ncaa big 12 wrestling pics

Looking for constructive criticism.

Crops are a bit too tight IMO, I know some say shoot tight and crop tighter but if I sent any of these to an editor that I know they'd demand I resend re-cropped versions so they had more choice of what to do with it. For posting on here even just too close and it takes away from the images.

I like the angle in #4 but if action from there would have been better. Rest I like but just too close as I said. Looks like you had good light and colors look good on my laptop (though its new and not sure how things look on here compared to my calibrated home monitor).

It also helps if you post what you were using, how much freedom you have (did the NCAA regulate you to an area or could you move, etc), settings and all that stuff.

MJPhotos24 wrote in post #5250271
Crops are a bit too tight IMO, I know some say shoot tight and crop tighter but if I sent any of these to an editor that I know they'd demand I resend re-cropped versions so they had more choice of what to do with it. For posting on here even just too close and it takes away from the images.

I like the angle in #4 but if action from there would have been better. Rest I like but just too close as I said. Looks like you had good light and colors look good on my laptop (though its new and not sure how things look on here compared to my calibrated home monitor).

It also helps if you post what you were using, how much freedom you have (did the NCAA regulate you to an area or could you move, etc), settings and all that stuff.

I used a canon 40D with the sigma 50-150 2.8 and a 20D with the tamron 17-50 2.8.
I want to better understand what you meant about image cropping. Do you mean that to turn in somewhere I should send the larger one and then let them crop in or that my crops themselves are too tight? You mentioned some people disagree with you on this. Would the majority prefer to crop real tight like I did?
Thanks for your help.

My experience has been editors like a bit looser crop because it gives them some room to crop it to fit their final layout. My editors would end up cropping as tight or tighter than you did but if I send them a tight crop 3x2 format it might not give them enough image to fit their 5x7 final format size.

To answer your question, I am one who believes shoot tight crop tighter is the way to go for most shots. Loose shots are the exception and I only intentionally do them when I am trying to get a certain effect, similar to what you did with shot #4.

The only crop of your images that I didn't care for was the cropping off of the hand in shot three. My guess is you did not intentionally crop off the hand in PP and that it was cropped off when shot. Not much you can do about that once it is shot.

Image 2 is OK by me in terms of crop but if there is more image at the bottom I would have probably tried to include down to the mat. The reason being it gives you a better reference and lets you know if they are on the mat or is the bottom guy coming up to his feet. Doesn't really change much other than gives you a bit more information about the moment of capture.

I liked your shots and really like the low and wide perspective of shot 4. While I agree with MJP that some action would make it better, I am not sure how much action you could capture from this spot since it appears they are both out of bounds already. If they were in bounds, they would be too far away and in my opinion would have lost the coolness of the image.

I like the action and the emotion on their faces. In terms of cropping I think it depends on what the photos are being used for. For event photography in which mom and dad are purchasing them I think you need the tight crop. For editorial use maybe a tad less as it allows the photo editor to decide on the cropping.
The only other issue I see with them is some white balance issues, especially in the first image.