First time baseball shots (C&C welcome)

[SixEagle]

Just got my Canon 200mm f2.8 L last week, and got tickets to a baseball game, so had to go try it out. I was there on business, so I only got to sneak down for the first inning, so I didn't get to get very many shots. I also didn't have great seats (these were actually from standing on the first level walkway). A lot of these were shot with a kenko 1.4x to get closer (280mm @ f/4), in fact, all the ones I posted here were. When shooting with the tc (280mm focal length), I pretty much stuck with 320 iso. when shooting without the tc I was at 200 or 250. After thinking about it, I probably could/should have dropped the iso a bit, as I was getting the shutter speeds I wanted.

conditions weren't the best, especially the ones behind home plate, as there was visible mesh. Wish I could have shot more than 1 inning so I could have gotten some more angles in.

ISO: 320, f/4, 1/6400

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3319_aybar.jpg

iso 320, f/4, 1/8000

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3325_aybar.jpg

iso 320, f/4, 1/5000

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3366_dobbs.jpg


iso 320, f/4, 1/3200

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3371_weaver.jpg


iso 320, f/4, 1/8000

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3410_howard.jpg



iso 320, f/4, 1/5000

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3456_napoli.jpg


iso 320, f/4, 1/3200

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3473_howard.jpg

[cstewart]

All except #3 look really dark on my monitor. 3200 ISO??? It looks like it was a bright enough day that you should not have had to use that high an ISO? Or did you mean 320? Not clear as you have one image marked as 3200 ISO. I would also like to see these cropped a bit more to move attention to the players as opposed to all the grass and background.

Cheers!

Chris

[SixEagle]

sorry, they were all 320. Certainly not 3200 :)

Yeah, they all seem a bit to dark to me as well. I wish I had more time to play with the settings. To learn for next time, I guess.

I haven't done any cropping either.

Here are three of them without the tc, at 200mm f/2.8, iso 250, 1/8000s

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3437_hamels.jpg

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3440_matthews.jpg

http://www4.bithosts.com/baseball/2008-06-22/cropped/3331_weaver.jpg


they seem to have come out a little more consistent exposure wise. I'm wondering if maybe time I'll go manual (they were on Aperture priority), and cut back on the shutter speed some and see if I can improve the exposure on the ones taken with the tc.

[SixEagle]

I cropped them a bit (still haven't touched them up at all besides that).

[carpenter]

they are quite a bit dark.. you really don't need anywhere around that shutter speed you were shooting. 1/2000 would have been plenty to freeze the ball. 1/800 would pretty much freeze any other action.

[bobbyz]

I would have used lower ss to get better exposure. How were you controlling the exposure? And why so worried about ISO?

[bobbyz]

1/2000 would have been plenty to freeze the ball. 1/800 would pretty much freeze any other action.

I found out yetserday that even 1/1250 is not fast enoughf or stopping body motion in baseball. I would stick with atleast 1/1600 or faster from now on.

[SixEagle]

They were all shot in AV mode.

This was my first time with the new lens, and first time shooting baseball at all, so I was overly concerned with shutter speeds, and under exposed them. Something to learn from, for sure.

Thanks for the comments.