london marathon

[chopperward]

here is a shot of paula radcliffe at the london marathon '05. i wish i had chsoen a better background now! first time shooting mararthon so better luck next year. what do you think of the main character?

[chopperward]

last shot wasn't clear so hopefully this will be better!

[gahspidy]

I actually think the bg is good as I find it interesting to see the bystanders cheering her on. The only thing that bothers me about the bg is the pole right in the middle of the frame, cutting in half. The other thing is the focus is soft. Not sure if it was a slow shutter speed ( Doubt that because the runner would have been more blurry than the rest of the scene) or if the camera focused on something else, but nothing in the scene looks in focus which leads me to think that maybe this is a smaller crop of a much bigger picture? Anyway, if the runner was in sharp focus, would have been very good. Still , not bad

[chopperward]

the shutter was 1/250 and photo not cropped. just checked the focus points and there are two, one on left hand side of paula's chest and the other the southern point. i have only just purchased the canon 20d so i wont beat myself up too much!

[GB1]

I've heard of her I think, some running Guru? (I'm also a long distance runner)

The photo is obviously fuzzy, but the composition is pretty decent. I agree with Gary that the pole/tree is a little distracting here, but also agree that the people add to the shot. 1/250, you would think would be sufficient? It's possible that you didn't focus on her exactly and probably used a shallow DOF, which of course gives you zero room for error. I don't know if I'd trust my auto-focus to get a shot like this (I have a Nikon F-100), would probably use manual focus and do the best I can.

Next time yell " PAULA, PAULA, PAULA !!!!! " to get her to look at you when you shoot

[chopperward]

if i had have used the manual focus the centre point would have been the focus - right? menaing paula would have been out of focus. when she was in my viewfinder i just got too excited! i'm not sure what 'metering mode' i had selected. i wish i had selected the 'continuos shooting' mode now!

[gahspidy]

When you focus manually, you decide what will be in focus and you adjust your lens by hand until the spot you want appears sharp in the viewfinder. It does not matter if it is in the center of the viewfinder or close or further back, you compose the scene just as you have it here and adjust the manual focus so the Paula appears sharp. however, even in auto focus, the camera should have done much better than that. Are you sure you do not have the lens switched to manual and your thinking it's on AF?
btw, until you become more familiar with your camera, set it on Evaluative metering mode for exposure as it usually is the best "all around" mode