Welcome to PROJECT 52-7 for the year 2015.
PROJECT 52-7-12-Ideas-Action
Images for Project 52-7-12 are to be taken between the 24 March 2015 Tuesday and 30 March 2015.
Rules
1. Anyone and everyone interested in the challenge is eligible. The goal continues to be have fun and share comments, concepts, insights, and techniques
with fellow Pentaxians.
2. Each week will feature a Theme and Sub-concept for you to explore.
3. Post your single picture in Project 52-7 thread for the week. Explain what motivated you to take the picture and/or how you feel it represents the weekly
theme.
4. Some post-processing is OK (adjusting white balance, exposure, color saturation), but let's try to stay away from heavily PP'ed images here. Try to
keep the creativity to photographic techniques and the captures themselves.
5. Since this project is about technique, and not camera, shots taken by non Pentax cameras are allowed.Cameras may be SLRs, DSLRs, Point & Shoot,
Medium Format, et cetera.
6. There is one “Theme Concept” labeled “black and white,” but feel free to post black and white, sepia, monotone, etc., for any of the other themes.
7. The picture you post should be taken during the week in which the theme is active to be eligible for judging.
8. Any picture taken from thread start date to listed closing date is acceptable. You may request to submit a photo outside of the time frame, but its
acceptance is dependent on the judge of the week. Please try and keep to within a day or two (either way) of the week. This is to make allowances for
those that would like to participate, but for one or other reason, are not able to do so during the time given for the challenge, such as illness, weather,
travelling etc.
9. The WINNER of each weekly challenge is the JUDGE of the next week's Project 52-7
10. JUDGE may participate the challenge, but the picture of JUDGE will be comment by 2nd and 3rd WINNER, and there is no podium place for JUDGE's picture. *** New Rules ***
11. The Facilitator (in this case scomatic) may participate in the challenge, provided he/she is not the judge.
12. Closing date for the challenge is Monday at midnight in your time zone, this will encourage people to snap the picture during weekend and post it up on next days. Late entries are accepted but subject to the acceptance by the current weeks JUDGE. ** Amendment **
JUDGE need to provide either with Option A or Option B or Both AB options criteria when during JUDGEMENT *** New Rules ***:
OPTION A (Just provide 1-10 point on each criteria and average out is the overall point)
Technical criteria
- Exposure Focus/sharpness
- Colour and/or tonal rendition
- Contrast
- Lighting
Visual and aesthetic criteria
- Framing and choice of viewpoint
- Background
- Design elements and principles
- Visual impact
Content
- Emotion / Mood /Feeling
- Relevance
Viewer’s response
- Excitement
- Interest
OPTION B (Good / Bad comment)
Example:
the good: Composition is perfect, I like your lighting. blah blah blah
the bad: I think levelling the horizon would be better, the blown out highlights on top left are distracting to me. blah blah blah.
Action by its very definition and name implies that something is going on, however still photos are still. So one of the biggest questions we need to ask is how can we express motion in a still photo? We somehow need to show that the movement is happening, and we need to tell the whole story of what is going on, the movement, the speed, the height, the trick, whatever the action may be. And we need to tell it in one tiny little slice of time, one frame.
Taking a photo of something that is moving isn’t really that difficult, but taking it in a way that makes it look like it’s still moving can be. Especially if we want to freeze our subject and have it look nice and sharp. To do that we need to:
1. Freeze our subject - Usually we try to freeze action for a crisp image.
2. Show Motion - how do we capture what is happening if it's frozen?
3. Tell the Story - how do we tell the whole story of the action in one frame?
4. Make it work - that's our ultimate goal, to have a photo that sells itself, not necessarily for money, but to the viewer.
The first thing that most people think of when they go to shoot action is trying to freeze the action. Everyone wants a nice crisp shot, without blurry edges etc. and by using a fast shutter speed, typically 1/1000 or faster, we can stop all but the fastest objects in their tracks. This does leave us with a few issues however. If we shoot a photo of a car driving down the street at 1/1000 chances are it will be frozen, and there won’t be any action in the shot. We can assume that it might be moving, but it could be parked, the photo doesn’t really show us what’s going on. The wheels on a bike are moving much quicker than the bike itself, so by choosing our shutter speed carefully we can blur one but not the other. By lowering our shutter speed a little we can still freeze the bike, but blur the wheels a bit. Or we can lower the shutter speed even more, say 1/30, and pan with our subject, blurring the background. This is something that takes practice but it's a good skill to have if you need it.
10 TIPS FOR STUNNING ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY
Tip #1: Plan ahead! Carefully plan where you will set up. This is probably the biggest mistake for action photographers. I can’t tell you how many parents I see on the sidelines shooting their son’s soccer game from the middle of the field. Since the action will mostly occur near the goal, that is a much better place to set up. No matter what action you are going to shoot, you need to predict where you can be to capture the face of the subject.
Tip #2: Pre-focus. If the subject suddenly springs into the frame, you might consider using a technique called pre-focusing.
Tip #3: Shoot in short bursts rather than one long bursts. This will prevent your buffer from filling up, which could cost you the shot. I usually shoot action in three shot bursts, wait a second, then shoot another burst. To do this, turn your camera to continuous high drive mode.
Tip #4: Give the subject space to move. For fast-moving subjects, the best composition is usually to allow some space on the side of the photo where they are traveling. For example, the photo featured on this page has more space on the left side of the frame, since that is where the person is jumping to. This composition will feel much more comfortable to the viewer so they don’t wonder what’s in front of the person.
Tip #5: Get a fast memory card! This can help prevent your camera from slowing down if the memory card write speed is the bottleneck in your system. Not sure which memory card to buy? Check out this post.
Tip #6: Don’t miss the face. Capturing the expression on the face of the subject will add much more drama to the photo. Did you notice the face of the guy jumping into the icy water?
Tip #7: Shoot JPEG. Action photography is one of the only times that I switch over to JPEG. Since JPEG files are much smaller than RAW files, most DSLRs can capture a few more frames per second on JPEG than RAW.
Tip #8: Get down low. One of the most important–and lesser-known–composition tips is that shooting from down low will make your subject look powerful. Look at any picture of a CEO in Forbes or Business Week and you’ll see that they are often shot from a low angle to make the person seem like a towering giant. The same is true in action shots, where photographers generally want to make the subject look dramatic and powerful.
Tip #9: Shoot with two eyes open. I learned this trick from teaching classes in shotgun shooting. Closing one eye lessens your ability to determine depth and hinder’s your eye’s ability to track movement. It takes some practice, but I always shoot sports and action with two eyes open, and it seems to help me get the shot.
Tip #10: Don’t mash the shutter button! Just because you’re shooting action doesn’t mean you should forget on getting sharper photos.
Example of the action photo:
Post #3 by tessfully
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