Converted to B&W with Adobe Camera Raw, i thought the black and white version looked better, as the colour was drawing my eye away from what i wanted to have impact.
Two SB-600's providing light through Nikon CLS, one to the left, slightly behind subject, one in front of subject (their direction of travel) to my right. SB-600's set to +0.7EV and +1.0EV sitting on the ice, they didn't really have enough power though.
I had a lot of trouble getting a shot in focus due to skaters moving at about 40km/h to come in for the stop and having only the light of the flash to work with. Was good fun though ;)
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Hello,
I’m from the Critique Club.
I really like all the energy and power of your shot. It really gets the viewer’s attention, and the ice spray is a nice combination of sharpness and blur for motion. I think that the blurred parts work well with the overall shot, and while it may be cool to have them all frozen as particulates, I think the blur gives a greater sense of the speed and the explosion. I would say, however, that maybe a little bit faster shutter might have been useful to help freeze the skate motion and sharpen up those details, though that could have been due to a missed focus just as easily since you were shooting at F3.5. I’m honestly surprised how much you had to crank up your ISO when using two 600’s though. Any idea what power they were actually firing at?
I think the B/W works well with the subject, and helps to accentuate the ice pieces, as you said. The background element is slightly distracting but I understand it’s probably pretty hard to have a clear background if you’re shooting at a rink. Overall, I think you did a great job capturing this and still making the footwear a central focus instead of just the spray.
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