Quoted:
...The subject for Challenge #6 is......
     Stopping The Action

The directions are that you must shoot something that relates closely to the above words, that the viewer can easily interpret your work in the form of Stopping The Action.  This could include anything in nature, sports, people, water drops falling, etc. that requires a high(ish) shutter speed and/or flash to capture.  

RULES:
1. You will have 2 WEEKS to produce your image. End Date is 16 NOVEMBER 2015
2. Only one image per person. Make it your best.   IF you would like to post 2 images this time around, this is probably the best time to do it.  
3. If you are having problems technically or conceptually, you can post an in-progress image along with an appeal for the community to make suggestions on how to make it better
4. This is not a contest. There are no winners/losers. After your image is uploaded, the community can then critique in a constructive way. No assholish behavior when it comes to critiques. Likewise, anybody who has hurt feelings can be given virtual hugs as recompense.
4. Images have to be produced within the two-week time period. No reaching back to archives to find something you did 2mo ago and posting it up.
This goes with the philosophy that your last shot is the most important shot.
5.  OLD RULE:  You must critique the previous photo before you can post yours.  The first to post a photo obviously doesn't have to critique, but it is appreciated that they do so on the last photo posted in the contest.

If you see a photo that hasn't been critiqued, feel free to do so as we are all learning.

P.S. If you already know exactly what you're going to shoot, still take some time before posting it. Do some research and really think about it, or go shoot it twice. If 2wks is too long, we will shorten it down to 1, but that will be voted on. GOOD LUCK

Define high shutter speed.

Over 1/1000? 1/2000? 1/8000?

Whatever stops the action you're shooting.  The goal is to shoot something that's moving and stop it.  Could be somebody jumping, a train moving, a flag waving, etc.  Shutter speeds will be different.  I should've rephrased the title to "stopping action." which I'll do now.

All the EXIF data has been removed, so we don't know the camera settings.

This is one of those shots where one is left debating the high vs low shutter speed. If you go with low speed and panning, you get some nice blur  in the tire spin.

In this case, going with high speed, you froze the tire spin. This is not that great as a small image. However if you view the large version, you can see the deformed back tire, which is cool. I would do a bunch of cropping to remove the cone and truck on the right and remove all the trees and sky at the top. Ideally, some extra room in front of the cars for them to move into would be great.

He posted that mere minutes after the challenge was issued. I'm a little concerned that he may not understand how this challenge works.

1/1600th
f/5.6
iso 160

I guess not. I read post a pic of stopping action so I posted one lol. It's actually a screen shot from a slow mo video on my phone.

I'm not trying to break the rules just figured I would start things off

Check the stuff written in the OP.  The object of the challenges is to read the subject, then go out and shoot something relating to that challenge.  That's why we have 2 weeks to complete.  It's sort of a "project" each cycle designed to get critiques and improve each others' photography.

Speaking of critiques, would you all be comfortable with taking the restrictions off and letting everyone critique everyone?

Since my camera doesn't have anyway to record sensitive information, unlike a cell phone, I have no problem with leaving the EXIF data (as if I know how to remove it or view it in the first place.)

Oh, and the drag race shot.  I wonder what it would look like heavily cropped to show the rear quarter panel, or other close-up of the tire.  That might make a more interesting shot.

There's not enough resolution for a close up of the rear tire to look good.

I tried to clean it up a little how's this:

now the car is in the top half of the frame, and it doesn't add anything to the photo.  in fact, i think it makes it look poorly composed.

I'll just chop out the car with no background whatsoever lmao

My old shitty  camera. Only pic I have on my phone. Will get better ones when I am home.

I am not sure this one was taken after the challenge was issued,but I'll assume that it was.

Focus looks a little soft. Perhaps it was far away and it's a really tight crop. Also, there's no room for the plane to move around. Otherwise, cool. I like the jet exhaust.


There was talk of submitting two shots, so pick your favorite. Here's my entry:

Bees and wasps drinking from a bowl of sugar water, and usually falling in and drowning.

_DSC0617 by Zack, on Flickr

_DSC0667 by Zack, on Flickr

ETA shooting info.
D7100
105mm
SB-910 with Rayflash adapter
Top is f/11, bottom is f/8
1/6400
Top is ISO 100, bottom is ISO 640

Processing: Usual stuff. Crop, drop highlights, boost shadows, white and black to clip points and backed off a touch, clarity, sharpening.

