Facebook Photo Groups

I am with only one facebook photo group and the only reason why I am with it is it is only for people in our area.
So we still get a good variety of photo's through group members happy holiday snaps.
We have got some really good photographers there and some real hacks at it.
There is one in every group that is the know it all. And this one in our group is a female.

When I 1st started I went to the meetings and one question I asked was if we were to do day trips could we bring our partners with us. Now this went down real well, but at lease I knew that it was a firm no.
Hearing this was one part of me beginning to question do I want to be there.

Now we have got a sunset meeting and someone asked if it was okay if she bought her kids along.
And the law makers when I asked said not a word. I began to thing what it going on.
There are 177 members to our group and I was beginning to notice replies or comment to peoples photos.
Some of the people who are leaving the comments are not from our area.
They are over 200 kilometers away from here. But I am thinking that some of these might have come from here n the beginning.
And the ones running this know them, so they are permitting them to become members.
Its not their faults that they are permitted to be on this page.
So I have decided that I will stop posting there and stop making comments.
The reason is that what this stood for in the beginning is far removed from where it is today.
If you want a group to your area keep it that way, well thats what I think.

Why not start your own group?

I'm really trying to figure out if this is a rant or question on how we handle things or what. So you have a group and people are liking our photos who do not live close by. The nature of Facebook is that people can share things with others, so unless the permissions of the group allow no sharing, the guess what, your stuff might get shared around the globe. (even if they aren't actually a member of the group)

And why should it matter if someone on another continent likes your stuff? You know they aren't going to show up t your next meeting location.

If you are upset about people bringing their kids, then say something. At least there is a very good reason for not wanting kids around. i know if I was setting up $10k+ worth of gear and some kids were running around that I'd be upset as well.

Aussie1 wrote in post #18005365
I am with only one facebook photo group and the only reason why I am with it is it is only for people in our area.
So we still get a good variety of photo's through group members happy holiday snaps.
We have got some really good photographers there and some real hacks at it.
There is one in every group that is the know it all. And this one in our group is a female.

When I 1st started I went to the meetings and one question I asked was if we were to do day trips could we bring our partners with us. Now this went down real well, but at lease I knew that it was a firm no.
Hearing this was one part of me beginning to question do I want to be there.

Now we have got a sunset meeting and someone asked if it was okay if she bought her kids along.
And the law makers when I asked said not a word. I began to thing what it going on.
There are 177 members to our group and I was beginning to notice replies or comment to peoples photos.
Some of the people who are leaving the comments are not from our area.
They are over 200 kilometers away from here. But I am thinking that some of these might have come from here n the beginning.
And the ones running this know them, so they are permitting them to become members.
Its not their faults that they are permitted to be on this page.
So I have decided that I will stop posting there and stop making comments.
The reason is that what this stood for in the beginning is far removed from where it is today.
If you want a group to your area keep it that way, well thats what I think.

You weren't right happy about Australian Photography Forums either were you.

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1452149

FB photo groups??? That has to be an oxymoron. How can you use a medium designed to degrade your image quality to highlight your photography. Absurd. I posted photos on my FB personal page in order to attract people to my site to view the photos and hopefully buying them. heheheh... They are never as means to archive your shots!!!!

The main point on this is that the page was set up as for only people in our area.
Plus it was only for the people in this group were allowed to go on group outing's.
But now both those points have been thrown out the window, for what ever reason.

I might be more of a rant now that it has been mentioned, but a truthful one.
As for starting one of these myself is never going to happen there are more than enough of these things now.
To add another one would be plain stupid and plus I have go no idea on how to run one.

It's interesting -- FaceBook groups are "managed" in whatever way the group admins choose to manage them.

I myself started a FaceBook group for "Pacific Northwest Photographers" back in '12. It got "birthed" at a meetup of four POTN members at the waterfront area in downtown Portland, OR in April of that year for an afternoon of Street photography, we had a good time, two or three of the guys brought a lady, a good time was had by all! Toward the end of our time, I tossed out the idea of a FaceBook group, although we were part of a POTN Pacific Northwest group/section (that also began with a POTN Portland meetup). FaceBook could throw a "broad net" for people in the area to participate, so sure! I started the group, and off we went!

