Best one yet (baseball)

[pigtailpat]

Hello everyone -

I finally got permission from the parent to post this shot. This was taken at Saturday's tournament play. My only regret is that I cut-off the front toe (((:::

Too bad I haven't yet taken anything like this of my own sons... but I am learning something.......

Thanks for looking.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b243/pigtailpat/_MG_0081.jpg

:D

[dmwierz]

Pat,

Nice timing. This is the classic pitcher shot, and it's a well done image.

Don't worry too much about the cut off foot. If you ever get a chance to shoot with a prime, you'll get this pretty often. In the end, parents love faces more than anything, and your shot captured his face with a great expression of exertion. You'll get to where you can capture the whole body with more practice.

I might run a little USM (85/1/4?) to sharpen up the face a bit more.

Your work is getting better - keep at it!

Dennis

[pigtailpat]

Thank you for the feedback. Coming from you, I consider it gold.

The mom is very excited about the shot, and wants a print. I told her I would upload to costco's and get a print to her. I do plan to run a USM on it to sharpen. I posted straight from camera without editing. I told her about the foot, and as you said, she didn't care one bit about it.

The thing that I am finding with the dimension of the resolution I have on the 30d, and the way costco's prints, I'm better off printing at 8 x 12, and doing my own cropping (physically on the print with a cutter I have), because at 8 x10 - costco's is cropping where I don't want it to. I don't want to resample the image to the dimensions I want.

[Sledhed]

Nice shot Pat. I agree with Dennis about sharpening it a little and I also think it needs a little color correction. Your camera sensor is proportional to a 4x6, which is why you can get a 8x12 with no cropping but not an 8x10. Go ahead and crop before you send to Costco, you won't notice any difference in quality.

[pigtailpat]

Nice shot Pat. I agree with Dennis about sharpening it a little and I also think it needs a little color correction. Your camera sensor is proportional to a 4x6, which is why you can get a 8x12 with no cropping but not an 8x10. Go ahead and crop before you send to Costco, you won't notice any difference in quality.

Just curious, is this why people like full frame sensors, so you don't get these kind of proportions?

I posted over in the post-processing forum, and people there seem to think if i simply resize it without constrain proportions (to get the whole thing inside an 8 x 10 proportion without cropping), it'll look odd. I'm not at my home computer so that I can test that.

[Sledhed]

Use the crop tool in PS and crop to 8x10 at 300. For stuff that I'm having printed I save as a jpeg 10 and send it to Mpix.

Right now you have it in an ARGB color space, I don't know exactly which space Costco would want but it's probably an sRGB. Check with them before you send it off.

[SportsOnFilm]

Just curious, is this why people like full frame sensors, so you don't get these kind of proportions?

I posted over in the post-processing forum, and people there seem to think if i simply resize it without constrain proportions (to get the whole thing inside an 8 x 10 proportion without cropping), it'll look odd. I'm not at my home computer so that I can test that.


Pat, a full-frame sensor is still 4x6 in terms of proportions. The reason people like full-frame sensors is when you are using wide-angle lenses, a full frame sensor does not have a crop factor (depending on the camera body the crop factor can be anywhere from 1.3 on the 1D series to 1.6 on the 10D, etc.). So for example when you use a 15mm fisheye lens on anything without a full-frame sensor, you are not getting a true 15mm.

[dmwierz]

Pat,

When you resize, make sure to choose "Bicubic Sharper" under "Resample Image". I agree that there should be no problem resizing the full-size image in PS.

Try a 4X5 aspect ratio when you crop, which should allow you to stretch the crop and move it around your image until you get it where you like it. If you choose a dimensional crop (as in 8' x 10"), you might find yourself restricted, based on your file dimensions and resolution.

See the window below for the method I employ for resizing.

