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andrea22_alsComment by timfythetoo: Greetings from the Critique Club -
Free Studies are such tough challenges. To get the higher scores you really need to have a dead on shot. This image has some issues that are easily overlooked for a yearbook image, but in the world of DPC will garner you a low score.
From a positive point of view you had great timing in capturing this moment. Just a split second before the tag itself (which I am assuming she did - lokos like a clean catch in plenty of time). And the poses you caught all three particpants in is nice. The umpire is actually my favorite of the three. Great position.
Issues with the image that prevent it from scoring higher. I would love to see this tack sharp. It just has an overall soft feel to it. Not sure if its from to otight a crop or what, but I can see the shutetr speed you used and the lens you used and it should be a bit sharper I would think (not sure for sure though). Maybe a final USM on your resized for web image could have made it sharper.
Also - I know you have prettymuch no control over your background here, but it is a bit distracting. Alot of lines and various colors draw away from the focus of the action. You could do a ton of postprocess work to minimize that, but probably not worth the work. I wonder what black and white converted version of this would look like. That might take away some of the background distraction. But then the uniform colors would be lost and they are nice.
Just did a quick peek at your image size. I see that you used the full 720 pixels but that your size of file in KB is almsot half of what it could be. That there could be a cause of your image feeling soft. Make sure you max that out as high as possible. It will affect your image quailty and how viewers see your image.
Keep working at it and dont let the low scores discourage you. Give me a Pm if there is anything I can help with.
Tim
Photographer found comment helpful.