that to me. The leather and tan just doesn't quite fit in with the aesthetic of the rest of the site. Your other pages are very crisp and clean and the black/gray theme really works well and accentuates your photos. By the way you really do have some great photos. The rest of the site possesses an air of professionalism and competence and pride in what you do with your camera. Honestly, until I saw the picture of you on your about page I had guessed you to be chronologically quite a bit older - that is a compliment btw.
But when I go to the blog page it kind of falls apart a bit. The leather background detracts from the quality of the content rather than complimenting it. The background image for the body of the blog also subdues the text making it difficult to read and that is counter productive. Your site is there to showcase your work, not compete with it.

So there you have my $0.02, which in todays market is becoming less and less valuable all the time.

Thank you for all the time to provide critic. I really like your feedback and totally understand what you meant. This is also what I am afraid of. Maybe I should stick to the concept of "keeping it simple". I think I will leave it for the time being before my next attempt to change it all around again...

James, I voted yes. it loaded quickly for me a couple of times. I like the "old book" look to the blog and like that it's different from the photo pages. The rest of the site is a presentation of your work and the blog is a personal log, so those to me are quite different.

Well done and great site overall. I've been there a few times and always enjoyed your pictures.

Btw I noticed you have (or had?) the Sigma 150mm Macro and of course have the VL125. How would you compare the 2 lenses? The Sigma looked pretty good. VL's are impossible to find any more and pretty expensive if you can.

Hehe Peter. You are always so kind to offer a pat on the back

I use sigma 150mm f2.8 macro on canon body so my experience is limited on flat colour CMOS sensor from canon. Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro is probably one of the sharpest lens ever produced but we all know that sharpness is not the only thing we as photographers valued the most. Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro does not bring out the colour as well as canon 100mm f2.8 macro even though I think canon 100mm macro is a tad soft. Sigma 150mm f2.8 is being rated having a better contrast comparing to its competition like sigma 105mm, tamron f2.8, sigma 180 etc. I found the opposite. I think voigtlander lenses in cool lighting setting produces images of lower contrast.

Voigtlander 125mm macro is another beast altogether! (It took me a lot of effort in pentaxworld website to get a singapore supplier to get me one because I saw so many great images from that lens). Voigtlander 125mm macro is no doubt sharp, probably not that much different comparing to sigma 150mm macro. But the voigtlander colour is definitely richer with some kind of glow! Yes, maybe radiating with shine if I may call it that way. The bokeh is just incredibly smooth, gradual. The voigtlander macro takes on highlight bokeh extremely well, dampening the highlights to some sort of cotton wool spots. The flare is minimal, not noticeable at all. The manual focus ring has a very long travel where the pleasure derives from. A real pleasure.

I am going to meet up Darren Melrose on Tuesday for his insect macro spot in Taipei. That would be my time to play around with voigtlander 125mm macro on k20d. I will post the shots

[roentarre]

Sorry Peter. Sigma 150mm f2.8 is not sharp in the corners even stopping down unlike voigtlander 125mm macro is sharp from corner to corner!