A noisy chess game

[Airy]

with Angelo (the man with the hat, who plays the trumpet with equal talent) and a guy able to cope with his aggressive, fast paced style - also verbally. Noisy but friendly discussion.

I like to observe the tension on the board, and the Df did its usual job. Summicron R 50/2 is not ideal, given its fully manual mode (focus, aperture, with no possibility to pre-set it). Sometimes I think I should get it chipped, just to be able to see what aperture I have set ; the aperture ring is too loose, with small 1/2 stop intervals, and does not even have a hard stop at f/2. Apertures here were about f/2 - f/3.5

It was very dark already. The processing is somewhat heavy, and preserves the impression of darkness.

[John Geerts]

Great scenes. You effectively picked up the possible emotions with a chess game. It tells a story.

[RobOK]

Love these! Are they playing in the rain? (Board and clothes are wet)

[armando_m]

Very very nice captures, I like the board is sharp somewhere, and the players a bit blurred

[Airy]

Indeed, it was raining (moderately). I kept focus on the board, because it is nearly impossible to focus the summicron (wide open) on dark moving subjects, then manually close the diaphragm, then hope that the subjects are still in focus. Anyway DOF was enough to get one player +/- sharp, no more.

[golunvolo]

Nice scene. Very theatrical with a story and some "stage tension" to make you look twice.
   3rd one because of the movement, somewhat unexpected in a chess game and my favorite will be the first one because the way I can follow the image jumping from the gaze in every person in the frame. Very interesting moment.

  Thanks for sharing!

[elsa hoffmann]

excellent photos. Very moody and fitting

[Erik Lund]

I find these difficult, the two spectators draw the attention away in all the shots and the gestures from the two players are a bit unfriendly. Your processing them so hard makes the back ground rough and hard.

I would like to see a shot where both of the players are focused on the game and neutral spectators and BG

[Airy]

Thanks all for quite different points of view, all of them valid.

Golunvolo, the bouncing glances in picture #1 did not initially retain my attention because they were hard to see (the camera captured more than I could see).

Erik, you are right in saying that the environment of the players is a bit distracting. On the other hand, the players were indeed distracted by their own and the onlookers' comments. Also, the treatment in PP was meant to enhance the "wetness" of the scene, rather than helping focus on the players (except for the skin tone luminance).

As you may remember, I published here a few shots (captured with the 20/3.5 UD at f/11 and the 180/2.8 AIS ED wide open!) where the emphasis was on the players, via composition (1st case) or DOF reduction (2nd case). Here, I was on a totally different trip, also given the "noise".