I got a tripod for christmas and my sister was visiting with her brand new Cannon Digital Rebel, so I of course took the opportunity to try it out. I set this up on a timer and walked to the other end of the table to shoot the break once the shutter opened. I played with a few different setups, but I liked this one best, with the camera not much above the table height and the wide angle zoom. Since this was in my basement there was some background clutter so I burned the sides and made the background black instead.
I suppose I'll note that I think this shot will do pretty well, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.
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Place: 1 out of 97 Avg (all users): 7.7284 Avg (commenters): 8.5128 Avg (participants): 7.4000 Avg (non-participants): 7.9485 Views since voting: 18551 Votes: 162 Comments: 68 Favorites: 34 (view)
Well, for someone with a 5.3 average score and previous high score of a 6.5 this is pretty awesome to have a first place shot with such a wild score. Thank you everyone for your comments (whether I marked them helpful or not, they were all appreciated).
Several people have asked about how this was done so I'll explain a little bit more than I did in my original comments. As I said I used a tripod with a timer and a 1.6 sec shutter speed. The table is a black felt table and I burned out everything in the background to minimize clutter and give it a crisp locationless feel.
The lighting is afternoon sunlight from one basement window off to the left of this shot. I didn't use any flash; the solid image of the balls in the rack is just from them being there for about half of the shutter length, and the black table not reflecting enough light to show through beneath them onced they moved. If you look closely at the 8 ball, you can see that the racking dot on the table did show through. It is because of the single light source that the glare on the balls produced the sharp lines showing where they traveled. I actually was walking through my basement one day and saw how the light from that window made the pool table look really intersting, so I grabbed my (sister's) camera and my tripod, since the light was way too low for handheld shots, and started shooting still life shots of it. Then I decided to have some fun and tried capturing a break. And when I saw how cool that one shot turned out I ended up spending an hour or so messing around with it trying to get everything just right.
I do slightly regret having moved after I shot the break. I didn't think about it at the time.
One thing that a number of people mentioned was that including the whole table might have been I good idea. I'd thought about it, and I appreciate people offering their thoughts for improvements, but in the end I stand by my decision to frame it as I did. In order to maintain the angle I used here, to include the entire table it would have had to be a panoramic shot, and the focus and action of the shot would have taken up significantly less of the overall shot. I also don't know if that would have been physically possible since there is a wall about the length of a pool cue away from the table, and I don't think I could have gotten wide enough to include everything. I could have also raised the camera up a bunch and switched to a vertical composition in order to fit the entire table in, but doing so would have turned the shot into a more clinical look from above at how the pool balls moved instead of a closer more involved perspective, which is what I wanted. The closer I could be the more impact I figured the shot would have, so I tried to get as close as possible while maintaining as much context of the table as possible, and I think this angle and zoom enabled a strong balance of the two.
As a fun side note, a 24x36 print of this is going on the wall by our pool table in our newly finished basement.
Trying not to get your hopes up, aye. I'm glad you did. This is absolutely spendid. You took a great deal of thought composing this shot, and it shows. Congratulations on your first place achievement.
Definately cool. One of my favorites. I like how there was a little light reflecting on the balls to make the bright strips that follow the balls. Definately showing some action here, and although I'm not normally a fan of slow shutter speed (simply because it's rarely in interesting situations) I really do like this. And it's nice to see someone who actually knows how to rack. :)
Great shot! Like the composition and how you manged to get the exposure fairly well on the non-moving and moving parts. Was probably hard to achiev. The lines coming from the reflections are just great. How many balls made it into a pocket?
A 9 from me
Very dynamic. The angle that this was shot at makes the composition very interesting. Great longer exposure shot. Only thing maybe is to crop the bottom up to the wooden frame of the table.
OK, pick a colour of your ribbon please.... This is amazing action shot. Colourful, great centred composition that works, clean, yet vibrant. Very well done.
My favorite shot in this challenge. You have capture motion and action very well. I like how you exposed the racked balls sufficiently long so that the original position is apparent after the break. well done!
Wow. I haven't seen a pool shot done this way before. It looks great = ) Only suggestion I have is to include the corners of the table in the foreground. Nice job
This is an awesome shot. My favorite so far. The only complaint I have is I wish you would have been in position behind the table for the whole shot so that you body didn't look like a ghost. ie, you can see the table through your arm. Overall, Great shot!!!!.
Nice idea! like the "flare" lines from the shining balls. Maybe the crop could have covered the whole table, but that might take some "thunder" from the real subject? Nice
This a nice shot. I think the colors are wonderful. The dark felt has a very nice effect. I have one serious technical issue; after the player breaks he leaves the shot so he became transparent. I don't understand at all why the shooter just didn't hold his position so his image would fully burn. Just a note on the pool player. Heavy backspin with a rounded tip will keep the cue-ball on the table, and give you a stronger break. 8.
Break!
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