As we got underway, it was pretty quick and simple. I wrote up some of the "big picture" and some guidelines for group membership, photo sharing, comments/discussions and such, and set up several people as "admins", and we were off and running, dropping the word in our FaceBook interactions, and we who were at the meetup posted shots from that and other PNW shots...

Well, guess what? Things really took off! In fact, our membership reached almost 3,000 people!, and there were and still are so many great photo contributions, you just can't keep up!

There was some "unrest" that got stirred up during a period of time. I had been overcoming some life upheavals (and still am) and couldn't be a "group manager" effectively. A gal stepped up to help, but in so doing she began interpreting some things in a way that bothered some people, various people dropped out, but that time ended when she passed away and one of our POTN gang jumped in to help, and the group has just kept on happening! One thing we've slowed down on is how many new members to accept, the 3,000 mark has kept things pretty busy! But we keep having fun!

As to the original concerns of the OP, we don't have "official" group meetings. Like the POTN meetup that started things off, there are get-togethers of interested people, but I figure people can work things out on-the-fly. There are also several accomplished photogs who hold periodic workshops, which is of course something they can invite people to and manage in their own way.

As to people joining who are out of this region, we did lay out the "guideline" of members being either in the Pacific Northwest, or at some point were here and had photos, or were in other ways active in PNW photography. When people ask to join, the admins can check them out and one of them can either approve them or not, and it all has worked well for us.

Well, that's about all for now...

As to FaceBook photos, I haven't had a real problem, because I upload photos to FaceBook that are of a reasonable Web Viewing size. Sure they are shrunk down as thumbnails, but if someone opens them up, or especially opens them in the Full Screen View mode, then they are either not shrunken or they might be a bit to fill a viewer's screen, and my results have been pretty good.

Well put Tony you hit the nail on the head with what you have stated.

TooManyShots wrote in post #18006163
FB photo groups??? That has to be an oxymoron. How can you use a medium designed to degrade your image quality to highlight your photography. Absurd. I posted photos on my FB personal page in order to attract people to my site to view the photos and hopefully buying them. heheheh... They are never as means to archive your shots!!!!

You use them for organizing meets and outings, discussing gear and technique, and socializing. Sometimes for sharing low-res versions.

Or for bragging, arguing, and putting down other photographers' work.... whatever floats yer boat.

Hey, I'll repeat that I've had good results with FaceBook photo sharing, as have the people making contributions to our FaceBook group. I'd venture that Facebook has as good quality as what we see here in POTN, at least from my visual viewpoint. I'm talking about those who take a good quality image and properly process it for the Web, including downsizing it to a "normal" display resolution, like we do here in POTN. In fact, if you share images here in POTN and are satisfied with the results, take the same jpg and post it to FaceBook, and open and view it (so the image is not being downsized/compressed) and compare. If you see a noticeable difference, I'd like to know, and please post screen shots so that we can see ourselves!

tonylong wrote in post #18008079
Hey, I'll repeat that I've had good results with FaceBook photo sharing, as have the people making contributions to our FaceBook group. I'd venture that Facebook has as good quality as what we see here in POTN, at least from my visual viewpoint. I'm talking about those who take a good quality image and properly process it for the Web, including downsizing it to a "normal" display resolution, like we do here in POTN. In fact, if you share images here in POTN and are satisfied with the results, take the same jpg and post it to FaceBook, and open and view it (so the image is not being downsized/compressed) and compare. If you see a noticeable difference, I'd like to know, and please post screen shots so that we can see ourselves!

I just looked at a photo I posted on this site and on a photosharing group on Facebook, and I don't see a difference. Never really payed attention before.

Facebook quality is usually "good enough" though if you like to pixel-peep or go looking for artifacts, you'll find them.

However, I've recently found one instance where Facebook compression really mangles images: high-contrast, high-ISO, with lots of very-saturated reds. Canon's sensors don't do so great with these to start with, and FB compression makes them just about unusable.

...FB - the downfall of our society!

enjoy!