Help with First Shooting Opportunity

[markymark06824]

Hello All,

I need to pick your brains for suggestions on using my XTi. I'm completely new to DSLR, just picked up Understanding Exposure (starting it today) and have been playing with my camera since Thursday evening.

Here is my question. . . I am going to a Yankee game on Wed evening and want some suggestions on what would be the best settings for capturing both semi-stills (batting circle shots) and action shots (say, Posada getting barrelled over at the plate).

The seats I will be in are 4 rows off the field behind the Yanks' on deck circle. I will be shooting with the 18-55mm lens kit that came with my XTi along with a Sigma 70-300mm AGO DO that I recently acquired. I think the lens kit will suffice for closer "on deck" shots and the Sigma will be enough for zooming.

I am concerned about the change of light throughout the game and really want to get some decent shots "freezing the action." I don't have a flash, yet. :sad:

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mark

[HaroldC3]

Yikes, I think you will have a tough time "freezing" action with those lenses. My suggestion is to shoot RAW, shoot at ISO 1600 if you have to, bump up the shutter speed to 1/300s (or maybe 1/400s) and increase the exposure when processing the RAW files. I would shoot exclusively with the Sigma lens, unless you want to take a couple pics of the stadium. I'm not sure the kit lens will get you close enough even though you are pretty close to the field (unless you want to crop quite a bit in pp).

I've never shot a real baseball game, so I'm sure others with more experience could be more helpful.