Baseball

[canuck_newbie]

Well - took my first try at shooting baseball. Kept it easy though - just little ones for me.

Overall I'm pretty happy - I tried to keep my shutter speed above 1000, but as the afternoon went on into evening, I often forgot to keep opening my lens more and more.

Also moved my focus from the shutter to the * key - I really, really liked that. It's wonderful being able to pre-focus on an object (like a base) and just fire away as the action approaches.

Here's a couple of shots..........all taken with the XT and 70-200 2.8. Did learn one other thing........a teleconverter is in my immediate future. I found myself cropping far too heavily than I would prefer.

Any C&C out there?

[dmwierz]

Sam -

"I tried to keep my shutter speed above 1000, but as the afternoon went on into evening, I often forgot to keep opening my lens more and more."

I noticed you shot Av, so may I ask why you wouldn't be shooting wide open all the time? With light as it appears in your images, you should have had no problems keeping the shutter speed above 1/1000s.

Your last image is only at ISO 200, which leaves at least 2 full stops of ISO to go before noise even begins to be a minor consideration, and one stop of aperture increase (presuming your lens goes to f/2.8 ) so your shutter speed on the last shot could have easily been 1/3200s rather than 1/400s (or 1/1600s if your lens only goes to f/4.0), which would have sharpened things considerably with no deterioration in image quality whatsoever.

[canuck_newbie]

dmwierz - I agree, I shouldn't have had a problem with keeping a high shutter speed on those shots. My error was that I wasn't continuly poking my head up from behind the camera to see what the light was doing. I was re-focussing (and metering) off the bag, and surrounding stone dust - which was pretty bright. When I would check the speed during this pre-focus, I was up nice and high. But when I was firing away, and grabbing a lot more grass, and dark background - that's when the shutter speeds dropped.

Why wasn't I shooting wide open? I was trying to keep as much DOF as possible - running targets, and the XT's Servo usually doesn't end up as a winning combination. I wanted as much room for error as possible. I was relying on me upping the ISO to keep shutter speeds up (which didn't do well enough as I explained above).

Shooting Av has really been out of habit.......if I were to do it again, I'd probably shoot Tv

Thanks for your comment

[dmwierz]

dmwierz - I agree, I shouldn't have had a problem with keeping a high shutter speed on those shots. My error was that I wasn't continuly poking my head up from behind the camera to see what the light was doing. I was re-focussing (and metering) off the bag, and surrounding stone dust - which was pretty bright. When I would check the speed during this pre-focus, I was up nice and high. But when I was firing away, and grabbing a lot more grass, and dark background - that's when the shutter speeds dropped.

Why wasn't I shooting wide open? I was trying to keep as much DOF as possible - running targets, and the XT's Servo usually doesn't end up as a winning combination. I wanted as much room for error as possible. I was relying on me upping the ISO to keep shutter speeds up (which didn't do well enough as I explained above).

Shooting Av has really been out of habit.......if I were to do it again, I'd probably shoot Tv

Thanks for your comment

Sam,

>>Shooting Av has really been out of habit.......if I were to do it again, I'd probably shoot Tv<<

No, don't shoot Tv. You WANT to shoot Av (or manual), trust me. If you shoot Tv, your aperture is gonna wander all over the place, and you'll end up with HUGE depths of field, which could make all your shots look like they were taken with a $250 Point and Shoot camera.

When shooting Av, the only thing you need to keep an eye on is shutter speed, as it's the only thing that is going to change. If you see your shutter speed dipping down below 1/1600s, then bump up your ISO.

I have found that, during a day game, unless the sun is constantly in and out of clouds, changing the light from bright sunshine to overcast over and over, once I set my ISO for a shutter speed of 1/4000s - 1/6400s, I usually don't have to worry about it again unless the day becomes totally overcast - almost ready to rain. Shutter speeds > 1/2000 are all acceptable, so this gives you a lot of room to work with. You can live with your shutter speed changing from 1/2000s to 1/6400s over the course of a shoot with only minimal impact on image quality. The slower speeds will shot a little more motion blur in the hands and other moving things, and the ball will become more of a streak the slower you get, but some people prefer this to the "frozen action" of 1/8000s anyway. However, if your aperture were to change by the same amount, your DOF could be doubling or even tripling, which will have a dramatic and very noticeable impact on your image.

