ZAP the ZAPPERS 2: Yellow, Blue, and Bokeh

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Here's another chance to serve up a photo critique to regular PhotoZAPPER Jack Howard

By Adorama Learning Center Editors

September 3, 2010

Focus your energy on explaining what you think of this shot of a return in mid-flight in this round of ZAP the ZAPPER! Again it's a shot from Jack of Novak Djokovic from Day 3 of the US Open.


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Tech Specs: Olympus E-620 with Olympus Zuiko 150mm f/2.0 lens and 2x telextender. Manually exposed at 1/1250 @ f/4 @ ISO 160. Slight horizon correction and crop, plus color pop tweaks applied to Olympus ORF Raw file in Adobe Camera Raw 6.

Photographer's Statement: I was shooting in single-shot mode on the E-620 from the photo well with the intent of capturing a ball-on-racquet return from Djokovic with the net framing the foreground. I tried getting something cool on a couple of different serves as I was warming up my timing and kept missing the moment. My intent at the time was honestly to have Djokovic in focus, but when I saw where I'd accidently focus-locked and what was in focus in this frame, I was quite happy! I'd seen shots like this from baseball games with the ball halfway between the pitcher and batter, but haven't seen a tennis variation before this.  Can an image with only about 1/200th of the frame in focus have impact? I think so, when it's the right 200th! The focal distance and foreground/background level of detail versus blur is right on, the complementary color scheme of the blue wall and yellow tennis ball is dead-on, the  real-ball-in-logo ball is a very nice element, and where the logo lines up behind the player couldn't be more perfect. You couldn't ask for a luckier accidentally successful frame most days of the year!

 

Now it's your turn: ZAP the ZAPPER by leaving your critique of this shot in the comments below!

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Reader Rating and Comments

10 readers rated this article. Average rating: 2.0 stars
 
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0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Love it - Hate it!

First 'hate' is not what I really feel, it makes a great Headline though!. Okay, Really like: Jack you are hard on yourself, and any good pro needs to be. all the tech stuff did come out great Stopped that ball! Not easy ... Great. However, Not like: Generally words can be a major distraction in a photo. (I hate exit signs in rooms), clocks also included. So this image has lots of words, all over the place, I scan the image and try to read the words, but being out of focus makes them harder to see, and I look harder, and and then give up and look at the person also soft focus so I am not going to look at him any longer . Then I really see what is so great ! That little ball !fantastic, I do like the serendipity of the leading line of the logo bringing me right to the ball.

by rjsphoto in Palmerton, Pa. USA on September 9, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Doesn't work for me

The player's body position is awkward, the racket is mostly hidden, the net is a major distraction and the viewer has to search to find the one small element that's somewhat in focus.

by Ray in El Paso on September 7, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Pure Poetry

I love it. The real ball is crisp and framed by the larger echo of the US Open tennis ball. The swoosh of the logo goes right to the yellow ball frozen in space and time. The player is blurred because players pass through the scene, but the sport endures. Great shot!

by MB in Dayton, OH on September 6, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Focus doesn't work

I see the ball was supposed to be the point of focus, which is indeed the point of focus for the athlete, but it missed being sharp to the viewer. The image would have been helped greatly if the ball and the athlete were the combined focal points of the image. I would have loved to see his concentration on that ball more. Increasing DOF would also have made the net more recognizable. The landscape orientation used to include the "US OPEN" slightly out of focus is great.

by Bob K in Tulsa, OK on September 5, 2010

0 of 2 people found this comment helpful
 
Pic for sale?

Again I ask "who would buy this?"

by A/b in Oxford NC on September 5, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Great Point of Focus

I love having the ball be the only object of focus in the image. You can see Djokovic's eyes focused there as well, and it gives the impression that we're seeing what he sees. The high shutter speed works well here, showing the speed and sharp focus of an athlete at this level. The light falloff in the lower left seems a bit odd, though. It might help to add matching falloff on the right side to add balance and draw the eye to the action.

by Ryan in Connecticut on September 5, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
What's the subject?

Vertical format might have added to this. The ball is not quite tack sharp...again tough to do. Not sure what the main idea of the shot was. I'm thinkin' that if Novak was a little more in focus, rather than the ball, would have made this shot a little more meaningful. This is not an ad for a tennis ball...or is it? Either way it missed the mark.

by AJ in Texas on September 5, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Out of focus

A little busy, but not a bad composition. Technically unusable--too badly out of focus, vignetting, heavy chromatic aberration. Would be much stronger if the player were in focus instead of the ball.

by Charleston Dave in Charleston, SC on September 5, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
More DOF Please

Wow, the composition on this is phenomenal. Talk about a perfect shot for advertising the US Open. Kudos to Jack for positioning himself well to catch this shot. Great example of using the background in your favor. Now, if only the entire image were in focus we’d have a winner. Unfortunately, this would go in the discard pile.

by Mike in CO on September 5, 2010

0 of 0 people found this comment helpful
 
Frozen moment is cool!

I'd like to know how many frames were shot trying to get this timing just so. It reminded me of a shot I saw in American Photo mag by Isaac Brekken, who froze a pitched baseball so precisely you can see the individual stitches, with the pitcher way out of focus behind (a White Sox pitcher, with a very helpful black jersey for the ball to pop off of). Brekken's shutter speed was 1/2,700, but there's no other data. His technique was to preset a focus halfway between the mound and the dish, and try to guess when the ball might be there. He guessed right! And so did Jack. But in both cases, I'd sure like to know how many tries later. I also thought cropping a bit of the net out of the picture helped.

by PD in Waterloo, Ontario on September 5, 2010

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