Zack,

Your first one tells a bit better story than the first, but I don't think the composition is quite as good as the second.  
The second one also has a really nice effect with the interference wave pattern.  This gives it a lot more interest
than it would have otherwise.

The thing I don't quite like as well in both photos, is that the water looks too metallic.  I'm not sure if this is deliberate
with post processing or not as some folks may like that effect.  For me it just looks a bit too artificially enhanced, and
thus takes away from the natural life and death struggle of the insects.



Now for my two, that may get re-shot when I have a lot more light:  It was quite heavily overcast today, but I wanted to
experiment with these action shots.   The shutter speed was only at 1/100th for both. The only thing I did was to crop
rather extensively, and size.  

The first one with a zoom of 105mm and F5.6.




The second with a zoom of about 70mm and F5.3





I'm pleased with the sharpness and focus of the rapidly moving dog that I managed somehow.  This is actually fairly
difficult to do as I found out.  These two at least had the face in focus, which is what I wanted with the slow shutter
speed.  If the weather clears and I get a bright day, I'll try again.   Although the flat light makes some aspects of
shooting easier for me.

Yes and no.  Too much commentary could derail the thread, but I'd really like to comment on dave's lab shot (so I'm just gonna go ahead and do it).

I'd crop that second one; go for something along the lines of a 16:9 aspect, like so.

I kinda did that as one of my experiments with cropping, but not quite what you did.  I had a lot more ground underneath.

Don't think that one went by me without notice...  

OK, my submission, and refer to my review of ArimoDave's lab shot for my critiquing obligation

105mm, f/5.6, 1/500, ISO1600.  Some cropping, sharpening, lighting work, and a bit of saturation.

There's all kinds of things I'm not happy with about this one:  Near blow-out on the sleeve and too much noise are the big two. Better light would fix both problems, but I was pushed for time and this is what you get.

That being said, this shot embodies Stopping the Action in at least two ways; let's see if everyone can figure out why...

As mentioned I would try to put some more light on the subject in the above photo. Other than that I would consider going with a slightly deeper depth of field to get the back of the slide in focus also. I'm not sure it would be better, but I would like to see how it looks. Of course, the aforementioned light may have been the limiting factor and why it's so shallow anyway?


My photo isn't the best I took yesterday, but it's the best one that fits the theme. I was trying to freeze the action. If anyone has some feedback I would love it. I felt the hardest part of shooting this game was the mid day sun. It made for some rough shooting at times.











 

For the above photo...
Maybe have the score board to the right ( I know...action shot right)...
Lighting in the sky is a little bright
The ref is situated nicely for the shot and of course...the subject is captured perfectly.

From yesterday
1/2000 at f/5.6
55mm (yes the Grey Jay's, aka "Camp Robbers" were close)
ISO 3600
Little color adjust, sharpen, and crop in Lightzone

I like it!

Little tip, 1/2000 is probably a bit fast (I've never shot that particular bird, though)

The idea for birds in flight is to have your shutter speed just fast enough to freeze the motion of the bird, for most, that's somewhere in the 1/500 to 1/1250 range. Some may require more or less (this may be one of them, I have no idea)

As an example, this one was at 1/320. These egrets have a nice slow regular flapping pattern. I was doing a panning track of the bird, using the spray and pray method also known as continuous high speed shutter.

This increases my chances of getting a keeper, and the panning with a slower shutter means there's some background motion blur. This reinforces the notion that the bird's moving.

_DSC1862 by Zack, on Flickr

Same shutter speed:

_DSC1864 by Zack, on Flickr

There's just a tiny touch of background motion blur. Not exactly on the level of a race car zooming past, but enough that you get a sense of movement.

If I could do anything to change these pictures, I'd be closer to the bird. It was a couple hundred yards away and this is a *very* heavy crop.

 I like the shot over all.

 

If I can offer any critiscisim it is this:


Try to get tighter in in the action. Less head space and try not to chop dudes foot off. Also, increase shutter speed to 1/1000 - 1/1250 and bring the aperture to at f4 to help blow the background out.  

Well, I just wrote a long reply then hit the 'x' on the tab, so here are the cliff notes.

 

I would cut ISO and shutter speed in half to reduce the noise that is exaggerated when cropping tightly.

I know I'm late to the party on this, but I shot it tonight for this challenge. It's the fastest action I could find tonight.


Setup was a speedlight (actually two, so I could have faster recycle time) in a 2x3 soft box to simulate window light.




D4


70-200 f2.8


200mm