Photographs on this site

[Tomislav Raymondi]

Just to add only.

How many angles are there to take a photo to one ship?

Basically four points (from fore to aft, starboard and portside bands and from aft to fore) therefore the possibilities to change such a takes are impossible.

I took a glance to a very recent upload MSC KIM - IMO: 9351581, there are 70 photos of this same ship, the first photo was posted in the year 2015 because this is a relatively a new container ship.

I know I do not have any authority to comment anything about the web site as I have downloaded all my photos but I am a very old menber practically since the very beginning of this web page.

One solution to this problem about the quantity of the same photos, should be to keep the photo uploaded for a limited number of years for example five (5) years after this time and only if this is possible the photos should automatically been downloaded from the records.

This is another point of view and please take it bas another opinion.

Regards

Tomislav Raymondi.

[PHa]

Good morning (Monday, 4th of May, 06.00 am)!

Is this a relevant discussion regarding quantity of photo uploads? I do not think so. Here are some details:

11 members with 58.257 uploads (average 5.297; from 189 up to 20.060 photos per member) are actually discussing this thread of in total 90.743 members with 1.863.217 photo uploads in the database.

simonwp: 681 photos online
Jens Boldt: 10.109 photos online
csaba:    819 photos online
Clyde Dickens: 4.224 photos online
DEREK SANDS: 8.774 photos online
Patrick Hill: 1.411 photos online
Hannes van Rijn: 20.060 photos online
Go

[Anton Heuff]

Shipspotting as a spare time hobby, and this website in particular, would benefit from some divine intervention where memory cards became write-once only and prices were barely affordable.
Oh, what a throwback to times when your rolls of film put a heavy burden on your holiday budget, you might say. But how we treasured every single picture!

Regards, Anton

[Captain Ted]

Like now to my knowledge 4 pics per vessel per member
that sounds reasonably to me.
Restrict them in time to stay on,,for what then to load them up when I know already the picture will disappear again.

Only by super quality,,, (no offense Thomas!!) ,but not all people live a fjord or in a location like him or have equipment like him.

Not uploading when someone takes pics from the same site,,, means also restricting,,in other words,,I see another spotter take pictures I go home again ?

One never will please all peoples here. For some the background is more important then the ship,,, the next wants the ship only, but possible only in a sunny setting,,and so on
different tastes, we have to live with that,,,and better so.

and yes,, I agree,, I see some peoples have of the same ship 20-30 pictures

makes no sense !!!!

[simonwp]

With regard to quantity of photographs, a person I know acts as a photo administrator or an aircraft website, and says that the have much the same problem regarding people posting multiple shots of the same aircraft etc, and they have not satisfactorily resolved it. They try and encourage posters to be economical and not over post, but with mixed success. One poster they found had posted over fifty almost identical shots of the same plane, taken from almost the same spot over an 18 month period. They have upgraded their server twice, but it will not be too long before they have to make some serious decisions.

With regard to site standards for photographs and how it was administered, they found that an unintended consequence of having some fairly high standards, and trying to police them was that it discouraged people who perhaps were uncertain about their own photographs from posting. It was a particular issue with mainly younger members who perhaps couldn't afford better equipment, and they felt left out. Again no easy answers, they tried to have a pro-active help section for people who were doubtful to post photographs and get advice or re-assurance etc. but it took resource.

[ChasB46]

Simonwp, if persons cannot upload responsibly (ie dump too many photos of one view etc) dump them. Simple?

[pieter melissen]

it is simply a matter of self restraint. Whenever I post a picture I will first check how many pictures there are of the same ship (with the same name of the shot I might post) are already there. In most cases I find that 2 or 3 shots is enough to prevent me from posting, unless I think the shot has some special merits because of the lighting or what ever. I am not vain enough to think that my shot will provide the best view of a ship ever.

I would be against a removal of any shot after a given period, (I saw suggestions of five years or so). Such a practice will greatly reduce the historical relevance of the site, as a source for older pictures, especially when you are interested in pictures of ships under earlier names.

And yes, some shipspotting areas are popular so you get many sots of the same ship from different posters, and to get more personal, I would not give a damn if a shot is by Jens Boldt or Andreas Hoppe, as long as it represents a proper, quality, shot of the ship. Having two proper,similar shots of the same ship provides no added value, but as I said before it is all a matter of restraint by the posters.  (The Hamburg situation as decribed by Jens is very much similar to the one in Amsterdam, but there seem to be even more regular spotters.

So unless bandwith comes free people should try to restrict themselves, which might ulitmately be stimulated by a request from the webmaster to pay if you want to post shot number 36 (or whatever) of the same ship.     

[Captain Ted]

@ Pieter

the "pay" if you go over the allotted 4 permitted,,is not a bad idea !!!!

[simonwp]

Pay...there's a thought. It would help curb over posting. Sometimes I think some posters are using the site as free web based storage for their photographs, or am I being too cynical?

[Tuomas Romu]

There's a Facebook group for ships built on a particular shipyard. Every day, one member posts a photograph of a particular ship arriving in a particular port.

Every. Freaking. Day.

Let's not make Shipspotting.com like that.

[Mick Warrick]

Simonwp, What are you on about ? I would pay, but there is no need for that !

[Thomas Atkinson]

Not everyone stays close to or by a river harbour or have crystal clear days for photography the world is different in case some on the site has not noticed, I sit back and laugh sometime at the pettiness of people talking about different quality of pictures its like watching school children bickering in the play ground ie its ma baw yer no playing
if everything was about quality it would be the same people posting from the same places all the time and those don't a have the same conditions to photograph would be left out, so everyone should just get on with posting pictures and have less moaning complaining or what ever you want to call it   

[pieter melissen]

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2246890

just to illustrate the point of redundancy, this is shot number 231 of this ship, which in itself is hardly an interesting one....(Sorry Henk, no personal offense in quoting your shot)

[pieter melissen]

and ironically the shot gets a great number of views since I posted the link.... :)and it is a good shot too.

[Cornelia Klier]

I have read all comments here and must admit, some views I do not understand.

I think, the site is o.k. the way it is. If the admin team decides that once, only 2 photos per ship instead of 4-5 then it will always be fine with me.

What I do not understand is some people claiming certain ships as "not interesting" like before by Pieter Melissen. Who decide, what is interesting and what not?

There are plenty of photos of ships here which are not interesting to  me, but others like it. Also, "shipspotting" simply means - spot a ship. If the ship is a frequent visitor to a part, like "Hanni" is to Hamburg, why not post photos of this ship? Of course, some photos are seem more often and some seldom. But that is just the way it is.

I personally upload, whatever photos I get of ships. If I see ships too often, then I might skip uploading apart from if it a special good photos. Before I upload, I do not check what others have already uploaded because it is not my primary interest, but to choose good photos that I took and upload these and hope, they are liked by members.

Of course there are areas, where not many shipspotters live, or which are hardly accessible to any people. But, the fact is that many people live in central Europe and take photos of ships. It would not be good to do any restrictions as it would be unfair against one or other member and do not forget, some people have to travel very far and take holidays just to take photos of ships.