Volleyball

[Stieglitz]

Thanks for looking.

[Artichoke]

with contrasts between the sand/sea/sky
I find this more a seascape than a sports photograph which should be closer in to the action to be effective
also this is not really a volleyball game as all three participants are on the same side of the net
lastly your sensor is in sore need of a cleaning
I enjoyed visiting your gallery which had so many lovely photographs (your "Schaffhausen Fog" is stunning) that I wonder why you favored this one for posting here

[Stieglitz]

I appreciate your comments. You're absolutely right about the sensor but I thought the composition and content outweighed that. On whether it's really a sports photo or a landscape, I leave that formalistic categorization to the viewer.

I intentionally wanted the people to be tiny in the scene but I can see how people would expect a "sports" image to be "up close and personal".

Thank you again:

[stuny]

Michael -

Basically, I feel this is a very good image, and the relative size of the people does not bother me -- I think it works. However, I did take 2 or 3 minutes to do some post processing to quickly clone out the spots and to sharpen the image -- Both of which to my mind were needed, and both of which to my mind honor your well conceived image. I strongly encourage you to get in the habit of doing post processing. About two weeks ago Wilfredo posted a thread in the Other Photos section, called "Progress" in which he invited people to do post processing. The general consensus is that just as selecting paper contrast, exposure and developing times in a wet darkroom is a necessary part of the process, electronic post processing is virtually a necessity.

[Stieglitz]

Thanks Stuart. That is an improvement.

I of course do post processing since I shoot in DNG, using either Photoshop C3 or Lightroom (I generally prefer C3). I didn't bother to clone out the sensor spots but I guess they bother others more.

On the sharpening, keep in mind that the raw image was quite sharp (for 640 EV) given the bright day and small aperature that had to be used, but the reduction to something like 100 KB for the image shown here lost a lot. I guess I could have oversharpened the original to compensate for the loss in the smaller image. Or I guess I could have made a smaller and sharper image for showing here.

Regards,
Michael

[stuny]

Michael -

My workflow when producing small files for the Internet, whether from RAW or jpeg, is to adjust everything except sharpening, reduce size, then sharpen. Frquently I'll find that the sharpening reveals more spots that need to be cloned out. I encourage you to experiment with that approach for Internet posting.