Three edits of running dude, which one is better?

[Compaq]

f/5
1/250th
ISO100
50mm/1.8 (nifty fifty)
40D
========================================================================================
I'd like to know which one you think is best.
#1: Poor separation from background both with regard to lighting situation and DOF. In #2 I tried to darken the background and edited a little differently. It may look a little overcooked. In #3 I just did a monochrome conversion of #2. To blur the background I applied some lens blur and masked out the person and the area on and near the "in focus area". Basically the same technique as getting the miniature effect, but that wasn't what I was after.
If you have something to say on the composition, I'd like to hear it. I've cropped to make the person leaning and running into the frame with the point of interest (face) close to one of the thirds intersections.

The lighting was pretty harsh, with hard sunlight coming directly at the face.

#1

Trond Inge sliten 3 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


#2

TIMB fargar by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


#3

TIMB by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

Thank you for watching and commenting!

 

[Heitz]

I vote #2

 

[Derrel]

B&W. Both of the color edits look a bit "cartoonish", for lack of a better word...."garish" perhaps??? The bright side of the man's face is very off-putting. For some reason, I find this image kind of annoying, or disturbing. Odd, but that's the truth of my feelings. His shirt looks quite unusual too.

 

[rlemert]

The runner stands out more in #2 than in the other views, and his face doesn't look quite so much like it's in shadow.

 

[Compaq]

Not sure what to say about his shirt. It't not all straight or newly ironed. My brother (the dude ) was running and is very exhausted at this point.

Perhaps I should do a little more "realistic" edit of it. The RAW file isn't idea, with the metering for the background, and not the subject. I had to up the exposure and up the fill light as well as the recover bars. I just really like the expression and his posture, and tried to save it.

 

[fjrabon]

I'd probably blend 1&2 and split the difference. They both seem like they were taken a bit too far one way or the other.

 

[JMBriggs]

It looks way over sharpened to me... ? Just what I noticed when I saw all 3.

 

[Compaq]

Briggs, I see what you're saying. I was afraid of that. I may have pre-sharpened a bit too much in ACR.

Great feedback, here.

 

[KmH]

You could also provide a 'none of the above' button.

 

[ghache]

none?, too much clarity, contrast. In the last 2 one you unbalanced your background and your subject way too much. arsh light on the subject face that can be easily corrected. bad BW convertion, you have halos due to the bad cloning job when you reduiced your background exposure.

do it again.

 

[dots]

All three look very over-edited.

 

[fjrabon]

B&W. Both of the color edits look a bit "cartoonish", for lack of a better word...."garish" perhaps??? The bright side of the man's face is very off-putting. For some reason, I find this image kind of annoying, or disturbing. Odd, but that's the truth of my feelings. His shirt looks quite unusual too.

They kind of remind me of when movie makers try to put a CGI image over a 'real' background, back before the technology was very good

 

[gsgary]

It's not worth editing, shutter speed was too slow making it soft, aperture was not wide enough and as you said exposure was off

 

[Compaq]

GD it

Thanks. Exif isn't ideal, I could easily push the ss, and manually meter off the person in the sunlight before the running began.

But does the composition work? Try to ignore the technical failure