Supersonic Jumpby
madcrabberComment by LalliSig: Greetings from the critique club :)
Sorry but this is a going to be a bit short, can´t really think of much to say about this picture.
I didn´t vote in this challenge but I think I would have given this a 6, a rating I give out to photos that are above average in the challenge but don´t really have that extra "umpfh" or wow factor that make me wanna give it a higher score.
Technically this is a nice photo. The players are in focus and the motion is pretty well stopped. However, this shot would have worked so much better with a bigger aperture, like a 2.8. I assume you used your 18-55 for this shot since you didn´t put that info there. I know guys here in Iceland that use the 50mm 1.8 lens for indoor sports so getting a lens with useable 2.8 aperture doesn´t have to cost you thousands of dollars, I would suggest you look into this lens if you wanna do more indoor sports work. It would have made it possible for you to get the same shot with iso 800 and 1/250 of a second shutter time and also leading to a shallower DOF wich is the main fault with this image as far as I am concerned, the deep DOF isn´t isolating the players from the crowd and as a result my eye is drawn to the crowd as much as the players, wandering around the frame instead of being drawn to the action. I am not sure about the b/w conversion, I think personally I would have liked this better in color but making it b/w makes it more artsy, I am not sure and would have to see the original to make up my mind. I just think that in colour, the players wouldn´t blend in as much with the crowd. The contrast and sharpness are good in this photo.
I have never used a gradient map to make b/w, I use the channel mixer in photoshop to do b/w conversion as it gives me control over how much of each channel I use to make the photo black and white, I suggest you try it out. I´m not saying it´s a better method, just saying you should experiment and see what you like better, I am gonna try the gradient map and see how I like it.
As for meeting the challenge, no question there. All in all a pretty good shot, like I said, I don´t hand out 6´s unless the photo is above average and this has a lot of potential. Wish I could go to NBA games and take photos... Sigh, maybe sometime :)
Kind regards from Iceland, Larus.
Photographer found comment helpful.