[kenyc]

Pat, a full-frame sensor is still 4x6 in terms of proportions. The reason people like full-frame sensors is when you are using wide-angle lenses, a full frame sensor does not have a crop factor (depending on the camera body the crop factor can be anywhere from 1.3 on the 1D series to 1.6 on the 10D, etc.). So for example when you use a 15mm fisheye lens on anything without a full-frame sensor, you are not getting a true 15mm.

Not just wide angle. The crop factor is across the board. For example see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor
or
http://www.millhouse.nl/digitalcropfactorframe.html

One reason to prefer a crop factor is that it is also a focal length multiplier so your 200mm acts like a 320mm with a 1.6 crop factor.

Nice shot Pat!

KAC

[pigtailpat]

Try a 4X5 aspect ratio when you crop, which should allow you to stretch the crop and move it around your image until you get it where you like it.

Thanks -

but I'm a bit confused, how do I get a 4 x 5 aspect ratio when cropping? (I have CS2).

Doing a dimensional crop (8 x 10) is restricting. Are you referring here to a transform crop (i.e. to keep the same aspect ratio as original image??).

Pat

[dekalbSTEEL]

Hey Pat, great capture!

I played around with it a little and it looks like 5x7 might be the best crop option for this shot, based on how close the ball is to the left side of the frame.

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7571/mg0081gw3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

8x10 will give you something like this, with more open space on the right and a little more toe cut off.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7418/mg0081oqn6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[pigtailpat]

This is what I am finding - thanks! I really wanted 8 x 10 for the pitcher's mother.

The only thing I can do, is put a white canvas around it, and hitting 8 x 10 that way gives a very, very close result to what a 5 x7 can do. I'm been on and off costco's all night.

I'm still experimenting.

Thanks to all who posted. I'm going to tell the pitcher's mother how a bunch of super people here really helped me to get this shot for her.

:D:D:D

[pigtailpat]

I did a little bit of shopping around, and believe or not (maybe I'm out of touch or what), there seems to be alot of 8 x 12 photo frames around (I had been afraid of straying too much from 8 x 10 - easier to frame).

So I am going to print at 8 x 12, to get the whole view (from top to bottom) as I intended it, which is what I really want, and I'll tell the mom where she can find 8 x 12 frames to fit it, and I'll explain why. Otherwise, I am just not happy with cropping on this particular photo - exactly as steel said above, the ball is just too close to the side of the photo, and no matter what I do, in this particular instance, I just am not happy with the result. Usually I have no problem with cropping, but this photo deserves not to be cropped.

Thanks to all of you, I really learned alot.

[LeesaB]

I love baseball pitchers..it's almost very hmm...dance like their movements

I love the shot, but here's the thing, if your doing to for a parent and they want an enlargement it's gonna loose alot.

I know getting the close up is important to the "look" but just be careful if you are using it for possible enlargements.

[dmwierz]

Pat,

To your question about cropping, here is a screen capture on how to do this. Note the "Fixed Aspect Ratio" Width: 4; Height 5 (equates to an 8x10) in the Style window on top of the screen and the dotted lines in your image which show the 4x5 aspect ratio as it would look on your shot. You can also choose 5x7 or the standard 2x3. This is often preferable to resizing to a final size via the screen I posted earlier. You still use the "resize" once the image is properly cropped, though.

Sorry, but you're gonna lose more "foot". This hits me all the time when I shoot kids with a 400 lens. The faces are AMAZING, but I cut off more appendages when I crop!

A good book for learning about things like this is Scott Kelby's "The PhotoShop Book for Digital Photographers". This book is never far from my editing desk.

Dennis

[pigtailpat]

Hi dennis -

Thanks. I have Kelby's book and yes, it is never off my desk. I couldn't understand about the aspect ratio. Now I do. (i.e. using marquee tool instead of crop tool).

As an aside, what are the correct aspect ratios for the other standard size pictures (i.e. 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 11 x 14)??

I just tried your method (re: marquee and aspect ratio), it definitely gives a better result to print at Costco (i.e., predictable sizing) than using the crop tool.

