Specs: 1/60s, 50.0mm, f/7.1, ISO: 100
Master McPhail featured this photo on the front of the latest Taekwon-Do Talk. It's an image I've always liked and was taken at one of the Auckland North Nationals Trainings at Rosmini College on the North Shore.
It's 4.30 on a Sunday afternoon in August 2006 and the sun is streaming in through the high windows giving nice bright directional light. I set the shutter speed quite slow, 1/60th of a second, which blurred the motion nicely. I like the way the guy being punched (please leave a comment with his name if you know it) has his face sharp but his hair is moving with the impact from Thomas Pygot's punches. The low ISO setting has captured nice smooth skin tones. The lens I used was the cheap Canon 50.0mm f/1.8 prime lens - if you are on a budget this is superb value costing only NZ$175. It has plastic lenses and is cheaply constructed but is fast and can deliver nice results as you can see here. I used it a lot at the 2006 World Champs but have since upgraded it to a much better fast image stabilised zoom lens, the Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM lens, but at a cost of $1,500!
More images from this session...
Image on right above taken with flash on.
