Hey guys and gals,

At the D3 level, you don't see too many dunks and they certainly aren't as big as at the D1 or NBA level.

I just wanted to share one I captured Saturday.

St. Thomas is ranked second in the D3hoops.com national poll. Joe Scott (pictured) scored 23 total points. Scott did play for a DII team in the past, so maybe that's where he learned to dunk, I don't know.

Canon 30D. Sigma 70-200. WB in ACR. NR with Noiseware Pro. Cropped quite a bit. 1/500 f/2.8, ISO 1600.

Nice shot Caleb.

I love the intensity of the shot

Great timing to get the placement of the ball completely in the net, plus the wraparound of the fingertips on the rim.

If anything, I'd rotate a couple of clicks clockwise. Use the vertical edge of the purple banner as a level reference. This will also crop the left side of his body tighter (don't rotate too much... you don't want to cut into the jersey and don't cut into the #12).

A level rotate should also remove that distracting white triangle of the backboard in the upper-left, but you won't lose any of the ball since it'll be rotating into the new frame. It'll also declutter the left edge of the first purple banner... hopefully you can get rid of that wall/banner transition... a solid purple edge will help frame the shot and clean up the background.

Dunks at this level are often rather anti-climatic and i find them hard to photograph. This is good though. Nicely done.

P Alesse wrote:
Nice shot Caleb.

Thanks Paul.

DannWunderlich wrote:
I love the intensity of the shot

Thanks Dann. I do like the intensity as well.

Tim Speciale wrote:
Dunks at this level are often rather anti-climatic and i find them hard to photograph. This is good though. Nicely done.

Thanks Tim. This guy had two dunks on Saturday. They were pretty good shots, but this one came out a bit better for me. I can see if I can find the other one. The crowd really got into it. The attendance was 1100, which is pretty big for this area, they really got into it. The dunks helped.

clarence3 wrote:
Great timing to get the placement of the ball completely in the net, plus the wraparound of the fingertips on the rim.

If anything, I'd rotate a couple of clicks clockwise. Use the vertical edge of the purple banner as a level reference. This will also crop the left side of his body tighter (don't rotate too much... you don't want to cut into the jersey and don't cut into the #12).

A level rotate should also remove that distracting white triangle of the backboard in the upper-left, but you won't lose any of the ball since it'll be rotating into the new frame. It'll also declutter the left edge of the first purple banner... hopefully you can get rid of that wall/banner transition... a solid purple edge will help frame the shot and clean up the background.

I did a quick PP based on your comments. Here is the result:

Yep... that covered all 3 of the minor distractions I noticed:
- white triangle removed from backboard frame in top-left corner
- banners are now hanging vertically... equivalent to "check your horizons"
- wall/banner transition cleaned up on left side

Minor nits, but I think the shot is cleaner now.

Glad you liked it.

I hope he is not dunking on St. Olaf

Funny....I went to a predominantly "white" suburban affluent high school and I must say......some white guys can still get up there......we routinely had dunks in games!

I like the shot. Great intensity and timing. The second version is better.

Nice going Caleb.
bb

colinandrew wrote:
I hope he is not dunking on St. Olaf

Nope...this might make you feel better...Carleton.

Jonathan Knight wrote:
Funny....I went to a predominantly "white" suburban affluent high school and I must say......some white guys can still get up there......we routinely had dunks in games!

I like the shot. Great intensity and timing. The second version is better.

Thanks for looking and thanks for the comments.

drbob wrote:
Nice going Caleb.
bb
Thanks Bob.

Are you shooting for the college? Would be fun to get some strobes setup at some point. I lit Winona State a few times when I went to school down there.