[canoflan]

Regarding sharpness, you may want to try putting your camera on focus mode AI Servo. and follow his face next time. Additionally, put it on continuous mode and fire away that bad boy (the camera that is).

Nice pic!
Pat

[pigtailpat]

Regarding sharpness, you may want to try putting your camera on focus mode AI Servo. and follow his face next time. Additionally, put it on continuous mode and fire away that bad boy (the camera that is).

Nice pic!
Pat

Thanks. Camera was in Al servo. What happened here was my focus point was too far down the chest to get the face sharper. That's why the feet are alittle cut off, the camera itself was weighted down (held) too low. I remember exactly why that happened. I saw the shot coming, but hands sort of slipped abit. At the point I got that shot (which was towards the end of my shooting day), I was pretty tired and it was a VERY HOT day! I consider myself very lucky to get an in focus shot instead of OOF. This shot, and my attempts to print it, taught me alot about framing the subject.

[In2Photos]

Excellent capture Pat. Wonderful timing.

Thank you for the feedback. Coming from you, I consider it gold.

The mom is very excited about the shot, and wants a print. I told her I would upload to costco's and get a print to her. I do plan to run a USM on it to sharpen. I posted straight from camera without editing. I told her about the foot, and as you said, she didn't care one bit about it.

The thing that I am finding with the dimension of the resolution I have on the 30d, and the way costco's prints, I'm better off printing at 8 x 12, and doing my own cropping (physically on the print with a cutter I have), because at 8 x10 - costco's is cropping where I don't want it to. I don't want to resample the image to the dimensions I want.
As has already been mentioned you need to crop to your desired aspect ratio before uploading to Costco. But you should also be aware that Costco will still crop slightly even if you have uploaded your image with the correct aspect ratio. This is to avoid having any of the edges of your image with out print should something be slightly skewed in the printer. I always add a small border to my photos before uploading to Costco as recomended by DryCreekPhoto (http://www.drycreekphoto.com), whom does all the profiling for Costco. Have a look at their recomended workflow for more information.

[dmwierz]

Pat,

When shooting pitchers from the front, aim at the top of their chests, and hope for the best. Also, shoot AI Servo and try to keep the center-AF point pinned to the point of highest contrast on the uniform.

You should have enough depth of field to have the face also be in focus if you aim at the chest. I frequently shoot pitchers with a 400, and this lens at f/2.8 has paper thin DOF's, but the face should still be within the DOF. The glove, maybe not if it's out in front, and maybe not the pitching hand (depending where you catch the ball in the throw), but if you're lucky, all the working parts will end up sharp.

I agree the face on your shot is a bit soft, even after USM. Might have missed focus by a hair, but I'm sure Mom will be delighted since it's still a great shot.

Regarding your question:

What are the correct aspect ratios for the other standard size pictures (i.e. 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 11 x 14)??

The beauty of the marquee crop is the correct aspect ratio for an 11x14 IS 11x14 - since it's a ratio, it's unit-independent. This means an 11x14 will be an 11x14 in inches, centimeters, angstroms, parsecs, light-years, cubits, fathoms, or whatever.

I also leave a little "breathing room" when I'm having somebody else print my shots, because, as noted above, Costco does a little cropping when they print. The last thing you need is to have the tips of fingers cut off. You can live with a foot missing, but fingers are different.

Hope this helps,

Dennis

[canoflan]

Thanks. Camera was in Al servo. What happened here was my focus point was too far down the chest to get the face sharper. That's why the feet are alittle cut off, the camera itself was weighted down (held) too low. I remember exactly why that happened. I saw the shot coming, but hands sort of slipped abit. At the point I got that shot (which was towards the end of my shooting day), I was pretty tired and it was a VERY HOT day! I consider myself very lucky to get an in focus shot instead of OOF. This shot, and my attempts to print it, taught me alot about framing the subject.

Sure, I gotcha. I didn't catch whether you were in continuous mode and shot a "machine gun" of clicks.

Either way, good shot.
Pat