>>I was trying to keep as much DOF as possible - running targets<<

Again, keeping large depths of field is not why you paid all that money for the f/2.8 lens, man. Look at SI, ESPN the Mag, or any other publication, and the only time you'll see a large depth of field is when somebody is shooting a wide angle shot where they are intentionally including the surroundings as part of the story. All the other shots have creamy bokehs that'll melt your heart, and these ALL come from lenses shot at f/2.8 or wider.

A common mistake often made by people shooting sports images is to think the shutter speed is King (because of "freezing the action, I suppose), and that therefore they need to shoot TV, when in fact, the aperture (surrogate for DOF) is really what makes a pro image stand out above a wannabe or amateur shot. On a sunny day, I can shoot with my old Sigma 70-300 zoom at 300mm and get pretty decent results with appropriately high shutter speeds, but they will be somewhere around f/5.6. Take these shots with a pro lens at f/2.8, even at the same focal length and shutter speed, and 9 out of 10 people will recognize the pro photos as being "better", even if they're not sure why. The reason (discounting the viewer's inability to judge the vastly superior color and contrast of the pro lens) is the subject isolation resulting from large apertures.

>>and the XT's Servo usually doesn't end up as a winning combination.<<

I shot the Rebel XT for almost a year as my primary camera, and made a lot of $$$ with it, and had almost no problems with the AF via AI Servo, or when I did, 99.9% of the problems resulted from my error, and not the equipment. I know of numerous people making their livings with Rebel XT's, so you might want to reconsider your opinion of your hardware. Something about a carpenter blaming his tools...;)

[canuck_newbie]

No, don't shoot Tv. You WANT to shoot Av (or manual), trust me. If you shoot Tv, your aperture is gonna wander all over the place, and you'll end up with HUGE depths of field, which could make all your shots look like they were taken with a $250 Point and Shoot camera.

When shooting Av, the only thing you need to keep an eye on is shutter speed, as it's the only thing that is going to change. If you see your shutter speed dipping down below 1/1600s, then bump up your ISO.

Ok - so I was on the right track, because this was what I was orginally trying to do. Select my aperture based on the DoF (even if I was wrong in thinking I wanted a larger DoF), then set the ISO to whatever I needed in order to reach the required speeds. Too bad I got so engrossed in pressing the shutter release, that I forgot about watching the light.



I have found that, during a day game, unless the sun is constantly in and out of clouds, changing the light from bright sunshine to overcast over and over, once I set my ISO for a shutter speed of 1/4000s - 1/6400s, I usually don't have to worry about it again unless the day becomes totally overcast - almost ready to rain.

Thanks for this - I live by rule of thumbs, and if setting ISO's to reach 1/4000-1/6400th means being able to deal with any normal variability in light, I'm all for it.




I shot the Rebel XT for almost a year as my primary camera, and made a lot of $$$ with it, and had almost no problems with the AF via AI Servo, or when I did, 99.9% of the problems resulted from my error, and not the equipment. I know of numerous people making their livings with Rebel XT's, so you might want to reconsider your opinion of your hardware. Something about a carpenter blaming his tools...;)

You're right, I should have put another qualifer in there - idiot operator. This was the real reason for me wanting a large DoF - I wasn't sure how I'd handle changing the focus button to the * key.

Another reason why I was trying for more than the minimum DoF (and I hear you on isolating your subject), was to ensure I had the entire subject in focus - don't you risk missing that if you're shooting at 2.8? I'm thinking of a play at the plate, where the runner may still be 5-10 feet away from the catcher, but is just getting ready to lower the boom. I know I could go to the DoF calculator and figure it out - but it's late, and I'm lazy right now. I'm just wondering if you've ever come across missing a shot because of the minimum DoF.

Thanks for all your advice and comments.

I'm gonna have to find another game this weekend to try all this newfound knowledge out.

[dmwierz]

Sam,

>>Another reason why I was trying for more than the minimum DoF (and I hear you on isolating your subject), was to ensure I had the entire subject in focus - don't you risk missing that if you're shooting at 2.8?<<

That's a good question, and the simple answer is "yes". If I anticipate a play where there may be several players, or a need for a wider DOF, I may stop down my lens to f/5.6, or if the background is clean and the light is good, I may go to f/8.0. However, I wouldn't normally cruise around with a stopped down lens in case a play like this came up because the vast majority of shots you take will benefit from smaller DOF's. You might be able to train yourself to roll the wheel and move your aperture as a play is developing (sometime I remember to so this, others time I don't).

In the shots below, you can see Ryan Howard is slightly OOF in the first shot of this DP turn, and within the DOF in the next frame of the sequence.

Hope this helps,

Dennis